After Dangerous Collisions, Navy Will Pause for Safety Check<br />PHILIPPINES South China Sea BRUNEI MALAYSIA Celebes Sea Approximate site of collision Strait of Malacca SINGAPORE Equator Borneo Sumatra Celebes Indian Ocean Java Sea INDONESIA Java 500<br />Miles South China Sea BRUNEI MALAYSIA Strait of Malacca Approximate site of collision SINGAPORE Equator Borneo Sumatra Indian Ocean INDONESIA Java Sea Java 500 Miles AUG. 21, 2017<br />Kirk Patterson, a former dean of the Japan campus of Temple University who has crossed the Pacific in a sailboat<br />and circumnavigated Japan, said the collision was "really hard to understand with all the technology that’s out there in the world on a boat, especially a naval destroyer that’s supposed to be the best in the world." For a destroyer to be hit by an oil tanker would be like the collision of an "F1 sports car and a garbage truck," he said.<br />The officer, Adm. John Richardson, the chief of naval operations, said he had ordered two major actions after the collision between the destroyer John S. McCain<br />and an oil tanker early Monday off the coast of Singapore that left 10 sailors missing and five injured.<br />The ship involved in the collision on Monday is named after John S. McCain Sr., a Navy admiral during World War II,<br />and his son, John S. McCain Jr., a Navy admiral in the Vietnam era.<br />21, 2017<br />WASHINGTON — United States Navy ships worldwide will suspend operations for a day or two this week to examine basic seamanship<br />and teamwork after the second collision of a Navy destroyer and a commercial ship in two months, the top naval officer said Monday.<br />Off the Singapore coast, search teams scrambled on Monday to determine the fate of the missing sailors from the John S. McCain, a guided-missile destroyer<br />that had been passing east of the Strait of Malacca en route to a port visit in Singapore.
