USS John S. McCain On 21August2017 the USS John S. McCain collided with the merchant vessel Alnic off the coast of Singapore. The collision formed a 20 by 16 foot hole in the portside of the destroyer. The hole affected three berthing compartments, berthing 5, 3 and 7. The hardest hit, Berthing 5, was occupied by 12 sailors at the time of collision. Only 2 were able to escape because they happened to be near the ladder at the time of the collision. The berthing was completely flooded within seconds and the other 10 sailors had no chance of making it to the ladder in time. In the berthing above, Berthing 3, sailors were very badly injured due to the force of the collision. In total 48 sailors received serious injuries that required medical…show more content… The collision formed a 12 by 17 foot hole below the water line opening the berthing compartment to the ocean. Ocean water poured into the compartment where 35 sailors were sleeping. There was no warning sounded for the collision and the compartment was flooded in an estimated 60 seconds. The sailors had to climb a ladder through a 2 foot diameter scuttle hatch to the compartment above. In the chaos seven sailors were not able to make it to the ladder and became trapped as water filled the compartment. This incident was the result of watch standers not doing their job correctly. They failed to notice the cargo ship until it was minutes away from colliding. Even then due to their lack of communication they did not sound the alarm that they were about to collide with another ship. The collision could have been avoided if the watch standers were following the basic guidelines for standing watch. The damage to the ship was so extensive that it had to be transported to the United States for repairs. The ship was transported via a heavy lift ship to the United States for repairs. The repairs to the ship were estimated to cost more than half a billion
