2nd US Navy Ship Collision in S.E. Asia

[wing2000]

Two collisions in as many months?

Ten U.S. Navy sailors were missing and five were injured after the USS John S. McCain guided missile destroyer and an oil tanker three times its size collided near Singapore early Monday.

.....

This collision came just days after the Navy issued a damning report listing errors that led to a collision between the USS Fitzgerald — also a Yokosuka-based Arleigh Burke-class destroyer — and a much larger container ship just south of Japan in June.

Five sailors injured, 10 missing after U.S. Navy destroyer collides with a merchant ship

 

[majj27]

I'm baffled by this. It's not like the ocean is known for being particularly narrow, and oil tankers are more large-ish than most other vehicles. You'd think you'd be able to see one from a ways off. And have, oh, pretty much ANY OTHER DIRECTION you could try instead.

EDIT: Ah, it was in a narrow through-way. That explains some of it.

 

[wing2000]

...in a heavily traveled narrow strait...all the more reason for the bridge to be on alert for traffic...

 

[Erik Nelson]

Ten missing as USS John S McCain collides with oil tanker | Daily Mail Online

best link I've found so far

the ship traffic / tracks video shows the collision at 00:50... the Alnic MC was in rush hour traffic inbound towards Singapore with a half dozen other ships nearby paralleling its track and one even speeding past...

the collision carried the Alnic MC to its port, forcing it to stop, and back away...

gives me the impression that the USS John McCain was mostly southbound, and for some reason tried to cut across the busy shipping lane...

it somehow avoided a couple of other vessels in the immediate vicinity travelling on the north side of the shipping lane, but got "skewered" on the bulbous bow of the Alnic MC on the south side of the same, which had been heading SW, with the collision occurring at around 45 degrees or so...

looks to me like the USS John McCain was trying to cut across the shipping lane without waiting for a glut of a half dozen or more ships, all happening to be near the Alnic MC at the time, and so effectively forming a "sea wall" or "sea barricade" with the same, to "clear out of the way" before proceeding... like they tried to "thread a needle" and didn't make it all the way through the shipping lane without incident...

of course I'm not an authority on these matters and this is mostly speculation