WASHINGTON: Only two of the sailors who had been in the worst-damaged room on the USS John McCain managed to escape, it emerged in the US Navy’s report on the destroyer’s collision with a tanker in the Straits of Singapore.
The ten other sailors who had been in Berthing 5 at the time of the accident were killed.
The berthing is 15 feet (4 metres) wide, but the impact compressed the space to only 5 feet wide, the report said.
“The collision was felt throughout the ship,” the report said. Some sailors thought the ship had run aground, while others were concerned that they had been attacked.
Those nearest the impact point described it as like an explosion, the report said, while sailors in other parts of the ship compared it to an earthquake.
The impact created a 8.5-metre-wide hole on the side of the McCain, where Berthings 3 and 5 were located.
All sailors with significant injuries were in Berthing 3 at the time, and all the sailors who were killed were in Berthing 5.
BERTHING 5: FLOODED IN LESS THAN A MINUTE
Based on the size of the hole, and the fact that Berthing 5 was below the waterline, it was likely that the space flooded fully in less than a minute after the collision, the report said.
The first sailor to escape from Berthing 5 was already on the ladder leading out of the room to the deck above, when the collision took place. The impact knocked him to the ground, but he managed to climb out.
The second – and last – sailor who escaped heard the crashing and pushing of metal before the sound of water rushing in. Within seconds, water was at chest level.
The passage leading to the ladder was blocked by debris, wires and overhanging wreckage, the report said.
As he started to climb over the debris to the open scuttle, the water was already within a foot of the overhead, so he took a breath, dove into the water, and swam towards the ladder.
Underwater, he bumped into debris and had to feel his way along. He was able to stop twice for air as he swam, the water higher each time, and eventually used the pipes to guide him towards the light coming from the scuttle.
The sailor found that the blindfolded egress training, a standard that requires training to prepare sailors for an emergency, was essential to his ability to escape, the report noted.
His body was scraped, bruised, and covered with chemical burns from being submerged in the mixture of water and fuel.
By this time, the water in the room was at the top of the third rung of the ladder.
The escape ladder from Berthing 5. (Photo: US Navy)
When another sailor tried to help the sailors still trapped inside, he was forced back up the ladder by the pressure of the escaping air and rising water, which within seconds had risen to within a foot of the hatch.
Yet another sailor who looked down into the berthing saw “a green swirl of rising seawater and foaming fuel” approaching the top of the scuttle.
As the final sailor to leave Berthing 5 was pulled to safety, the sailors at the top of the scuttle checked to see if there was anyone behind him. They did not see anybody.
By then, so much water was already coming up through the scuttle that it was difficult to close and secure.
The fuel mixed in with the water made one of the sailors’ hands so slippery that he cut himself while using the wrench designed to secure the scuttle, but the two were able to secure it to stop the rapid flooding of the ship, the report said.
BERTHING 3: SAILORS PINNED IN THEIR RACKS
Berthing 3, which is immediately above Berthing 5, also suffered substantial damage, including a large hole in the bulkhead. Racks – as the bunks are known – and lockers detached from the walls and were thrown about, leaving jagged metal throughout the space, the report said.
View within Berthing 3 post-collision. (Photo: US Navy)
A sailor from Berthing 3 was thrown to the ground “as the wall next to him blew apart in the collision”, and had to be pulled to safety by other sailors. He was among those who were medically evacuated later.
Berthing 3 suffered substantial damage, including a large hole in the bulkhead. (Photo: US Navy)
The collision also left several others pinned in their racks, including one who was trapped between two racks that had been pressed together.
He attempted to push his way out of the rack, but every time he moved the space between the racks grew smaller and he was unable to escape, the report said.
It took approximately an hour to free him, the report said, adding that rescuers even had to rig a pulley to move a heavy locker aside.
“Everything aft of his rack was a mass of twisted metal.”
