Containership Crash Kills Seven US Sailors

A Filipino-flagged containership ACX Crystal rammed US navy destroyer USS Fitzgerald at about 2:30am on June 17, 2017 in waters off Japan.
Marine traffic records reveal that the container ship made a sudden U-turn roughly 25 minutes before the crash for unknown reasons.
Since the accident seven sailors aboard the destroyer who were killed have been identified, while no injuries were reported among the 20-strong crew of the containership.
The seven victims might have been killed by the impact of the crash or drowned in the flooding, according to Asharq Al-Awsat.
USS Fitzgerald has since been towed to the US naval base in Yokosuka, Japan.
If not for the "heroic efforts" of crew members, the destroyer might have sunk due to the rapid spread of water to other parts of the ship.
Questions remain over whether the US ship could have been at fault as maritime rules state vessels are supposed to give way to ships on the starboard side, where the destroyer sustained damage.
The USS Fitzgerald’s captain has said he would not speculate on the cause of the collision but was ordering an investigation.
The Fitzgerald probably carried collision avoidance electronics, but there was no indication what sort of equipment the ACX Crystal carried.
Vice Admiral Joseph Aucoin said: “You can’t see most of the damage, the damage is mostly underneath the waterline, and it’s a large gash near the keel of the ship.”
“So the water flow was tremendous, and so there wasn’t a lot of time in those spaces that were open to the sea. And as you can see now the ship is still listing, so they had to fight the ship to keep it above the surface. It was traumatic.”