On Monday, the USS John S. McCain collided with an oil tanker near Singapore. Ten soldiers remain missing, but reports have emerged that some remains have been found.
But this is the second deadly collision our Navy has had in the Pacific in the last three months. The Navy has started an investigation into what caused the collision, which will include the possibility of cyber hacking.
The Washington Free Beacon reported:
The Navy has not ruled out an intentional action behind the latest deadly collision between a Navy destroyer and a merchant ship, the chief of naval operations told reporters Monday.”That’s is certainly something we are giving full consideration to but we have no indication that that’s the case—yet,” Adm. John Richardson, the CNO, said at the Pentagon.”But we’re looking at every possibility, so we’re not leaving anything to chance,” he said.Asked if that includes the possibility the electronic defenses on the guided missile destroyer USS John S. McCain were hacked in a cyber attack, Richardson said investigators will look into all possible causes.”We’ll take a look at all of that, as we did with the Fitzgerald,” the four-star admiral said, referring to another Navy warship collision with a merchant ship in June near Japan.
Richardson also “called for a review of the 7th fleet’s maintenance, personnel and equipment in the region.” The damage from the collision caused flooding into “nearby compartments including crew berths, machinery and communication rooms.”
The collision took place “near the Strait of Malaccaa, a crowded 1.7-mile-wide waterway that connects the Indian Ocean and the South China Sea.” At least 25% of the world’s shipping goes through that section. From McClatchy DC:
“When you are going through the Strait of Malacca, you can’t tell me that a Navy destroyer doesn’t have a full navigation team going with full lookouts on every wing and extra people on radar,” said Jeff Stutzman, chief intelligence officer at Wapack Labs, a New Boston, New Hampshire, cyber intelligence service.“There’s something more than just human error going on because there would have been a lot of humans to be checks and balances,” said Stutzman, a former information warfare specialist in the Navy.
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