Hard to see and track electronically, warships can be perilous in crowded waters

Hong Kong

THE tropical sky off Singapore was utterly dark when an oil tanker ploughed into the side of the US destroyer USS John S McCain before dawn last Monday - but the moonless night may have been only one of the reasons that the tanker's crew may have had trouble seeing a warship in their path.

Hard to see and hard to track electronically, naval vessels have long posed special perils to night-time navigation. That has proved deadly this summer in crowded waters such as those near Singapore and Tokyo, where another US warship, the USS Fitzgerald, was struck by a cargo freighter under a waning crescent moon on June 17.