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