YOKOSUKA, Japan—Crew members from the destroyer USS Dewey were helping stabilize the damaged USS Fitzgerald after it collided with a container ship off the coast of Japan before dawn Saturday, leaving seven sailors missing and at least three injured.
YOKOSUKA, Japan—Crew members from the destroyer USS Dewey were helping stabilize the damaged USS Fitzgerald after it collided with a container ship off the coast of Japan before dawn Saturday, leaving seven sailors missing and at least three injured.
Family members were frantically seeking news, appealing via social media for calls from sailors aboard from the ship as it slowly made its way to its home base at Yokosuka, south of Tokyo.
Rescuers were searching for seven sailors who were thought to have been thrown into the sea or possibly trapped inside damaged sections of the destroyer, said Japanese coast guard spokesman Yoshihito Nakamura. No one on the container ship was reported injured.
Footage from the Japanese TV network NHK showed Navy crew members working to pump water from flooded sections of the crushed mid-right side of the USS Fitzgerald.
The ship’s captain, Cmdr. Bryce Benson, was airlifted to the US Naval Hospital in Yokosuka and was in stable condition with a head injury, the US Navy’s 7th Fleet said in a statement. Two other crew suffered cuts and bruises and were evacuated, it said.
