TOKYO (AP) - The Latest on the collision early Saturday between a U.S. Navy destroyer and a container ship off the Japanese coast that killed seven Navy sailors (all times local):
1:40 p.m.
The White House is remembering the seven U.S. sailors who were killed in a collision between the USS Fitzgerald and a container ship off Japan on Saturday.
White House press secretary Sean Spicer says President Donald Trump and the entire administration was sending their thoughts and prayers to the sailors’ families.
Spicer says the incident was a “sobering reminder of the dangers” faced by the men and women of the U.S. military every day.
The U.S. Navy has promised a full investigation into the deadly collision.
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7 p.m.
The U.S. Navy says it still believes that a collision between the destroyer USS Fitzgerald and a container ship occurred at 2:20 a.m., even though Japanese coast guard officials say it happened about an hour earlier.
Cmdr. Ron Flanders, a Navy spokesman, said Monday that the destroyer reported to officials that it collided at 2:20 a.m. Saturday with the Philippine-flagged container ship off the coast of Yokosuka near Tokyo. Seven American sailors died in the crash.
Coast guard officials said they have revised the time of the collision to 1:30 a.m. from their earlier estimate of 2:20 a.m. after interviewing crewmembers of the container ship, the ACX Crystal.
A track of the container ship’s route by MarineTraffic, a vessel-tracking service, shows it made a sudden turn as if trying to avoid something at about 1:30 a.m., before continuing eastward. It then made a U-turn and returned around 2:30 a.m. to the area near the collision.
“That (1:30 a.m. crash time) is not our understanding,” Flanders told The Associated Press. He said any differences would have to be clarified in the investigation.
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5:27 p.m.
Japan’s coast guard is investigating why it took nearly an hour for a deadly collision between a U.S. Navy destroyer and a container ship to be reported.
A coast guard official said Monday they are trying to find out what the crew of the Philippine-flagged ACX Crystal was doing before reporting the collision to authorities 50 minutes later.
The coast guard initially said the collision occurred at 2:20 a.m., as the Philippine ship had reported it at 2:25 a.m. and said it just happened. After interviewing Filipino crewmembers, the coast guard has changed the collision time to 1:30 a.m.
The ACX Crystal collided with the USS Fitzgerald off Japan’s coast early Saturday morning, killing seven of the destroyer’s crew of nearly 300.
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