*snicker* Chinese sub collides with USS John McCain

[cali]

OK, they really collided with an array towed by the McCain, but that's just not as good a title.

Sub collides with sonar array towed by U.S. Navy ship Story Highlights
The array was damaged, but the sub and the ship did not collide

Navy does not believe it was a deliberate incident of Chinese harassment

Navy has complained of Chinese vessels disrupting U.S. naval activities

updated 3 hours, 4 minutes agoNext Article in U.S. »


From Barbara Starr
CNN

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- In what a U.S. military official calls an "inadvertent encounter," a Chinese submarine hit an underwater sonar array being towed by the destroyer USS John McCain on Thursday.


The USS John S. McCain, left, anchored at the port of Incheon 40 km west of Seoul, Korea in March 2004.

The array was damaged, but the sub and the ship did not collide, the official said. A sonar array is a radar towed behind a ship that listens and locates underwater sounds.

The incident occurred near Subic Bay off the coast of the Philippines.

The official, who declined to be named because the incident had not been made public, would not say whether the U.S. ship knew the submarine was that close to it.

However, the Navy does not believe this was a deliberate incident of Chinese harassment, as it would have been extremely dangerous had the array gotten caught in the submarine's propellers.

The Navy has complained in the past that Chinese vessels, including fishing boats, have deliberately tried to disrupt U.S. naval activities in international waters near China. In one widely publicized incident in March, five Chinese vessels maneuvered close enough to the USNS Impeccable to warrant the use of a fire hose by the unarmed American vessel to avoid a collision. The Navy later released video of that incident.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/06/12/china.submarine/

[SpiralHawk]

1. The S.S. Commander AWOL was dispatched on the rescue mission

But -- as usual - it went off partying some-freaking irrelevant place, abandoning duty, as usual,.] and leaving The McCain adrift on the skankulous sea of Republicon FAIL.

[DCKit]

3. Good one. Cake and ice cream for everybody. n/t

[Ian David]

2. Don't they know who the ship is named after, damn it! They'll pilot it where they damned well please

[baldguy]

4. Man, those prostrate exams get worse & worse after you hit 70.

[TheCowsCameHome]

5. He ran out of airplanes, so a ship was the next best thing.

[jmowreader]

6. The comment about the Navy ship not knowing where the sub was is curious

I mean, come on: they ran into the ship's towed sonar array. I hope the array was at least good enough to hear a Chinese submarine!

[Hanse]

7. Well it found a chinese sub, didn't it?