Military details USS Fitzgerald collision

The commander of the U.S. Seventh Fleet said the actions of the roughly 300 sailors on board kept the ship from sinking.

While tracking data on the Marine Traffic website shows exactly where the ACX Crystal was at 2:30 a.m. Saturday morning, similar data is not available for military ships like the USS Fitzgerald.

Among the seven U.S. Navy sailors who died in the Saturday collision between the USS Fitzgerald and a Philippine-flagged container ship off Japan were an OH man expecting to retire soon, a Maryland man who was his father's best friend, and a former volunteer firefighter in his Virginia hometown.

Petty Officer 1st Class Gary Leo Rehm Jr., 37, from Elyria, Ohio.

The sailors' remains are expected to arrive at Dover Air Force Base in DE on Tuesday.

"The remains of seven sailors previously reported missing were located in flooded berthing compartments, after divers gained access to the spaces", the Navy said Monday.

Japan's coast guard is investigating why it took almost an hour for a deadly collision between a U.S. Navy destroyer and a container ship to be reported.

So how is it, with advanced navigational systems, that a 29,000-ton container ship the size of 2½ football fields could collide with a 500-foot U.S. Navy Destroyer in open water?

"Fitzgerald 7 are headed home; just left Japan. crew, family on hand to say goodbye", it said on Twitter. He and his fellow sailors are grieving, they lost seven of their brothers and so he's grieving and as a mother to hear the pain in his voice.

"As to the chronological order of what happened and other details we are still investigating", the coastguard spokesman said, declining to elaborate further.

This prompted the Japanese Coast Guard to initially state that the collision had occurred at 2:20am on Saturday.

The mangled destroyer suffered flooding in two berthing compartments, where sailors were asleep in their bunks.

He said judging from the Crystal's path, after the collision, it veered dramatically off-course after the impact, corrected itself, and continued to sail its course before making a U-turn to see what had been hit, arriving back near the USS Fitzgerald about an hour later.

He declined to elaborate on why the ship took almost an hour to report the accident but said it could take ships time to notify authorities, as they dealt with more urgent matters.

Benson was flown off the crippled ship by helicopter after the accident and was being treated at the naval hospital at Yokosuka, according to Aucoin, as were two other sailors who were medevaced.

Stackley promised to "fully investigate" the cause of the collision.

Spicer says the incident was a "sobering reminder of the dangers" faced by the men and women of the US military every day. The Japan coast guard received an emergency call from a Philippine registered container ship "ACX Crystal" around 2:20 a.m. that it had collided with the Fitzgerald southwest of Yokusuka.