U.S Navy Fires Warship Captain After Steering Issue Led To Dangerous Near-Miss In the Middle East

U.S Navy fired a warship captain last month after an unresolved steering issue led to a dangerous near-miss incident in the Middle East.

Cmdr. Cameron Yaste, the commanding officer of the Arleigh Burke-class destroyer USS John S. McCain was relieved over a loss of confidence in his ability to lead.

Investigation highlighted that he was removed after the destroyer lost steering during a fuel replenishment which damaged a Navy oiler.

Yaste and the other crew members made mistakes including poor maintenance and failure to follow protocols which contributed to the incident, per the investigation. It also highlighted that the Navy failed to solve the recurring steering issue onboard the destroyer which happened a month before this incident.

The steering issue happened so frequently that the ship’s crew members overlooked its seriousness and it glitched when McCain was hooked up to a replenishment ship to refuel.

The McCain deployed from its homeport in March and reached the Middle East in April, where it was joined by other U.S warships patrolling the region to protect merchant vessels from Houthi Attacks.

Yaste had been McCain’s executive officer and took command in 2023, around 5 months before the deployment.

On 20th July, McCain pulled alongside the replenishment oiler USNS Big Horn in the North Arabian Sea and went for a replenishment-at-sea, where it received fuel over a tensioned wire between 2 vessels less than 200 ft apart.

While refuelling, one of its hydraulic power units which controls the starboard rudder spewed oil and the engineers raced to handle the issue.

After some time, they decided to switch over to alternate HPUs when the system glitched and the control was stuck with the unit spewing hydraulic oil.

Engineers tried to refill the HPU but it ran out of oil and shut down while the other HPU could not take over.

A crew member on the bridge noticed that the starboard rudder was stuck so an emergency breakaway was ordered by the commanding officer which led to damage of equipment on the Big Horn and one of its refuelling rigs became inoperable, though no crew member on either vessel was injured.

The August Command Investigation revealed that the destroyer’s crew members failed to follow the loss-of-steering procedures or communicate properly between the control stations.

The investigation blamed Yaste for how he handled the refuelling as he spent 10 minutes near the oiler to fix the steering issues before breaking away. The executive officer and the chief engineer were also held accountable.

The findings highlighted that McCain faced challenges before refuelling and that they were handling a broken ship for months.

10 days after the incident, the destroyer reached UAE and issued another CASREP for steering issues. The technical officials flew to the port to review the situation and discovered many other problems which needed to be addressed.

The U.S Navy has not said about what happened with the destroyer nor acknowledged steering problems during its deployment.

References: Yahoo, Business Insider

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