The ship’s commanding officer, Cmdr. Alfredo J. Sanchez, had been on the bridge since 1:15 that morning, and the ship’s second in command had arrived around 4:30. The presence of the McCain’s highest-ranking officers was appropriate for the high volume of merchant ships transiting the straits.

With the sky still black, Commander Sanchez noticed that the sailor steering the ship was having difficulty managing the helm and the complex arrangement of throttles that controlled the power to the McCain’s twin propellers. He ordered that the tasks be divided, one sailor steering at one station, another manning the throttles at another. The move, intended to make operating the ship more manageable, ended up taking away the helmsman’s ability to steer. A secondary and unnoticed effect of the commander’s decision was the inadvertent transfer of steering to the console now designated to control the throttles.

The helmsman, confused and with apparently no control of the ship, said he had lost steering. The ship began turning to the left. As those on watch failed to understand the events unfolding around them, Commander Sanchez ordered the ship to reduce speed. Yet when the sailor operating the throttles tried to slow the destroyer, he managed only to reduce power to one of the propellers, meaning only one reduced speed while the other continued at regular propulsion. The mismatch lasted for more than a minute, causing the McCain to veer left and into the path of the Alnic MC, a 600-foot merchant ship.

The crew eventually managed to synchronize the ship’s steering and throttles, but it was too late. With no attempt from either ship to contact each other and their warning horns silent, the Alnic MC’s bow slammed into the McCain’s left side, punching a 28-footwide hole in the warship that spanned deep under the waterline.

Sailors were thrown to the deck. Those near the point of impact likened the collision to an explosion. The vessels remained melded together for several minutes before breaking free.

The 10 sailors who perished were in a berthing area situated below the McCain’s waterline, near the point of impact. The 15-footwide space, compressed to a third of its normal size, filled with water immediately and was probably completely submerged in under a minute. One sailor, already near the hatch, quickly escaped, while a second was forced to swim through fuel and water to make it out. Those who remained were sealed below in an effort to control the flooding.

The Fitzgerald’s story takes a different course. Less than a day after the Fitzgerald left its home port of Yokosuka, Japan, the ship was within sight of land around 1 a.m. on June 17 when officers on the bridge failed to realize how close their ship had come to a merchant freighter, the Crystal. The Fitzgerald’s captain, Cmdr. Bryce Benson, had left the bridge for his quarters.