KUALA LUMPUR — Malaysia has formed a special team to look into last week’s collision between a United States warship and a tanker off Singapore, said Transport Minister Liow Tiong Lai. 

“We are currently working with both the Singapore and the US governments to assist and also look into the incident,” he said on Tuesday (Aug 29). 

“Our team will investigate what actually transpired that day ... At the moment, we cannot confirm that it happened due to human negligence or faulty system as investigation is in progress.” 

Since the incident, Malaysia has disputed Singapore’s account that the accident took place in the Republic’s territorial waters.

The collision occurred near Pedra Branca as the USS John S McCain was preparing to enter the Singapore Strait, one of the world’s most congested waterways. The incident resulted in 10 dead sailors aged between 20 and 39, and sparked a multinational search and rescue operation led by the Republic. 

On Tuesday, Mr Liow continued to insist that the accident took place in Malaysian territorial waters, and thus an investigation by the Malaysian authorities was warranted. 

Mr Liow said the investigation by Putrajaya would focus only on the technical aspects and standard operating procedures of the merchant vessel Alnic MC.

“Although all merchant vessels are equipped with Automatic Identification System (AIS), whose function is to channel information on the location of the vessel, but in the Alnic MC case, we have yet to ascertain if the system was functioning,” he said.

He added that the probe will be completed in a month.

The USS John S McCain was on its way to Singapore for a routine visit when it collided with the Alnic MC, a chemical and oil tanker about three times the size of the guided-missile destroyer.

The search and rescue operation was called off after several days, and attention shifted to recovering bodies in flooded parts of the ship. 

Two bodies were discovered last week while the remaining eight were retrieved by US divers searching the flooded compartments of the ship this week. The damaged warship is moored at Singapore’s Changi Naval Base as an investigation into the collision is being carried out. 

The McCain incident was the second such deadly accident in two months after a US destroyer collided with a cargo ship off Japan in June, and the fourth accident involving an American warship in the Pacific this year.

Malaysia had claimed that one of its warships was first to respond to the distress call from the American destroyer at dawn. 

However, Malaysia’s account was later contradicted by the US Seventh Fleet. The Seventh Fleet noted that the Malaysian Navy ships joined the search and rescue operation in the afternoon.

Singapore and Malaysia are involved in a dispute over the ownership of Pedra Branca, a row which dates back to the late 1970s. It took more than 20 years for the dispute to be brought before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in July 2003.

In May 2008, after several rounds of written pleadings and public hearings, the court ruled Pedra Branca to be Singapore territory.

It also ruled that sovereignty over the Middle Rocks belongs to Malaysia. 

But in February, Malaysia filed a challenge to the ruling, following what it claimed was the discovery of new facts from three documents recently discovered in the United Kingdom’s national archive.

In June, Putrajaya filed another application asking ICJ to interpret its ruling on Pedra Branca. 

Singapore’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs responded to the application by saying that the ICJ judgment was “clear and unambiguous” and that Malaysia’s case was puzzling and groundless. AGENCIES