An Illinois man among the sailors reported missing after a high-tech U.S. Navy destroyer collided with an oil tanker near Singapore last week has been found dead, the Navy said Sunday.
Third Class Petty Officer Logan Palmer, from Niantic, Illinois, was among the bodies of 10 sailors recovered in the days following the collision.
The USS John S. McCain collided with the Alnic MC, a 30,000-ton chemical and oil tanker sailing under the Liberian flag, on Aug. 21 local time in the waters east of the Straits of Malacca, the U.S. 7th Fleet has said.
It was the second deadly collision involving a Navy destroyer and a merchant vessel in a little more than two months. On June 17, the USS Fitzgerald collided with a container ship off Japan. Seven U.S. sailors died.
Five sailors were injured in the incident, and divers recovered the remains of some of the missing sailors in a flooded compartment of the ship.
Palmer enlisted in the Navy as a Communications Electrician Third Class Petty Officer in April 2016. Prior to joining the military, he was an Eagle Scout for Troop 43, where Chaplain Tim Lee described him as a leader whose legacy in the scouts endured after he left town.
"He definitely was a role model," Lee said. "He was one that the younger boys looked at, you know, and said, 'I wanna be like Logan, I wanna do that.'"
Palmer may have been sleeping in one of the berths, or in one of the communications rooms at the time of the collision, officials said, as search and rescue operations continued.
In his small hometown of under 700 people, Lee said there was a prayer chain that stretches beyond their village, extending hope and faith that Palmer’s family would find closure and even peace.
Local
"We want to hope for the best,” Lee said. “But you know, probably realizing that Logan has been called home, if you will."
