Head of US Navy's 7th fleet is RELIEVED of duty after two deadly warship collisions in two months leaves 17 sailors dead or missing
- Vice Admiral Joseph Aucoin is expected to lose his command on Wednesday
- The crash of the USS John S McCain on Monday happened under his watch
- It was the fourth ship to be in a collision or run aground since January
- Other ships were Fitzgerald in June; Lake Champlain in May; Antietam in January
- Ten sailors are missing on the McCain; some remains were found on Monday
- And seven sailors died following the Fitzgerald's crash in June
- Aucoin is not being blamed, but his superiors have lost confidence in him
The Navy will relieve the Seventh Fleet's admiral of his command after four of his ships suffered collisions this year.
Vice Admiral Joseph Aucoin, the three-star commander of the fleet in Japan, will be made to step down on Wednesday in connection with the crashes, sources have revealed.
Aucoin was expected to retire in a few weeks anyway, the insiders told The Wall Street Journal, but is going now because his superiors have lost confidence in him.
On Monday the USS John McCain (pictured in the foreground) suffered massive damage after it was struck by a commercial vessel while heading into Singapore for a port visit. Ten sailors are missing
Aucoin is expected to be relieved of his command by the commander of the US Pacific Fleet, Admiral Scott Swift.
The sources stressed that the three-star-general's removal isn't due to any specific findings in the ongoing investigations.
Those investigations are examining what effect training, manning and other internal fleet processes may have had on the crashes.
But under the Navy's rules of public accountability, the doubt that Aucoin's superiors have in his leadership mean that he cannot continue.
On Monday, the Navy announced that it was imposing an operational pause across the planet after the USS John S McCain, on its way to a port visit in Singapore, hit the commercial vessel the Alnic MC.
Ten sailors were left missing in the crash, and a search and rescue operation is now underway to locate them.
On Tuesday, remains were found in the John McCain; here, Navy sailors cover an unidentified body, believed to be one of those found in the wreckage after it was recovered
In June the USS Fitzgerald was struck by another commercial vessel near Yokosuka, Japan. It suffered damage under the waterline, causing sleeping compartments to flood
Seven US Navy sailors were killed in the Fitzgerald collision in June. They were (top row, left to right) Fire Controlman 2nd Class Carlos Victor Ganzon Sibayan, 23, from Chula Vista, CA; Gunner's Mate Seaman Dakota Kyle Rigsby, 19, from Palmyra, VA; Sonar Technician 3rd Class Ngoc T Truong Huynh, 25, from Oakville, CT; and Yeoman 3rd Class Shingo Alexander Douglass, 25, from San Diego, CA. Bottom row (left to right): Fire Controlman 1st Class Gary Leo Rehm Jr., from Elyria, OH; Personnel Specialist 1st Class Xavier Alec Martin, 24, from Halethorpe, MD; and Gunner's Mate 2nd Class Noe Hernandez, 26, from Weslaco, TX
Deadly: The USS John McCain collided with a tanker off the coast of Singapore on August 21 and the USS Fitzgerald was hit by a freighter on June 17 - the USS Seventh Fleet, which is based in Tokyo has responsibility for the western Pacific and is the largest forward deployed American fleet