U.S. Navy oil tanker damaged at sea in Middle East
The U.S. Navy disclosed Tuesday that one of its oil tankers in the Middle East suffered significant damage while at sea, complicating a fraught deterrence mission as hostilities between Israel and Lebanon’s Hezbollah threaten to engulf the region in violence.
The USNS Big Horn experienced an unspecified emergency overnight Monday and the incident is under investigation, the Navy said in a statement. The vessel, which has a crew of about 80 people, is being towed to a port for evaluation and repairs, two military officials said.
One of the officials said the ship was damaged in the Arabian Sea, where an aircraft carrier, the USS Abraham Lincoln, and several other warships have operated for months amid tensions stemming from Israel’s war in the Gaza Strip. The other official said the ship encountered trouble while close to a shoreline, without elaborating. Both spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive military movements.
The entire crew was safe, the Navy said, and it was not immediately clear whether there were any injuries. The Associated Press reported on the incident, which began circulating on social media Monday night, earlier.
It’s too early to say what caused the Big Horn’s damage, the two military officials said, but it is not believed that the oiler collided with another vessel. At least one of the ship’s compartments began flooding, requiring embarked personnel to take action, the second military official said. Other possibilities include the ship having run aground in shallow water or a collision with some other object. Officials did not immediately rule out a mine strike, but the second military official said it was unlikely.
The situation could leave the Navy challenged, for the foreseeable future, to conduct sea-based refueling for ships involved in its Middle East deterrence mission. The military officials said a near-term solution could entail the transfer of fuel between vessels.
The Navy has kept an armada in the region for much of the past year, bolstering the Pentagon’s ability to defend Israel and protect commercial shipping as the war in Gaza has inspired Hezbollah and other like-minded groups backed by Iran to wage attacks of their own.
Hezbollah includes both a political party and an Iran-backed paramilitary group that the United States identifies as a terrorist organization. Its leaders have pledged to continue attacking Israel unless a cease-fire is reached in Gaza, but Hezbollah has launched rockets into Israel on and off for years. Yemen’s Houthi militant group, whom Tehran also supplies with weapons and other support, has greatly disrupted commercial traffic in the Red Sea, targeting container ships and the U.S.-led military vessels that have swarmed the Arabian Peninsula in a bid to halt those and other attacks.
The aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln relies on nuclear propulsion, but the fighter jets aboard it need fuel transfers to fly. Other warships accompanying the Abraham Lincoln include the destroyers USS O’Kane, USS Spruance and USS Stockdale, all requiring fuel too.
Other warships in the region include the USS Wasp, USS New York, USS Oak Hill, USS Arleigh Burke and USS Bulkeley, all in the Mediterranean Sea; the USS Frank E. Petersen Jr. and USS Michael Murphy in the Red Sea; and the USS John S. McCain in the Gulf of Oman.
On Monday, the Navy deployed another aircraft carrier, the USS Harry S. Truman, and three additional warships - the USS Gettysburg, USS Stout and USS Jason Dunham - from their home port in southeastern Virginia. They departed on a regularly scheduled rotation, officials said, and are expected to be assigned to the Navy’s 6th Fleet, which oversees operations off the coast of Europe, including the Mediterranean.