Officials Say US Navy Aircraft Carrier Truman Collides with Ship in Mediterranean

February 13, 2025 TruthUSA

The ship was not ‘endangered’ and no injuries were reported.

The USS Harry S. Truman aircraft carrier was involved in a collision with a merchant ship in the Mediterranean Sea near Egypt, officials confirmed on Thursday.

In a statement released by the U.S. Navy, the Nimitz-class carrier collided with the Besiktas-M ship at around 11:46 p.m. local time on Feb. 12 near Port Said, Egypt.

No crew members on board the aircraft carrier were injured, while no reports of flooding were reported, the Navy said, adding that the ship wasn’t “endangered” in the incident.

“The propulsion plants are unaffected and in a safe and stable condition. The incident is under investigation,” the statement said, without providing more details about the ship.

Details about the merchant vessel that collided with the aircraft carrier also were not provided. It’s not clear if that ship was damaged or if anyone on board the vessel was harmed.

A tracking service called MarineTraffic says that the Besiktas-M, flying under the Panama flag, is still “currently located in the” eastern Mediterranean Sea as of Thursday. The ship, which has a length of about 600 feet and a width of around 100 feet, had a reported destination of Constanta, Romania.

At around 1,096 feet in length, the USS Truman carrier is almost as long as the Empire State Building is tall and has a 5,000-member crew. The 4.5-acre flight deck can hold 90 aircraft, including F/A-18F Super Hornet striker jets. Missiles are carried onto parked jets, and sailors run on treadmills in the hangar.

Since the October 2023 Hamas terrorist attack targeting Israel, the United States has positioned carrier strike groups around the Mediterranean Sea and Red Sea, tasked with assisting Israel’s defense and protecting commercial shipping lanes.

The Yemen-based Houthi group has attacked more than 60 vessels in the Red Sea since the Israel–Hamas conflict started, drawing a military response from the United States and the UK. Top Houthi officials have said that they will target any ships that they believe are heading to Israeli ports in the Mediterranean Sea or elsewhere.

At the same time, the U.S. military currently has 11 aircraft carriers, and any damage requiring one of them to be sidelined could strain U.S. military operations worldwide, along with operations around the Middle East.

While collisions involving U.S. Navy vessels are rare, two warships in the Asia–Pacific were involved in crashes in 2017. The accidents, in which 17 sailors were killed, raised questions about Navy training and the pace of operations and prompted a congressional hearing and the removal of a number of officers.

In 2009, the USS Hartford submarine collided with the USS New Orleans amphibious transport dock in the Strait of Hormuz between Iran and the United Arab Emirates, injuring more than a dozen crew members.

Earlier this week, a U.S. Navy EA-18G Growler jet with two people on board went down near San Diego, California, officials said. The two occupants ejected before the crash and were picked up by a fishing vessel and taken to a nearby U.S. Customs and Border Protection craft, officials said.

Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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