A US Navy aircraft carrier collided with a large merchant vessel Wednesday night in the Mediterranean Sea. The Nimitz-class carrier USS Harry S. Truman was “involved in a collision” with the merchant vessel Besiktas-M at about 11:46 p.m. local time while operating near Egypt’s Port Said, a Navy spokesperson said Thursday. Cmdr. Timothy Gorman, a spokesperson for the US 6th Fleet, which oversees Navy operations in the Mediterranean, said the impact did not endanger the Truman. “There are no reports of flooding or injuries,” Gorman said in a statement. “The propulsion plants are unaffected and in a safe and stable condition. The incident is under investigation. More information will be released as it becomes available.”
The Truman was until recently operating in the Red Sea, where it was deployed as part of the US Navy’s efforts to defend key shipping lanes from attacks by Yemeni Houthi rebels. The Truman strike group, which consists of the aircraft carrier and several other warships, sailed into the Middle East region in December. After several weeks of combat operations, the carrier and its escorts departed the Red Sea and made a port call in the Mediterranean earlier this month. Port Said, where Wednesday’s collision occurred, is at the mouth of the Suez Canal, which leads to the Red Sea. It’s unclear whether the Truman was heading back to the Middle East when the incident took place.
According to publicly available shipping data, Besiktas-M is a nearly 200-meter-long Panama-flagged bulk carrier. On Thursday evening local time, the vessel was spotted in the vicinity of Port Said. Collisions involving Navy vessels are rare, especially for aircraft carriers, but they do happen. There have been several crashes in recent years, including two involving destroyers and merchant ships in 2017 that killed members of the warship crews. The last notable collision involving a US aircraft carrier was in 2004, when the then-USS John F. Kennedy collided with and sunk a fishing boat. The incident led to the Kennedy’s skipper being relieved of command.
