USS Harry S. Truman: Huge US Navy aircraft carrier collides with merchant ship near Suez Canal in Mediterranean Sea
The nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman Navy aircraft carrier collided with a merchant ship near Egypt in the Mediterranean Sea.
The collision happened on Wednesday night (12 February), a Navy spokesperson said Thursday (13 February). It’s not clear what caused the collision between the US warship and the Panamanian-flagged vessel Besiktas-M, but the spokesperson said it did not result in any flooding on board the Truman and its nuclear propulsion plants were unaffected.
No injuries were reported on either vessel, though the merchant ship sustained some damage, a Navy official said. An investigation is ongoing to determine how they collided, but the official noted that the area they were in near the Suez Canal is typically very densely packed with ships.
The Besiktas-M, a 617-foot (188-meter) long bulk carrier, had exited the Suez Canal and was heading to Romania, according to tracking website Marine Traffic. Whilst the Truman, a 1,100-foot-long Nimitz-class aircraft carrier, was heading toward the canal, tracking data indicates.
Marine expert Sal Mercogliano, a professor at Campbell University, said in an X Spaces conversation that the area where the collision occurred, near an anchorage off Egypt’s Port Said, had around 100 ships in it at the time of the incident. Last week the Truman was in Souda Bay, Greece, for a “working port visit” after two months of combat operations in the Central Command region, a Navy statement said.