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After GW fire, Kitty Hawk alters course

ABOARD THE CARRIER KITTY HAWK IN THE PACIFIC OCEAN — The carrier Kitty Hawk, which was on its way to Hawaii to turnover with the carrier George Washington, now plans on visiting Guam while officials on the GW assess the extent of a fire that broke out several days ago.

“There’s no change to our long-term schedule and much is still contingent on what the assessors find on the George Washington,” Capt. Todd Zecchin, Kitty Hawk’s commanding officer said. “But in the meantime we are going to pull into Guam and hopefully by then we will know the rest of the way ahead.”

While Navy officials assess the damage on GW, the Kitty Hawk continues to operate in the Western Pacific and will make the Guam port visit in “mid-June,” he said.

The ship had been scheduled to arrive at Pearl Harbor June 8 to begin turnover with the George Washington, which is replacing Kitty Hawk as the Navy’s forward-deployed carrier in Japan. Kitty Hawk will then head for the United States to be decommissioned while GW sails to Japan.

But a major fire broke out aboard GW the morning of May 22 while the ship was off the west coast of South America. The carrier has since pulled into San Diego for repairs. Almost two-dozen sailors were treated for heat stress and one was treated for first-degree burns. Officials said they believe the fire mostly affected the ship’s communications equipment. Neither the propulsion plant nor the nuclear reactor were harmed by the fire, officials said.

Though officials say the turnover between the two ships will still be in Pearl Harbor, much depends on the extent of George Washington’s damage. The Navy could conduct the turnover in San Diego, but that option is considered a long shot.

Beyond that, there’s the question of which carrier will take center stage at this year’s Rim of the Pacific exercise in the Western Pacific, slated to begin June 29.

“Right now there is no change to RimPac,” said Pacific Fleet spokesman Capt. Scott Gureck. “We won’t know much more until the end of next week once the assessment is finished on GW, but we are very hopeful that GW will be able to make that commitment.

Forty ships from Pacific Rim countries United States, Chile, Canada, South Korea, Australia and Japan will take part. The exercise would have been GW’s first major operation as the Japan-based carrier. The ship was not scheduled to arrive at its new homeport of Yokosuka until sometime in August.

Though GW could be repaired in time for the exercise, either Kitty Hawk or the John C. Stennis could surge to fill in, though officials won’t confirm what the proposed courses of action could be.

“There are indeed a lot of options and I don’t want to speculate what might happen until we know all the details about the George Washington,” Gureck said.

Beyond finding a carrier to take part in the exercise, officials are also examining how a delay in the changeover would affect the orders of sailors slated to leave the ship once it arrives in San Diego for decommissioning. After stopping in San Diego, the ship is expected to officially change its homeport to Bremerton, Wash., where it will be mothballed. That was supposed to occur on July 15. A delay to that homeport change comes with a financial impact for many sailors, as it signals the end of special pays such as their overseas cost of living allowance.

“Though there’s been no changes that would impact those things yet, we are looking at what the options are should the schedule change any further,” Gureck said. “We will ensure that the needs of all the individual sailors involved are addressed.”