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Carrier Kitty Hawk leaves active fleet

For the carrier Kitty Hawk, it’s finally the end of the line.

Forty-eight years and two weeks after the ship entered the fleet, the Navy’s last conventionally powered aircraft carrier officially left the active rolls Tuesday.

There were no bands playing in Bremerton, Wash., where the ship is now officially in mothballs. A formal decommissioning was held there Jan. 31.

But there still was tradition to deal with, according to a news release. Members of the remaining crew lowered the ship’s commissioning pennant from the main mast along with the national ensign and the First Navy Jack — visual cues the ship is no longer a member of the fleet.

Kitty Hawk’s commanding officer, Capt. Todd Zecchin, closed out the ship’s deck log, which had been kept continuously since the ship’s commissioning April 29, 1961. The event marked the passing of the ship into the full control of the Bremerton Naval Shipyard, where the ship is part of the inactive ships facility.

“It’s hard to capture the feeling in words,” Zecchin said in the release. “This is the second aircraft carrier that I’ve decommissioned, and it doesn’t hit you immediately until you’ve lowered the commissioning pennant for the last time.”

Zecchin was also the final skipper of John F. Kennedy, which decommissioned in March 2007.

The move also marked the passing of the Navy’s oldest active warship title from the Kitty Hawk to the Norfolk-based nuclear-powered aircraft carrier Enterprise, commissioned Nov. 25, 1961.