The USS Gerald R Ford, the US Navy’s newest and largest aircraft carrier, was only able to fly sorties two days after a March 12 laundry fire was extinguished, the US Navy’s top officer said, in the first indication that the blaze hindered combat operations against Iran.
When the fire broke out, the ship was operating in the Red Sea as part of Operation Epic Fury.
A statement from the US 5th Fleet on March 12 said the ship remained fully operational after the fire, which it said was not combat-related and had left two sailors with non-life-threatening injuries.
Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Daryl Caudle, speaking to the Washington-based think tank the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) on Tuesday, praised how the Ford’s crew dealt with the laundry space fire.
“They fought that, put it out, and started flying sorties two days after that, so I’m very proud of that crew,” he said.
A US official told CNN last month that putting out the fire, cleaning up water damage or other substances used to put out the fire, and ensuring there were no flare-ups took about 30 hours.
The official also said that slightly more than 100 beds were damaged in the fire, as some sleeping areas are adjacent to the laundry area where the fire occurred. But they acknowledged roughly 600 sailors total were displaced from their sleeping areas or bunks.
The Ford was pulled from action just over a week after the fire, with the Navy saying the 100,000-ton warship was being sent to a US base at Souda Bay, Greece, for repairs.
While at the port on the island of Crete, seven berthing compartments on the Ford were repaired, a statement from the 6th Fleet said.
The Navy has not released any information on what may have sparked the March 12 blaze, but a March 28 statement from 6th Fleet said “military and federal civilian law enforcement continued investigations into a fire aboard the ship originating in the ship’s laundry facilities.”
CNN has asked the 6th Fleet for any updates on the investigation.
As of early this week, the Ford was off Split, Croatia, for what Caudle said Tuesday was “some much deserved leave.”
He told the CSIS event that the Ford’s deployment, which began when it left its Norfolk, Virgina, homeport late last June, would extend into a “record-breaking” 11th month and that the ship would be “back on station here soon.”
The admiral called the length of Ford’s deployment “extraordinary” and acknowledged the strain it was putting on personnel and equipment.
But the Navy was “built for that,” he said.
“Sailors that are doing this, this is what they signed up for,” Caudle said.
He did not say if the Ford would remain in the Mediterranean or move back through the Suez Canal into the Red Sea, where it was when the fire occurred.
The carrier USS George H.W. Bush and its strike group left Norfolk on Tuesday and is headed to the US Central Command’s area of responsibility, which includes the Middle East, CNN has reported.
The movement of the aircraft carriers come as President Donald Trump said in a televised address on Wednesday that the US would be ramping up military pressure on Iran in the coming weeks.
“We are going to hit them extremely hard over the next two to three weeks. We are going to bring them back to the stone ages, where they belong,” the president said.
Meanwhile, Caudle on Tuesday expressed concern about how the war with Iran is affecting the US Navy’s readiness and deterrence posture elsewhere.
“The challenge … is how do you buy down risk in other parts of the world while you’re focusing a lot of resources in one area,” the CNO said.
CNN’s Haley Britzky and Zachary Cohen contributed to this report.
