New photos show the damage suffered by a US Navy Handbook in a collision with a merchant ship last week.
The USS Harry S. Truman warship was gone by a US naval installation in Sour Bay, Greece, for reparations over the weekend following the incident near the Suez channel entrance.
Photographs released by the Navy on Saturday show damage abroad to stibbon for the 335 meters long nuclear aircraft carrier.
Damaged areas include “the outer wall of two storage rooms and a maintenance space … a line handling space, the stern and the platform above one of the storage spaces,” the Navy said in a statement.
None of the damage affects the ship’s combat capacity, the statement says, adding that it has been flying since the accident on Wednesday night.
A team that includes Naval structures and architects engineers is making a detailed assessment of damage and will implement a repair plan, the Navy said, without advance a calendar for repairs.
Outdoor damage to the USS Harry S. Truman aircraft carrier views of a helicopter following a collision with the merchant ship Besiktas-M out of Egypt on February 12. MCC Jose Hernandez/Digital/US Naval Forces
The Truman collided with Besiktas-M, an 188-meter-long, panamian flag, busy waters near the Suez Canal, off the port Said, Egypt, in the Mediterranean Sea.
The merchant ship was also damaged, but there were no injuries to any of the ships, the Navy said after the collision near an anchorage crowded with ships that travel the channel.
Former US Navy captain Carl Schuster, an instructor at the Pacific University of Hawaii, said such conditions leave little margin for errors.
“There is not much room for maneuver on a restricted sea, and both ships need about one nautical mile to stop,” Schuster explained.
Small navigation errors, poor reading of the other ship’s intentions or delay in decision making by the crew of any of the ships could quickly have put them in danger “with very few viable options,” Schuster noted.
Before the accident, Truman was in Suda Bay for a “work visit to Porto” after two months of combat operations in the Central Command region, according to a Navy statement.
During this time, he carried out several attacks on the Houthi rebels in Yemen and launched air strikes against Isis in Somalia, according to the US Navy.
Rear Admiral Sean Bailey, commander of the Truman aircraft carrier attack group, which includes a guided missile cruiser and three residents, said the group remains operational throughout the region.
“Our mission has not changed and we are still committed to responding to any challenge in this dynamic and global security environment,” Bailey said in a statement.
