Destroyer USS Higgins suffered a ship-wide loss of power due, apparently, to an electrical fault
A US Navy warship lost power and propulsion for several hours in the Indo-Pacific on Tuesday, a US defense official said, after suffering what a Navy statement describes as a “technical malfunction” in the electrical system.
Such a situation would leave the ship — the guided-missile destroyer USS Higgins — and its crew of about 300 “defenseless” at sea, a naval analyst told CNN. There were no injuries among those on board, the Navy adds.
The USS Higgins “suffered a ship-wide loss of power,” said Commander Matthew Comer, spokesman for the US 7th Wing, in a statement released on Friday.
“Initial reports indicate an electrical fault, which may have caused sparks or smoke, which stopped when the power was turned off,” explains Comer.
Power and propulsion have now been restored aboard the Arleigh Burke-class vessel, it adds.
Even so, a Defense official told CNN that the outage lasted “several hours.”
This is a significant period in which the ship lost the ability to control its movements at sea, leaving radars and defense systems — electrically operated — inoperative, experts tell CNN.
“The ship is defenseless, electronically blind and immobile,” says Carl Schuster, a former US Navy captain.
According to him, emergency diesel generators would only provide power for communications and air conditioning.
The Navy statement did not specify where within the Indo-Pacific Command’s area of responsibility — which extends from waters off the U.S. west coast to India’s western border, and from the North Pole to Antarctica — the incident occurred.
The cause of the problem is being investigated, says the Navy.
Arleigh Burke-class destroyers like the Higgins are considered the backbone of the U.S. Navy’s surface fleet, with more than 70 ships in service.
The Higgins, commissioned in 1999, has a crew of around 300 and is based in Yokosuka, Japan.
About 154 meters long and with a displacement of more than 8,200 tons, it is equipped with the Aegis combat system and has vertical launchers capable of firing various types of missiles, including Tomahawk land attack missiles.
Last month, a fire broke out on another US Navy ship, the aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford, in the laundry area, CNN previously reported.
The fire, which occurred on March 12, was not related to combat, the US military indicated at the time. Two sailors received medical treatment for minor injuries and were in stable condition.
