Nuclear-powered US Navy aircraft carrier crashes with ship in Suez Canal

A £3.6 billion US aircraft carrier has collided with a merchant ship in the Suez Canal.

USS Harry S. Truman, a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, crashed with a merchant vessel in the Suez Canal – one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes.

The 1,092-foot Nimitz-class carrier collided with a smaller vessel called Besiktas-M shortly before midnight on Wednesday.

Besiktas-M, a 617-foot Panamanian-flagged ship, sustained some damage, the CNN reports citing a Navy official.

The US Navy confirmed that the crash happened near Port Said, Egypt, in the Mediterranean Sea, but it did not reveal the cause of the incident which is being investigated.

Two nuclear reactors and four propulsion systems power the Truman warship.

The propulsion plans are ‘unaffected and in a safe and stable condition,’ a spokesperson for the US naval forces said.

US Navy said the collision ‘did not endanger the Harry S Truman as there are no reports of flooding or injuries.’

Now the incident is being investigated.

The merchant ship was reportedly heading to Romania after it had left the Suez Canal, while the warship was on its way towards the canal when the two vessels crashed.

Carl Schuster, a former US Navy captain, said the conditions in the narrow Suez Canal leave little room for mistakes.

‘There is not a lot of room for maneuvering in a restricted seaway and both ships require about one nautical mile to stop,’ he told the outlet.

At the time of the crash, there were around 100 ships near the anchorage area of Port Said.

The Suez Canal made headlines in March 2021 when the container ship Ever Given became stuck in the waterway, blocking it entirely and disrupting global trade.

On Wednesday morning, a US military fighter jet slammed into the sea in San Diego Bay during a ‘g-around maneuver.’

Both pilots managed to eject themselves before the £54 million aircraft crashed into the waves.

A F-35 fighter jet had another close call during a routine exercise in Alaska when they lost control of the aircraft. The pilot escaped just moments before the jet spiralled down and went up in a fireball.

People have been killed when US Navy warships have crashed with cargo ships.

Seven sailors were killed in June 2017 when the USS Fitzgerald hit a cargo vessel in Japan, and ten people died when the USS John S McCain crashed with a tanker near Singapore and Malaysia just two months later.

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