Crisis unfolds on Trump’s Navy in the Middle East as it is facing renewed scrutiny after sailors have raised concerns about life on board the aircraft carrier, which has been at sea since November.
Their warship lost all power while deployed in the South China Sea, stranding sailors without drinkable water, food, air conditioning or working toilets for four days.
A generator failure aboard the USS Benfold on July 24 left the destroyer without power.
Other Navy ships were called in to provide meals to the crew as the Benfold was towed to port in the Philippines, where sailors were put up in shore housing.
Full power was not restored until July 30 and no injuries have been reported.
The Navy did not disclose the incident for nearly a month, according to The Washington Post.
The outage comes as the Trump administration faces criticism over extended carrier deployments in the Middle East, including that of the USS Abraham Lincoln, where reports of desperate sailors throwing themselves aboard have angered military families.
Navy families have described collapsing morale and suicidal ideation on the ship, with one sailor’s wife telling Navy Times her severely burned-out husband attempted to jump overboard.
As of yesterday (Monday), it has been 203 days since the Lincoln arrived in the region, and 250 since its initial deployment – setting a record for consecutive days at sea.
In that time, the US and Iran have cycled between attacks and brief lulls in fighting, but appear no closer to resolving the underlying dispute.
