Retired carrier USS America sunk off U.S.

May 20, 2005

NEWPORT NEWS, Va. (AP) -- The retired aircraft carrier USS America is on the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, sunk by the Navy in a series of explosive tests that upset some veterans.

The 84,000-ton, 1,048-foot warship that served the Navy for 32 years rests about 60 miles off the coast and more than 6,000 feet down, according to Pat Dolan, a spokeswoman for Naval Sea Systems Command.

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No warship this size or larger had ever been sunk, and plans to sink the America caused controversy.

"Not a day goes by that I don't think about it," said Lee McNulty, president of the USS America Foundation, which wanted to turn the ship into a museum. "Of all the carriers, that one should have been saved, just for the name America."

http://customwire.ap.org/dynamic/stories/C/CARRIER_SUNK?SITE=FLPET&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2005-05-20-20-47-03

Somehow it seems appropriate that America was sunk.

had the sunk it in shadow water for people to go see, I could understand that but 6000 feet down....

about it's construction and armor be an issue?

they strip them before they sink them.

Most armor on ships that were made that far back is just plain steel.

Besides, 6,000 feet isn't untouchable for some submarines. The U.S. would have been better off stripping it into scrap metal if they were worried about technology leaks.

they turned my boat into razor blades

what a waste :crazy:

peace

If you read the article, she was used for weapons tests to verify how she would stand up to real weapons. The Navy will use this data to improve the design of future carriers.

I dont know much about ships but this seems sort of strange to me.

Anyone with naval/military knowledge of sinking old ships like this have any ideas about this one ?

Q: Possibly they sunk something else, along with the ship???

Since it was an older ship there is probably tons of asbestos in it. Just removing the asbestos would probably cost more than any money the salvage yard would make.

but, it's PROFIT over EVERYTHING these days :crazy:

peace

you are right....perhaps this was symbolic on their part. america goes down hardly a word.

...and the first I had heard of it. :-(

Meanwhile, the S.S. ChimPee oil-powered scow steams along, leading the nation into the planetary sewer.

isle of fish shell etc. build up. To make a reef maybe they should have sunk it in a lower latitdue, I don't know.
Or would it have been bee better to sell it as scrape metal.

Woops I didn't see the 6000 ft. Wonder what is down there?

...just asking? :shrug:

And I am kinna sad about seeing her go this way. They Moth-balled her for several years, but we all knew that she would end up scrapped. The ship never had a full over-haul. It was in very very bad disrepair. We kept her together for a long long time but it would have cost a fortune to fix and was not worth much to scrap. My guess is they wanted to run some tests for damage control studies or something like that.

On a separate note, when they decommissioned America, they had on the drawing board and may have started building CVN-76 and it was to be named the USS United States. Flagship to replace the Flagship. Well, somehow *cough* Congress got the Navy to change the name to the Ronald Reagan. I am still pissed on that one.

when were you in the navy?

I got out in '86

OS 2

Nobody has ever sunk with munitions before. All models of this kind of damage has been hypothetical. This helped verify the numbers.

I believe the reason for the depth is the fact that the USS America is over 1000 ft. long.

the aircraft have gotten to big, its too old to refurbish and no one wanted to scrap it.

Otherwise, you would think it would have went for scrap, or an artificial reef.

Or, they may just have wanted to keep all its secrets secret.

Steel is supposed to be pretty expensive now, though, so the scrap value would not have been inconsiderable.

the crap like asbestos that the ship was built with.

Although many might point out that the ocean shouldn't be an asbestos dumping ground. I don't know if it would be a problem in deep cold water though.

that managed to buy one of our diesel subs for scrapping and ended up going bankrupt because they realized that there was tons of asbestos on board the sub. They neither had the ability or or the money to get rid of it legally. So the sub is still sitting there in the yard half dismantled and everyone is trying to either decide whose problem it is or avoid making it their problem.

*Shrub's incrimintating military and business records.

Anchor it in international waters and declare it a sovereign nation.

For example:

The Principality of Sealand
Official website of the Government of Sealand.
http://www.sealandgov.com/

I sure don't.

or what...

Being in the Navy is a funny thing. You bitch about it everyday, you have more adventure than you will the rest of your life and you love it, but you bitch and complain about it every day (sort of like golf). Then you get out, the years go by and you realize that you just won't ever make friends like you did in the Navy. The ships we served on become immortal, larger than life. We join associations dedicated to the preservation of our memories. I belong to one association related just to the type of aircraft I flew in (A3 Skywarrior) and another dedicated to the squadron that I'm so very proud to have been part of (VQ-1). We had planes that trapped aboard the America in the Gulf of Tonkin. A carrier such as the America carries 5000 people. I'll bet that over the years, a few hundred thousand proud, courageous young men served aboard the America, either as ships company or as a member of a squadron assigned to her. The America holds memories for more people than can ever be counted. Had they had the sense to make her into a aviation museum as they have with so many other retired carriers, she could have served as first rate tourist attraction. But, alas, she is buried at sea. Not a fitting final resting place for a ship that meant so much to so many. So many, that served this country back when it was still a proud democracy. Maybe it is fitting that a ship named 'America' should sink as our government sinks to new lows everyday. Fuck fascism.

Hubby served aboard the USS Spiegel Grove in the late 60s. LSD-32, as I recall, but I could be mistaken. Nothing fancy or exciting like a carrier, just a troop landing ship.

The navy sank it a couple years ago off the coast of Florida. Didn't do as good a job as with the America, because the Spiegel Grove refused to sink. Made the news. Eventually, they got it to go down, where it is now an artificial reef.

Hubby got a good laugh out of it, thought at least now it's doing something useful. No regrets, no loss.

Personally, I think it would be a great day when we sink ALL the warships.

No divers are going to enjoy this one.

Besides an aircraft carrier, especially one named USS AMERICA, is a bigger deal and very symbolic at this moment in time.

They should have changed the name to the "USSA Rumsfeld" before sinking it, NOT scuttling it bearing the name "America!" :mad:

I've been waiting for someone to point out a wasted opportunity. DOD should have sold the surplus carrier to some enterprising outsourcer who then could have sailed the carrier to say, the Mariana Islands, and converted it into sweatshops. All products that come out of those sweatshops could legitimately say: Made in America.