The U.S. Navy oiler damaged in the Arabian Sea this week is now in port in Oman, according to photos provided to USNI News on Wednesday.
USNS Big Horn (T-AO-198) entered the port of Duqm, Oman, with the assistance of tugs on Tuesday afternoon local time, according to a local ship spotter. A Navy official confirmed to USNI News that the tanker was in the Omani port as of Wednesday.
The oiler is now undergoing a repair assessment while the service investigates the cause of an underwater allision that damaged the ship.
“USNS Big Horn (T-AO-198), a replenishment oiler, sustained damage while operating at sea in the U.S. 5th Fleet area of operations overnight on Sept. 23. All crew members are currently safe and U.S. 5th Fleet is assessing the situation,” according to a statement from a Navy official provided to USNI News on Tuesday.
Navy officials have not provided a detailed assessment of the damage other than to say there was no apparent leak of fuel from the 42,000-ton oiler. A service official told USNI News this week the oiler had suffered an underwater allision with its stern.
Big Horn likely either grounded or hit an object underwater while operating in the Arabian Sea off the coast of Oman. Photos circulating on social media show flooding in an aft engineering space and a damaged rudder cap.
The Kaiser-class oiler had been assigned to the Abraham Lincoln Carrier Strike Group and tasked with resupplying the embarked air wing and the ship’s escorts. A Navy official told USNI News this week the service was exploring other ways to provide fuel to the air wing and the escorts.
The damage to Big Horn has raised concerns in Congress over the health of Military Sealift Command and the Pentagon’s wider logistic force.
“If we cannot fuel our ships, our capabilities will be greatly diminished,” Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) told USNI News in a statement.
“Big Horn’s problems also speak to a larger challenge – we are woefully in need of a larger logistics fleet, which is the lifeline for our global military presence. I hope this incident serves as a wake-up call that it is high time to fix our shipbuilding industrial base and support our merchant mariners.”
MSC is considering sidelining up to 17 of its ships to shift the focus of the civilian mariner pool to higher priority platforms and increase the quality of life for the 4,500 civilian mariners, USNI News reported last month.
