Navy to Decommission USS Enterprise

The U.S. Navy is going to scrap the nation’s oldest active duty warship USS Enterprise (“Big E”), according to CNN.

USS Enterprise is the world’s first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier and the eighth United States naval vessel to bear the name. Like her predecessor of World War II fame, she is nicknamed the “Big E”.

The only ship of her class, Enterprise is the second oldest commissioned vessel in the United States Navy, after the wooden-hulled, three-masted frigate USS Constitution.

The “Big E” is currently on the way to her home port of Norfolk, Virginia, where it will officially become inactive on December 1st, reports the WLTZ.com.

“Following the inactivation period, it will be towed over to Newport News — to Huntington Ingalls Newport News Shipbuilding — where it will be defueled. They’ll remove all the fuel from it”, Mike Maus, a spokesperson for Naval Air Force Atlantic is quoted as saying by CNN.

It will take three years for  the U.S. Navy to remove the ship’s radioactive fuel and reactors. Costs will be tens of millions of dollars. Once the reactors are removed, the warship will be formally decommissioned.

All 90,000 tons of the ship will be cut up and the metal sold for scrap.

[mappress]
Naval Today Staff,November 2, 2012