The US Navy’s expeditionary fast transport ship USNS Fall River (T-EPF 4) will be not be able to deploy for a scheduled mission in the Asia Pacific because of further maintenance requirements, the US Navy has announced.
Fall River was set to take part in the humanitarian and disaster response-preparation mission Pacific Partnership but a pre-deployment inspection on USNS Fall River revealed a need for additional maintenance and repairs, according to the US Navy.
The maintenance for Fall River will exceed the time required for Pacific Partnership personnel to arrive at their initial mission stops.
Fall River will be replaced by sister ship USNS Brunswick as the secondary mission platform for the 2018 Pacific Partnership. Fall River and Brunswick are both Spearhead-class expeditionary fast transport ships and the ship replacement will not impact the Pacific Partnership mission.
Brunswick is scheduled to depart from Guam with embarked mission personnel in mid-March destined for initial stops in Yap and Palau. The navy said Fall River’s repairs would be expedited and the ship would return to operations in the US 7th Fleet in the near future.