USS Ford Aircraft Carrier Crew Receives Notice to Stay in the Middle East Until May

BlockBeats News, March 17th, according to The New York Times, the U.S.S. Ford aircraft carrier, after arriving in the Middle East from the Caribbean region, has now entered its tenth month of deployment. If it remains at sea until mid-April, it will break the record for the longest post-Vietnam War aircraft carrier deployment.

The current record is 294 days, set by the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier in 2020. The crew on the Ford has been informed that their deployment may be extended until May, which would keep them at sea for a whole year, twice the normal aircraft carrier deployment duration. During the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, the U.S. Navy occasionally extended aircraft carrier deployments to nine months at a time, sometimes even longer. However, typically, deployments do not exceed six months. Navy experts state that anything beyond six months is extremely challenging for both the ship and the crew.