One of the Navy‘s amphibious warships suffered a major mechanical failure earlier this week that forced it to return to port — at least the third such incident this year.
Lt. Cmdr. David Carter, a spokesman for Naval Surface Force Atlantic, confirmed that the USS Iwo Jima suffered “a non-propulsion-related materiel casualty in the engineering department” that forced the ship to return to Naval Station Norfolk on Thursday. That description could cover everything from a problem with the ship’s hydraulics to power generators to potable water equipment.
In an email to Military.com on Friday, Carter said that the ship was at sea conducting training to prepare it for an eventual deployment and the breakdown comes just weeks after the Marine Corps began calling for more regular deployments of its Marine units that serve aboard ships like the Iwo Jima.
A ship watcher who goes by the name AirAssets online first spotted the problem when they noticed, using tracking websites, several tugs sailing out into open waters off Virginia Beach to meet the ship. Several hours later, the Iwo Jima was spotted coming back to Norfolk.
Carter would not offer more details about what exactly failed on the ship but did say that it was not an issue with the ship’s rudder. However, AirAssets told Military.com in an interview Friday that the ship struggled to maintain its course as it returned to Norfolk.
Rudder issues were the same problem that forced the USS Boxer to return from its deployment in April just 10 days after setting sail.
In March, a very similar series of events played out with the USS Wasp, the same class of ship as the Iwo Jima and in the same waters off of Virginia.
The same ship watcher spotted the Wasp having issues and abruptly returning to port. The watcher’s account reported that the ship suffered damage to its propeller shaft.
When asked about that March incident, Carter said that the ship “discovered an engineering irregularity” that forced it to return to port without confirming or denying a shaft issue.
“30+-year-old warships will experience materiel challenges,” Carter argued at the time, before noting that the commander of the Navy’s surface fleet in the Atlantic “focuses on … how we respond to those challenges.”
The Wasp ultimately deployed in June, but the Navy’s top officer, Adm. Lisa Franchetti, suggested in April that this may have been later than expected, telling reporters that the service was “seeing some potential delays on Wasp.”
Meanwhile, the Boxer finally deployed in mid-July. The delay meant that the two other ships carrying a large portion of the Marine expeditionary units, or MEUs, had to spend months in the Pacific Ocean without the Marines, aircraft and vehicles that the Boxer was set to carry.
These delays and breakdowns are set to reignite a point of friction between the Navy and Marine Corps over whether the sea service can reliably transport Marines to sea so that they can fulfill their obligation of being a ready response force.
Last year, then-Commandant of the Marine Corps Gen. David Berger expressed serious regrets over the fact that he wasn’t able to have Marines ready to go in the Mediterranean Sea amid two crises: a massive earthquake in Turkey and unrest in Sudan.
“Places like Turkey or, the last couple of weeks, in Sudan — I feel like I let down the combatant commander,” Berger told members of the House Armed Services Committee in April 2023.
More recently, in January 2024, a Marine Corps three-star general also said that not only are the Navy’s amphibious ships not ready to deploy Marines around the world on time, the problem also has no short-term fix.
Since then, both Franchetti and the current leader of the Marine Corps, Gen. Eric Smith, have tried to present a more unified front on the issue. But just last month, Smith released his annual planning document that both codified his intent to constantly have a MEU on deployment and also noted that the Navy needs to do more to help the Marine Corps meet that goal.
“My intent is for the Marine Corps to provide Geographic Combatant Commanders with a continuous 3.0 MEU presence,” Smith said in the planning document, before noting that “the term 3.0 refers to heel-to-toe deployments of one MEU from the East Coast, one MEU from the West Coast, and the 31st MEU originating from Forward Deployed Naval Forces (FDNF) in Japan.”
The document went on to emphasize that his ability to make good on that goal relies heavily on the Navy having enough amphibious ships to support the Marines, and he added that, “in the meantime, [Marines] must find creative solutions in lieu of perfect remedies.”
Smith said he would continue to advocate for five ships based in Japan and noted that, in order “to meet the material and personnel readiness goals associated with a 3.0 MEU requirement, the United States Navy will likely require increased resources” for years to come.
Related: Top Navy Leader Has Ordered ‘Deep Dive’ on Amphibious Ship Readiness After Delays with USS Boxer