The U.S. Navy’s first DDG-1000 destroyer, the USS Zumwalt, experienced an engineering casualty during a trip from the East Coast to the West Coast and is currently moored in Panama, service officials said Nov. 23.
The ship, which was commissioned in Baltimore last month, was passing through the Panama Canal on its way to its homeport of Naval Base San Diego when the casualty occurred.
Vice Adm. Nora Tyson, commander of U.S. Third Fleet, told the ship “to remain at ex-Naval Station Rodman in Panama to address engineering issues that occurred while transiting the Panama Canal,” said Cmdr. Ryan Perry, a Third Fleet spokesman. “The timeline for repairs is being determined now, in direct coordination with Naval Sea Systems [Command] and Naval Surface Forces.”
The impact on the Zumwalt’s schedule is unclear. Built at General Dynamics [GD] Bath Iron Works in Maine, the ship has been scheduled to arrive at San Diego by year’s end to prepare to be ready for deployment in 2018.
The ship “will undergo repairs once the nature and extent of damages are known,” said Lt. Cmdr. Rebecca Haggard, spokeswoman for Naval Surface Force Pacific. “Until a comprehensive inspection is complete, maintenance requirements known, and a team of trained maintainers arrives in country, there is no way to know with certainty when the ship will be able to resume her transit to San Diego.”
The other two Zumwalt-class destroyers – the Michael Monsoor (DDG-1001) and the Lyndon B. Johnson (DDG-1002) – are under construction at Bath Iron Works.