The world's most expensive aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford is withdrawing from operations related to the war in Iran and sailing to the US Navy base in Crete for repairs, CNN reports, bTV reports.
A fire broke out on the aircraft carrier last week, a US official said. The move of the most advanced US aircraft carrier comes at a time when military operations against Iran are still in full swing, especially as the US seeks ways to reduce the threat from Iran to shipping in the Strait of Hormuz.
The aircraft carrier served as a ready platform for US fighter jets to participate in the campaign. The fire on March 12 was not related to combat operations, the US military said at the time. Two sailors were treated for non-life-threatening injuries and are in stable condition.
The US official said the USS Gerald R. Ford, which is sailing in the Red Sea, will be in Souda Bay in Crete "for a short period of time to make repairs" that will determine what can be fixed immediately and what may need to be fixed when the ship returns to port after its deployment.
The other ships in the Ford strike group remain where they are in the region. USNI News first reported that the Ford was heading to Souda Bay for repairs. The Pentagon did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Dan Kaine, said Friday that the Pentagon was aware of the fire aboard the Ford. "Our thoughts are with the crew who were injured in the fire," Kaine said during a Pentagon press briefing. "We trust and hope that everyone will be okay, and we are grateful for that."
The Ford, the Navy's most advanced aircraft carrier, has been deployed for months, first to the Caribbean as part of a buildup of U.S. troops in the region amid heightened tensions with Venezuela.
In February, President Donald Trump said he was sending an aircraft carrier strike group to the Middle East to put more pressure on Iran. The strike group entered the Mediterranean Sea in late February.
The USS Abraham Lincoln carrier strike group is also deployed to the region. The Ford could break the record for the longest carrier deployment since the Vietnam War if it remains deployed through mid-April, according to USNI News.
According to U.S. Southern Command, the ship departed for a deployment to the Caribbean on June 24, 2025. The fire last week was followed by reports of persistent plumbing problems aboard the carrier, although the Navy said the problems did not affect the carrier's operations.
The New York Times reported this week that the fire took more than 30 hours to extinguish and that 600 crew members lost their beds. The US official, however, said the overall response to the fire took 30 hours – extinguishing the fire, cleaning up the damage from water or other substances used to extinguish the fire, and ensuring there were no flames – not that the fire itself burned for 30 hours.
The official also said that just over 100 beds were damaged in the fire, as some sleeping quarters are adjacent to the laundry room. But they acknowledged that a total of about 600 sailors were displaced from their sleeping quarters or beds.
The displacement can occur because their specific bed was affected – sometimes beds are shared by service members on opposite shifts – or because the entire space is deemed uninhabitable due to smoke or water damage to some of the beds. The Ford strike group consists of the aircraft carrier and its air wing, as well as the Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyers USS Mahan, USS Bainbridge, and USS Winston S. Churchill.