00:23A U.S. Navy destroyer was left without power for four days in the South China Sea
00:29after a major engineering failure.
00:31The incident involved the USS Benfold, an Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyer,
00:38operating with the USS George Washington Carrier Strike Group.
00:42On July 24, during routine operations in the Indo-Pacific, USS Benfold suffered an engineering
00:50casualty involving its generators, resulting in a complete loss of electrical power.
00:56According to the U.S. 7th Fleet, no sailors were injured, but the blackout left the nearly
01:0310,000-ton warship in a serious predicament.
01:06The ship could not operate normally under its own power while essential services were disrupted.
01:13Galley operations were unavailable, toilets were affected, air conditioning was lost,
01:18and access to potable water was also impacted.
01:21For the crew, that meant enduring the extreme heat of the South China Sea in late July without
01:28normal climate control.
01:30And this was not a brief outage.
01:33The destroyer remained without power for four days.
01:36The USS George Washington Carrier Strike Group provided assistance with the guided missile cruiser
01:43USS Robert Smalls helping supply cooked meals to the crew.
01:48Eventually, contracted tugboats towed Benfold to Subic Bay in the Philippines.
01:54The destroyer arrived there on July 28th.
01:57Crew members were moved ashore, while repair personnel from the ship repair facility,
02:02Japan Regional Maintenance Center, began working on the ship.
02:06Power was finally restored on July 30th.
02:09All required repairs were completed by August 7th, and Benfold departed Subic Bay under its
02:16own power on August 8th.
02:18The incident is drawing attention because Benfold was operating in one of the most strategically
02:24sensitive maritime regions in the world.
02:27The destroyer was part of the USS George Washington Carrier Strike Group, which had been operating in
02:33the South China Sea amid heightened tensions involving China and the Philippines.
02:38And this was not the only U.S. Navy engineering casualty involving a destroyer in the Indo-Pacific
02:45this year.
02:46The USS Higgins, another R. Lee Burke-class destroyer, also suffered an electrical malfunction
02:53earlier in 2026.
02:55However, there is currently no evidence that either incident was caused by enemy action.
03:00The Navy has described the Benfold incident as an engineering casualty, and the exact
03:06root cause remains under investigation.
03:09For now, USS Benfold is back under its own power after repairs.
03:14But the four-day blackout highlights a serious operational challenge for the U.S. Navy, maintaining
03:21high-tempo deployments across an increasingly contested Indo-Pacific while keeping complex warships
03:28fully operational.
03:29And with the South China Sea remaining a major flashpoint between the United States, China
03:36and regional allies.
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