ST. MARY’S TODAY

PATUXENT RIVER --- Instead of allowing personnel to have medical care, lawyers were brought to the Norfolk Naval Air Station to investigate the results of a mishap aboard a decommissioned helicopter aircraft carrier last week near Norfolk where a test of the ability of the Navy to respond to a terrorist attack on a ship was conducted.

The purpose of a test on the Viet Nam War era aircraft carrier was to allow the Navy to measure the damage done to a ship and the affect on the personnel and the vessel’s seaworthiness, according to sources familiar with the test.

But the amount of explosives used, was calculated at what sources say was an incorrect rate, and what should have been a minor explosion was instead ferocious.

The blast causing severe damage to the ship and sent a cloud of toxic fumes and asbestos swirling through the air space occupied by the Navy personnel and civilian contractors on hand for the test.

More than 300 pounds of C4 explosives were used along with an accelorent, causing the elevator shaft on the carrier to rip open and spew fumes throughout the ship, which was located about 280 miles out in the Atlantic Ocean.

The ship, the USS Inchon, was commissioned in 1970 and was the last in the Iwo Jima class of helicopter carriers, later converted to a amphibious assault ship and in 1994 converted to a command and control ship to support the aggressive advance of American troops as was found needed during Desert Storm.

The ship is now under guard at a dock at Norfolk with the status of the unexploded C4 explosive possibly being determined.

Contractors and civilian Navy and Army personnel were involved in the testing, with some personnel coming from Dyncorp at Pax River, some from the Navy’s David Taylor Model Basin at Carderock near Washington and some from the Army Proving Grounds at Aberdeen.

Navy officials who learned that such a test was performed with contractors and Navy sailors on aboard the ship and put at risk unnecessarily were reportedly appalled at the action.

Personnel were told immediately after the large blast to abandon ship but had to return to staterooms to obtain their life vests, choking in passageways on the chemically charged smoke.

Testing could have been conducted remotely with the use of cameras and testing devises without endangering anyone on the ship, say sources familiar with the test.

Ships assisting with the test of a terrorist blast included the Apache and the Mohawk.

The Inchon served in support of operations at Somalia, Liberia and Kosovo as well as Desert Storm.