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USS Benfold lost power for four days in South China Sea

The Arleigh Burke-class destroyer lost generator power during routine operations and was left without power for four days after the July 24 engineering failure.

Reported · Written up by our desk · Trade & Tariffs

A US guided-missile destroyer, the USS Benfold, lost power and was left stalled for four days in the South China Sea after an engineering failure involving its generators on July 24, according to the US Navy statement cited by SCMP Economy.

SCMP Economy reports the nearly 10,000-tonne Arleigh Burke-class vessel was operating with the USS George Washington Carrier Strike Group when it lost power during routine activity in the Indo-Pacific, with the incident occurring while the destroyer was underway.

SCMP Economy also notes that a former US Navy captain, Brad Martin, now a policy researcher at the RAND Corporation, said the occurrence was extremely unusual and would require multiple failures, adding that deferred maintenance and training gaps can make such failures more likely.

The outlet said more details would be needed to fully understand what happened, after a US Seventh Fleet spokesman, Commander Matthew Comer, described the loss of power in the Navy statement.

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