UK’s Crumbling Navy Power
Failing to revive a crumbling empire, UK’s newest and largest aircraft carrier, broke down again on the 2nd day of a mission to the US
RT / August 29, 2022 // BBC / August 29, 2022
$3.5bn UK aircraft carrier breaks down again
The stricken HMS Prince of Wales suffered a “mechanical issue,” the Royal Navy says
Britain’s biggest ship and the second of the Royal Navy’s two aircraft carriers, HMS Prince of Wales, has broken down shortly after embarking on a cross-Atlantic aviation trial.
The carrier “remains in the South Coast Exercise Area while conducting investigations into an emerging mechanical issue,” the Royal Navy’s spokesperson said in a statement to the media on Sunday.
The incident occurred just one day after the vessel left Portsmouth for what the Royal Navy described as “a landmark mission to shape the future of stealth jet and drone operations.”
The UK Defence Journal cited a source as saying divers discovered that the ship’s propeller shaft appeared to be damaged.
Built at a cost of £3bn, this isn’t the first time that the 65,000-ton vessel has suffered technical issues since it entered service in 2019. At the end of 2020, it was stranded in Portsmouth after a flooded engine room led to electrical damage.
The carrier, which has a crew of 1,600, spent fewer than 90 days at sea during its first two years of service after suffering multiple leaks, according to The Guardian.
“Britain is lucky this landmark event happened near home. Imagine the embarrassment if this had happened in the South China Sea,” someone tweets.
Indeed, its twin sister carrier, HMS Queen Elizabeth, had managed to put on a long voyage to provoke China in the South China Sea in July 2021, before loosing one of its F-35B Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter in the Mediterranean Sea on her way home.
According to a report, the Prince of Wales is now anchored southeast of the Isle of Wight in England. It states that, unless the problem can be resolved at sea enabling the warship to continue its journey to the US, it might need to go into dry dock at Rosyth in Scotland early, ahead of a planned inspection in 2023.
Therefore the LORD, the God of hosts, the LORD saith thus: “Wailing shall be in all streets, and they shall say in all the highways, ‘Alas! Alas!’ And they shall call the husbandman to mourning, and such as are skillful in lamentation to wailing.
And in all vineyards shall be wailing, for I will pass through thee,” saith the LORD.
Woe unto you that desire the day of the LORD! To what end is it for you? The day of the LORD is darkness, and not light:
as if a man fled from a lion, and a bear met him; or went into the house and leaned his hand on the wall, and a serpent bit him.
Shall not the day of the LORD be darkness, and not light? Even very dark, and no brightness in it? Amos 5:16-20
Joel Huan
The Mystery of Ephraim 