US Initiates Dismantling of Nuclear Aircraft Carrier Enterprise

The United States is preparing to commence dismantling the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Enterprise, a vessel linked to American military operations off the Libyan coast in 1986. The carrier gained prominence during heightened tensions between Washington and the regime of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, as part of a program costing over $1.3 billion. The carrier, decommissioned in 2017, departed the shipyard in Virginia heading to Mobile, Alabama, where it will undergo dismantling and removal of its nuclear systems, with the project expected to be completed by 2030. This move recalls the military confrontations between the US and Libya in the 1980s, notably in 1986, when the carrier was part of the US naval deployment in the Mediterranean amid escalating tensions. Records indicate the carrier was ordered to the Mediterranean on April 25, 1986, in response to the crisis with Libya, following naval clashes in the Gulf of Sidra in March that year, and participated in air sorties and surveillance missions under Soviet observation. The confrontation escalated in March 1986 when US forces conducted naval operations to assert freedom of navigation in the Gulf of Sidra, after Gaddafi declared a maritime boundary known as the "Line of Death," leading to missile exchanges and strikes on Libyan naval targets. The Enterprise entered service on November 25, 1961, as the world's first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, serving over five decades and participating in major US military operations including Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq before its official decommissioning in 2017. The cost of the carrier’s deactivation and dismantling program is approximately $1.43 billion, covering decommissioning, storage, and contracts for dismantling and disposal of components. The project’s complexity lies in the carrier’s eight nuclear reactors, requiring structural dismantling, reactor removal, handling of radioactive materials under strict protocols, and recycling large portions of its metal structure. Completion of the project is anticipated by 2030.