【Breaking: U.S. Missile Destroyer Completely Loses Power in South China Sea】Unbelievable!

According to the U.S. Naval Institute News (USNI News) and CNN, the missile destroyer USS Benfold lost all power completely in the South China Sea on July 24 due to a generator failure—remaining powerless for an entire four days.

With around 300 crew members enduring extreme heat, they were unable to use toilets normally, air conditioning failed, and drinking water supply was disrupted due to the power outage.

This means safety redundancies failed.

It’s not the same as a cruise ship—warships are theoretically designed with ample redundancy and resilience across all systems to ensure combat capability can continue.

Redundancy design should have prevented this situation, but that doesn’t mean it can’t happen.

The USS Benfold was drifting without propulsion at the time.

Lt. Col. Matt Comer, spokesperson for the U.S. Seventh Fleet, stated that it wasn’t until a tugboat towed the vessel to Subic Bay in the Philippines that power was restored—six days after the incident.

This marks the second U.S. destroyer to suffer a power failure in the Indo-Pacific region this year.

At the time, the USS Benfold was operating with the USS Washington (CVN-73) Carrier Strike Group. Another warship within the carrier strike group served as a support vessel, providing food supplies to the disabled destroyer.

At that time, the USS Washington, the cruiser USS Robert Smalls, and the destroyer USS Shoup had just crossed through the Singapore Strait and entered the Strait of Malacca.

The mission of the USS Washington Carrier Strike Group was to replace the USS Lincoln—which has been plagued by numerous issues and drawn criticism from families—continuing operations in the Middle East.

It remains unclear whether the USS Benfold, currently undergoing recovery after the blackout, will proceed to the Middle East to rejoin the other vessels of the USS Washington Carrier Strike Group.

Looking at this from another angle: the problem isn’t just with the carrier itself. If supporting warships in the strike group lose power, does that effectively mean the entire carrier strike group is incapacitated?

The location where the power failure occurred was in the South China Sea—what a coincidence…

This ship was clearly heading toward areas near Iran. Previous carrier strike groups have already experienced serious problems, even involving sailors attempting to jump overboard to escape. Could it be that one sailor aboard this vessel made a spontaneous decision to sabotage the system earlier?

Is damaging the electrical system really that difficult?

Perhaps this is the only plausible explanation for the failure of safety redundancies—because the redundant systems themselves were specifically targeted.

This might very well be the reason the U.S. military is most reluctant to admit publicly.

Original source: toutiao.com/article/1873805305859100/

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author.