Final voyage of the USS Nimitz: Closing a historic chapter

In March 2025, USS "Nimitz" (CVN-68) left its home port at the Kitsap Bremerton base in Washington State. After taking on board the 17th Carrier Air Wing and joining escort ships from Destroyer Squadron (DESRON) 9, the ship was deployed to the western Pacific.

As reported by the US Navy, the task of the aircraft carrier and its accompanying team is "to protect the security, freedom, and prosperity of the United States and their allies and partners, as well as to demonstrate the unwavering commitment of the US Navy to a free and open Indo-Pacific."

According to the current schedule, this is the last operational voyage of the "Nimitz". The oldest of the American aircraft carriers is expected to return in 2026. It will be replaced in service by a new ship, the USS "John F. Kennedy" (CVN 79).

The "Nimitz" will arrive in April 2026 at the Norfolk base in Virginia. In the spring of 2027, everything that can be reused will be removed. The ship will then be stripped of equipment and sent to the HII-Newport News Shipbuilding yard.

There, the estimated 30-month process of deactivating and dismantling the nuclear propulsion system will begin, preceding the demolition and scrapping of the hull. Thus, the over 50-year history of this symbol of the US Navy will end.

The USS "Nimitz" entered service in 1975. It was not the first American nuclear-powered aircraft carrier. That distinction went to the USS "Enterprise" (CVN-65), built over a decade earlier and the only one of its kind. Only one was constructed, and the experiences gained during the design of the Enterprise allowed for the refinement of the Nimitz project.

The design proved to be exceptionally successful. Between 1975 and 2009, 10 Nimitz-class aircraft carriers entered service. From 2017, they have gradually been replaced by the transitional Gerald R. Ford class. The new ships are visually very similar, with the most noticeable difference being a slightly narrower and aft-shifted superstructure.

A new aircraft carrier is being introduced into service in place of the retiring Nimitz (and previously the USS Enterprise), ensuring that the US Navy maintains 11 units of this class at all times. Considering the time required for repairs, modernisation, and training, the Pentagon always has 3 to 4 aircraft carriers ready for deployment to various parts of the world.

The number of necessary aircraft carriers, however, remains a subject of debate. Certain proposals suggest reducing the fleet to 10 active ships. Conversely, some analyses indicate a need to expand the fleet to 12 units.

The process of replacing the Nimitz class is elongated. Current schedules predict that the last ship of this type will be withdrawn from service in 2058.

The USS "Nimitz" is truly a "floating city." The ship displaces over 100,000 tons (the first units in the series slightly less) and spans 1,093 feet in length. It is operated by a crew of up to 6,300 people, and its infrastructure resembles a small town, including a cinema, sports centres, its own media, and a hospital. The scale of the challenges is evidenced by the organization of the onboard kitchen, which serves over 18,000 meals a day.

The dimensions of the ship's superstructure accentuate its size. Although the distinctive "island" located on the starboard side seems small compared to the entire ship, it stands at 151 feet high. It houses command centres responsible for air operations, ship operations, and directing the actions of the carrier strike group—the team of surface and underwater units accompanying the aircraft carrier.

Its key advantage is the air group housed in a hangar approximately 656 feet long. It accommodates the equivalent of a small country's air forces, comprising 70-90 aircraft, more than half of which are combat aircraft.

The current air group of the USS "Nimitz", formed by the 17th Carrier Air Wing, consists of nine squadrons. Four are equipped with F/A-18E/F Super Hornet aircraft, and one with EA-18G Growler electronic warfare aircraft.

These are complemented by E-2D Advanced Hawkeye early warning aircraft, MH-60 helicopters (the naval variant of the Black Hawk), and C-2A Greyhound carrier transport aircraft.

The strength of American aircraft carriers is not demonstrated by their size or the number of aircraft in the hangar, but by their ability to conduct air operations at an intensity unachievable by carriers from other countries.

This is ensured by the construction of American ships, with four large elevators capable of bringing 30-ton aircraft onto the deck, and the organisation of work on deck, where different tasks are assigned different colour-coded uniforms.

A Nimitz-class ship can launch up to 30 aircraft within 10 minutes, and the number of flights the unit can handle in a day exceeds 200. The Gerald R. Ford-class carriers, equipped with electromagnetic catapults, can launch aircraft faster.

Besides the might of its carrier-based aviation, another critical advantage of the Nimitz-class carriers is their propulsion. Nuclear power allows for a constant, high speed (over 35 mph) and, most importantly, provides the ship with unlimited range. This is crucial when the USA must respond swiftly to events in distant parts of the world, allowing the aircraft carrier to be sent to a volatile region immediately, without needing prior refuelling.

The end of service of the first Nimitz-class carrier is associated with many challenges. The enormity of these challenges is exemplified by the fate of the first American nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, the USS "Enterprise", which was decommissioned in 2012 and formally removed from the fleet five years later.

Despite the passage of time, the ship has still not been scrapped. Procedures for safely deactivating and dismantling the nuclear drive have been developed over the years. After shutting down the reactors and removing the fuel, the ship's power plant is to be secured and transported by a special train to the Hanford facility in Washington State, where the storage site for decommissioned submarine nuclear drives, Trench 94, is located.

The same fate awaits the USS "Nimitz", which, due to the already established procedures and their testing on the USS "Enterprise", will likely be dismantled more swiftly. The cost of scrapping a single aircraft carrier is estimated to range from $0.5 billion to even $1.5 billion.