No Action for 5 Years: Why Nimitz-Class Aircraft Carrier John C. Stennis Can't Sail

Summary and Key Points You Need to Know: The overhaul and refueling of the USS John C. Stennis, initially slated for completion in August 2025, has been delayed by 14 months, with the new target date now set for October 2026.

-This delay is attributed to COVID-related workforce and material shortages, along with mandatory growth work following ship condition assessments.

-The Stennis overhaul is projected to be the second-longest carrier overhaul since 2001, lasting 1,990 days. The Navy plans to enhance sailor quality of life during the overhaul, drawing lessons from USS George Washington's prolonged and challenging refit, which lasted 2,120 days.

Navy’s USS Stennis Refueling Now Extended to October 2026

USS John C. Stennis’s overhaul and refueling will be delayed another 14 months, according to the U.S. Navy’s Fiscal Year 2025 budget. 

The overhaul began in 2021, and it was scheduled to last until August 2025. Now, however, Stennis won’t be available until October 2026. The delay is the result of COVID-related workforce and material shortfalls, according to Rear Adm. Casey Morton.

Last April, NAVSEA said the Stennis delay was “due both to mandatory growth work following ship condition assessments, as well as industrial base challenges.”

The Navy is hoping to incorporate lessons learned from USS George Washington’s latest overhaul. 

“George Washington was at the Newport News yard for almost six years before completing the RCOH [Refueling and Complex Overhaul] with the sailors working in the shipyard subject to some of the toughest conditions in the military, according to a 2023 Navy investigation following the deaths by suicide of several sailors assigned to the carrier,” USNI reported. 

Stennis is projected to be overhauled more quickly than George Washington, with more attention paid to the sailor’s quality of life, but it will still be the second-longest carrier overhaul since 2001.

Tracking trends

Since 2001, the U.S. Navy has conducted seven carrier overhauls. The shortest overhaul was USS Nimitz, at 1129 days. Four overhauls took between 1,338 and 1,506 days – USS Dwight D. Eisenhower, USS Carl Vinson, USS Theodore Roosevelt, and USS Abraham Lincoln. 

Stennis and George Washington are outliers. The Stennis overhaul should last 1,990 days. George Washington’s overhaul lasted 2,120 days.

The Navy has requested additional funds for Stennis sailors to live off the ship while the overhaul is being completed. The funds are for “additional months of crew berthing and to provide more off-ship housing in apartments vice barracks for sailors,” USNI reported, citing Navy budget documents. “Beginning with [Stennis] RCOH, no on-board housing is used for crews berthing for sailors during the RCOH. In previous RCOH availabilities, crew move-aboard occurred nearly a year before the ship re-delivered.”

The extra funds are the result of an investigation that found the mid-overhaul George Washington sailors had the “toughest living standards in the U.S. military.” Specifically, the investigation found that Washington sailors had problems with “lack of parking, adequate housing and other amenities, like reliable Wi-Fi and healthy food options.”

The Navy plans to build a $120 million garage that will add 2,800 parking spots. The Washington sailors often had to use satellite parking lots, which could require travel times of up to three hours to get to work.

Stennis was commissioned in 1995, and her RCOH will extend her service life for another few decades. The seventh Nimitz-class carrier, Stennis is nuclear-powered and capable of serving for 20-25 years without refueling. The vessel can accommodate a crew of 6,500. It can hold 90 aircraft, including F/A-18s, MH-60s, and E-2Cs.   

About the Author: Defense Expert Harrison Kass 

Harrison Kass is a defense and national security writer with over 1,000 total pieces on issues involving global affairs. An attorney, pilot, guitarist, and minor pro hockey player, Harrison joined the US Air Force as a Pilot Trainee but was medically discharged. Harrison holds a BA from Lake Forest College, a JD from the University of Oregon, and an MA from New York University. Harrison listens to Dokken.

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