Carrier USS Gerald R. Ford Sailing in the Atlantic, Headed for Strait of Gibraltar

Aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN-78) and its escorts are operating in the Atlantic Ocean as they sail to U.S. Central Command amid tensions with Iran, USNI News has learned. 

Gerald R. Ford and its escorts are crossing the Atlantic and heading for the Strait of Gibraltar, a Navy official confirmed to USNI News Tuesday.

The carrier has operated in the Caribbean Sea since mid-November as the U.S. amassed naval power in the region before it conducted the early January raid on former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro in downtown Caracas.

Ford is now en route to the Middle East to join the Abraham Lincoln Carrier Strike Group, which is currently operating in the Arabian Sea, as the U.S. negotiates with Iran over its nuclear program. Ford deployed in June from Naval Station Norfolk, Va., and was extended to sail to the Middle East.

The tasking also coincides with the Iranian government’s crackdown on protesters across the country.

Should Ford remain deployed until mid-April, it would have broken the post-Vietnam War 294-day record for carrier deployments – a record USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN-72) set in 2020. If the carrier is out until early May, it would match the 300-day-plus deployments that carriers conducted to the Gulf of Tonkin during the Vietnam War.

USNI News carrier deployment data uses an internal database that does not include training exercises, certification cruises or other qualification underways. The data only includes operational carrier deployments focused on national tasking as a measure of U.S. combat power and doesn’t account for the time sailors are away from home.

In 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, USS Nimitz (CVN-68) was underway for just under a year due to restriction of movement orders and limited port visits meant to reduce the spread of the virus. The carrier was deployed for national tasking for 263 days.

The last time the U.S. had two carriers on station in the Middle East was last summer, when Nimitz and USS Carl Vinson (CVN-70) briefly overlapped in the Arabian Sea following Operation Midnight Hammer, when the U.S. struck Iranian nuclear facilities.