Kitty Hawk to Be Shifted From S.D. in ’87

The aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk, entangled in scandals allegedly involving a smuggling ring and equipment procurement fraud, will be moved from San Diego--its home port of 24 years--to Florida after an overhaul is completed later this decade, a Navy spokesman said Saturday.

The 80,000-ton carrier, which has been based at North Island Naval Air Station since it was commissioned in 1961, will be replaced by a new carrier that has not yet been built, said Lt. Cmdr. Tom Jurkowsky, a Navy spokesman.

Navy Secretary John Lehman confirmed the Navy’s intention during a media interview last week, Jurkowsky said.

The Kitty Hawk, which has a crew of more than 5,000 (including men in its aircraft squadrons) and an annual payroll of $36 million, is scheduled to undergo a complex overhaul at the naval shipyard in Philadelphia in 1987. The overhaul is expected to take about two years and cost $770 million.

Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-San Diego) was angered by Lehman’s decision to have the ship’s work completed at an East Coast shipyard rather than a West Coast yard and had petitioned Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger to overturn the decision.

“The congressman wanted the overhaul done on the West Coast because of the crew and its family, and because it’s cheaper,” said Hunter aide John Palafoutas.

Jurkowsky said the Navy decided to have the work performed in Philadelphia “because they have the industrial expertise to complete the extensive rehabilitation of the ship.”

The Kitty Hawk, which is more than 1,000 feet long and can carry 85 airplanes, is unable to pass through the Panama Canal and must travel around the tip of South America to reach Philadelphia, Jurkowsky said.

That logistical problem and the fact that Pensacola, Fla., does not have a combat-capable carrier at its base are probably why the Navy chose to transfer the Kitty Hawk to Florida, Jurkowsky said, adding, “The rationale would be that we got the Kitty Hawk on the East Coast (for the overhaul), so let’s leave her there.”

The overhaul, referred by the Navy as SLEP, or service life extension program, involves rebuilding everything from the engine room to elevators, Jurkowsky said. The Kitty Hawk’s last overhaul, completed in 1983 in Bremerton, Wash., took a year and cost $169.5 million.