Fire Injures 18 Sailors on Carrier Constellation

Eighteen sailors were injured Tuesday when a fire of unknown origin swept through the engine room of the Constellation as the giant aircraft carrier left San Diego on a routine training mission.

Fourteen of the injured were flown to Navy Hospital in Balboa Park and were treated for minor injuries, officials said. Eight suffered from smoke inhalation, six from burns and four from minor bumps and bruises.

Navy officials said the fire started about 12:10 p.m. and was quickly contained. But, for an unknown reason, the blaze reignited, and it was still being fought late Tuesday night. Lt. Cmdr. Bob Pritchard, however, said the fire did not extend beyond the engine room.

“It’s taking pretty much all the crew’s energies just to limit it to that space,” Pritchard said.

The fire was serious enough for the Navy to ask the Federal Aviation Administration for an “airspace reservation,” keeping all aircraft within a 5-mile radius and below 5,000 feet away from the ship. The measure was still in effect late Tuesday.

Pritchard said a “full investigation” will be conducted into the blaze, which was occupying almost every member of the carrier’s 2,500-member crew Tuesday.

“They’re continuing the effort,” he said. “They’ve done a super job . . . Fighting a fire on board a ship of that size is an all-hands evolution. To the best of our knowledge, ‘The Connie’ has never, in its history, suffered anything like this.”

The ship was 4 miles out to sea--”just over the horizon,” as Pritchard put it--when the fire broke out. He noted that the carrier’s air wing, including jets and jet crews, were not aboard. Helicopters were on the ship, but none was damaged, he said.

The Constellation was commissioned at the New York Naval Shipyard on Oct. 27, 1961.