Blaze Erupts on Carrier; 18 Sailors Injured

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

Fourteen of the injured were flown to the Navy Hospital in Balboa Park with minor injuries, officials said. Eight suffered smoke inhalation, six sustained burns and four suffered 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 but had not extended beyond the engine room.

Cause Unknown

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

Cause of the fire was unknown. Pritchard said a “full investigation” will be conducted of 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 four miles out to sea when the fire broke out.

The Constellation--1,079 feet long and 270 feet wide--was commissioned at the New York Naval Shipyard on Oct. 27, 1961. Its most recent six-month deployment was in the North Arabian Sea in 1987.