The Nation - News from April 26, 1989

An engineering team will begin assessing damage aboard the battleship Iowa this week to try to determine whether its No. 2 gun turret, where 47 crewmen were killed in an explosion last Wednesday, can be repaired, the Navy said. The team will begin work in a few days, said Lt. Cmdr. Steve Burnett, a spokesman for the U.S. Atlantic Fleet, but it will not look at what might have caused the blast, leaving that investigation to a separate Naval board of inquiry. Forgoing repairs would be a good idea because the technology and materials needed to fix the 49-year-old ship no longer exist, said retired Rear Adm. Eugene LaRocque of the Center for Defense Information in Washington. LaRocque said his center has estimated that repairs to the Iowa could cost $100 million or more.