Carrier Midway Docks in Japan; 2 Californians Dead

The U.S. aircraft carrier Midway docked at its home base Thursday after two shipboard explosions that killed two crew members and injured 16 others, nine seriously.

“Midway is safe and seaworthy in all respects,” Rear Adm. Lyle Bull, commander of the 7th Fleet battle force, told about 100 reporters aboard the 67,000-ton ship a day after the blasts.

“The safety of the ship was never in jeopardy,” Bull said shortly after the ship moored at the U.S. naval base in Yokosuka, 30 miles southwest of Tokyo.

The Pentagon identified the two dead sailors as Ulric Patrick Johnson, 20, of Martinez, Calif., a mess management specialist, and Jeffrey Allan Vierra, 20, a fireman, of Nevada City, Calif.

The commander said there was no danger to the ship’s weapons area from the explosions in a 12-by-12-foot storeroom for firefighting and other emergency equipment about six decks below the flight deck.

Bull said the casualties occurred when a firefighting crew investigated smoke coming from the storeroom shortly before noon Wednesday. The first explosion occurred when they opened the hatch and entered, he said.

For the two sailors killed, “death most probably was instantaneous,” Bull said.