January 15, 2025
Tommy Gilligan/US Navy/Sipa Press
The USS John F. Kennedy, held at the Navy Yard in South Philadelphia since 2008, will leave the city on Thursday to be scrapped on the Gulf Coast. The decommissioned aircraft carrier is shown above in 2005 at Naval Station Mayport in Florida.
The USS John F. Kennedy will depart the Navy Yard in South Philadelphia on Thursday en route to Texas, where the decommissioned aircraft carrier will be scrapped, the U.S. Naval Sea Systems Command said.
The ship has been docked at the Naval Inactive Ship Maintenance Facility in South Philadelphia since 2008. It was decommissioned in 2007 after nearly 40 years in service, including its role protecting air space in the mid-Atlantic after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
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Navy officials originally planned for the ship to leave Philadelphia on Wednesday, but high winds in the region led to a one-day postponement. The trip to to Brownsville, Texas, is expected to take at least two weeks. Navy officials did not immediately provide a schedule for the ship's departure on Thursday. The aircraft carrier will transit from the Delaware River to the Delaware Bay and out to the Atlantic Ocean.
Nicknamed "Big John," the USS John F. Kennedy was commissioned in 1968 as the last conventional aircraft carrier built for the U.S. Navy. All of the nation's aircraft carriers and submarines are now nuclear-powered. The USS John F. Kennedy was considered a supercarrier because of its higher aircraft capacity than most other ships, and it was built as a variant of the Kitty Hawk class of carriers made in the 1960s.
During its years in service, the USS John F. Kennedy completed 18 deployments. As Cold War tensions rose in the Middle East and North Africa, the carrier made trips to the Mediterranean, Tyrrhenian, Ionian, Ligurian, Aegean and Adriatic seas. It was also deployed for multiple operations during the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq in the early 2000s.
Plans to scrap the ship have been in place since a contract was awarded in 2019. A sister ship, the USS Kitty Hawk, was taken to the same facility on the Gulf Coast to be scrapped in 2022.
The Navy has a detailed history of the USS John F. Kennedy and a gallery of historical photos from its years in service.
The departure of the aircraft carrier on Thursday comes amid ongoing logistical planning for the SS United States to leave Pier 82 in South Philadelphia. After years of failed preservation efforts and a legal battle over its docking at the pier, the ocean liner was purchased by Okaloosa County in Florida last summer to be sunken and turned into the world's largest artificial reef. The SS United States originally was scheduled to depart late last year, but its exit has been delayed by planning for its safe passage.
