San Diego-Based Carrier USS Carl Vinson Headed to Hawaii to Lead Giant RIMPAC Exercise

The storied USS Carl Vinson, a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier long based in San Diego, is scheduled to arrive in Hawaii on Wednesday to lead the multinational RIMPAC exercise.

The Navy said the massive warship, which has over 5,000 personnel and 60 aircraft aboard, would dock in Pearl Harbor ahead of the beginning of RIMPAC on Thursday.

Commissioned in 1982, the Vinson was the ship from which 9/11 terrorist Osama bin Laden was buried at sea in 2010.

The biennial Rim of the Pacific exercise, which will run though Aug. 1 in and around the Hawaiian Islands, is the world’s largest naval exercise.

This year 29 nations are sending 40 surface ships, three submarines, 14 national land forces, and over 150 aircraft.

Vice Adm. John Wade, commander of the 3rd Fleet, will lead the multinational task force in a range of scenarios from anti-submarine warfare, multi-ship surface warfare and multinational amphibious landings to multi-axis defense of a carrier strike group against live forces.

“RIMPAC is the premier joint and combined maritime exercise in the world,” said Wade. “I’m looking forward to returning to Hawaii to exercise and rehearse as a combined multinational operational force.”

Royal Australian Navy Lt. Cmdr. Timothy Gill, coordinator of the exercise, called RIMPAC “a uniquely complex and challenging multinational environment for forces to train in areas where common national objectives overlap.”