An investigation is underway after a U.S. Navy warship lost power and propulsion for hours on Tuesday, April 28. Here is the latest on the incident and why it is so concerning.

More Details Emerge About Concerning Power Outage on U.S. Navy Warship

U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) officials are looking into why a Navy warship lost power and propulsion last month in the Indo-Pacific. The official statement from the U.S. Navy said that an "engineering casualty" in the ship's electrical system was to blame for the outage. This means that while the incident was not a large fire, it was significant enough to short-circuit one of the generators aboard the ship.

The guided missile destroyer USS Higgins was carrying about 300 crew members when it lost power. The Navy confirmed that there were no injuries on board blamed on the incident.

More information about the power loss has since been released. Cmdr. Matthew Comer, a spokesperson for the US 7th Fleet, noted in a statement that the Higgins "experienced a loss of power throughout the ship." Comer detailed that “Initial reports indicate an electrical malfunction, which may have produced sparking or smoke that ceased once power was removed." The commander confirmed that the power and propulsion have since been restored aboard the Higgins.

A defense official said that the power and propulsion outage on the Arleigh Burke-class destroyer lasted for several hours. Nautical and defense experts said that this is a significant amount of time for a ship to be without power.

Carl Schuster, a former captain with the U.S. Navy, said that "the ship is helpless, electronically blind and immobile" when describing the problems of being rendered without power. The Higgins essentially lost its ability to control how it moved throughout the open seas. What is most concerning is that the combat defenses were rendered inoperable as a result of the outage. This also means that the radars were also not operable, leaving the ship defenseless.

The emergency diesel generators on board the Higgins are only able to power the communications system and air conditioning.

The Navy did not detail precisely where the incident happened. The official Indo-Pacific Command area expands across a large swath of this part of the world's oceans, stretching from the waters off of the West Coast of the U.S. to the western border of India to the west. To the north, the area of responsibility expands from the North Pole to Antarctica.

About the USS Higgins

Commissioned in 1999, the Higgins typically carries a crew of about 300 people. The ship calls a port in Yokosuka, Japan, home. The Higgins is one of over 70 destroyers in the Arleigh Burke-class. These types of ships are considered to be the primary workhorses that service the U.S. Navy's surface fleet.

The USS Higgins measures 505 feet long, displacing over 8.200 tons. The destroyer carries the technical Aegis combat system, including several vertical launch tubes used for a variety of missiles. This includes the capability to launch the Tomahawk land-attack missiles.

The U.S. Indo-Pacific Command oversees American military operations in over half of the world. The warship is named after Marine Col. William Higgins, who served in the Vietnam War. Higgins is best known for being a member of a United Nations peacekeeping mission to southern Lebanon in February 1988. While on the mission, Higgins was kidnapped by militants linked to Hezbollah. The militants tortured and murdered Higgins. His remains were not found until December 1991.

This is not the first time this year that a U.S. Navy vessel has experienced problems. The USS Gerald R. Ford aircraft carrier had a fire break out in the ship's laundry area last month. The March 12 fire was not related to combat. Two sailors aboard the Ford received medical attention for non-life-threatening injuries as a result of the fire.

Earlier in April, another small fire broke out on board the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower aircraft carrier. According to reporting from the U.S. Naval Institute, eight U.S. Navy sailors were injured in this fire.

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