A wooden replica U.S. aircraft carrier attacked by Iran last month as part of a propaganda exercise appears to have capsized in the Strait of Hormuz, blocking a key shipping channel in the process.
Satellite imagery from Aurora Intel published in a Forbes report reveals the carrier listing at roughly 90 degrees with the starboard side facing upwards.
The capsized vessel was “listing steeply to one side, with nearly half of the flight deck submerged,” the report said.
New imagery from yesterday shows the capsized #IRGC replica of the Nimitz Class Carrier appears to have listed more outside of Bandar Abbas Port, #Iran. She appears more listed here than previous imagery from the 31st July. The depth here is a reported 14m. Fun to reclaim…. pic.twitter.com/tKTHJAaGCS
— Aurora Intel (@AuroraIntel) August 2, 2020
As Breitbart News reported last month, the vessel resembles the Nimitz-class carriers the U.S. Navy sails into the Persian Gulf from the Strait of Hormuz, its narrow mouth through which 20 percent of the world’s oil passes.
The elaborate fake had been used as a target for missiles fired by the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard as well as the Iranian Navy which in turn attacked with small speed boats.
The unmanned wooden target remained stationary and defenseless in the strategic Strait of Hormuz during the entire drill.
Soon after the exercise, the U.S. Navy taunted Iran’s ability to attack an unmanned, defenseless target ship by taking to Instagram and showing the bogus American aircraft carrier with a bullseye on it.
Now it appears the same replica vessel is located on the seabed near the harbor entrance to Bandar Abbas — a main approach channel in the Strait of Hormuz, Forbes said.
The report added the water there is only 45-feet deep, which will make it almost impossible for the ship to sink entirely.
It began to sink when it was being towed back to Bandar Abbas after being attacked. Sebastien Roblin wrote for Forbes on July 31 the vessel was “listing steeply to one side, with nearly half of the flight deck submerged.” Since then the situation has deteriorated.
As a result, Iranian forces will likely be tasked with recovering the carrier in order to prevent it from causing damage to other ships of the regime trying to sail through that area.
It is all a far cry from the confident attitude Iran was showing just a few weeks ago, as Breitbart News reported.
“What was shown today in these exercises, at the level of aerospace and naval forces, was all offensive,” Iran’s Revolutionary Guards commander Major General Hossein Salami told state television on the day the fake wooden carrier was attacked.
The usually excitable Salami’s observations now the same carrier has capsized and blocked entry to a key Iran port remain unrecorded.
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