One of the largest warships in the world, she was laid down, launched, and commissioned as CVAN , "aircraft carrier, attack, nuclear powered ", but she was later redesignated as CVN , "aircraft carrier, multi-mission , nuclear-powered", on 30 June , as part of a fleet-wide realignment that year.
Nimitz , USN, — , who was the Navy's third fleet admiral. Nimitz was authorized by the U. The keel was laid down on 22 June The vessel was christened on 13 May , by Catherine Nimitz Lay, the daughter of the late Admiral Nimitz , six years after his death. Atlantic Fleet , for being the most efficient and foremost aircraft carrier in the Atlantic Fleet. The cruise was uneventful, and the carrier returned to Norfolk, Virginia on 7 February A second uneventful Mediterranean cruise was conducted from 1 December , to 20 July The third deployment began on 10 September , to the Mediterranean.
The ship moved to the Indian Ocean in response to the Iran hostage crisis in which the U. Embassy in Tehran , Iran , was overtaken and 52 hostages were held. Prior to this trip, the ship took part in the shooting of the film The Final Countdown , whose story was specifically set aboard the Nimitz. After four months on station, Operation Evening Light was launched from Nimitz ' s decks in an attempt to rescue the U. Embassy staff.
The mission was aborted after a helicopter crashed at a refueling point in the Iranian desert. The ship returned home 26 May , having spent days at sea. In an article by Robert Reinhold in the 17 June , edition of The New York Times , it was reported that "Experts at the National Institute on Drug Abuse say that it would probably be impossible to establish conclusively that any of the Nimitz crew had been smoking marijuana on the night of the crash because the test does not directly detect the component of marijuana smoke that acts on the brain.
Because the metabolites may persist in the blood for many days, the test may detect marijuana that was used many days earlier long after the effects have worn off". Nimitz deployed again to the Mediterranean on 3 August On the morning of 19 August , two Grumman F Tomcats of VF were engaged by two Libyan Sus , resulting in the two Libyan aircraft being shot down in what became known as the Gulf of Sidra incident.
