The aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan is moving to the Korean Peninsula to meet the USS Carl Vinson for training exercises. It left two days after North Korea’s ballistic missile launch Sunday.
The US Navy is moving a second aircraft carrier to the Korean Peninsula amid growing tensions in the region.
The USS Ronald Reagan is going to meet the strike group led by the USS Carl Vinson to conduct training exercises.
The Reagan left from its homeport, Yokosuka, Japan, on Tuesday, just two days after North Korea launched a ballistic missile 500 miles into the Sea of Japan Sunday.
The carrier had just finished maintenance and sea trials in its homeport before it set off for the Korean Peninsula, according to CNN .
When it arrives, the Reagan will do training exercises and ensure it can safely launch and recover aircraft.
‘Coming out of a long in-port maintenance period we have to ensure that Ronald Reagan and the remainder of the strike group are integrated properly as we move forward, ‘ said Rear Admiral Charles Williams according to CNN.
Navy officials did not say how long both carriers will be in the region together, but it is expected the Reagan will replace the Vinson when it finishes deployment.
The Reagan is a 1,092-foot Nimitz-class nuclear powered carrier and has a crew of 4,539. It has about 60 aircraft and was commissioned in 2003. The carrier cost about $8.5 billion.
Trump sent the USS Carl Vinson carrier group to the Korean Peninsula last month as a warning, amid growing fears North Korea could conduct another nuclear test in defiance of United Nations sanctions.
The carrier was sent ahead of the 85th anniversary of the foundation of the Korean People’s Army, which has been marked with nuclear tests or missile launches in the past.
Instead, South Korea’s military said that North Korea held massive live-fire drills, the North’s ‘largest ever’ in an area around its eastern coastal town of Wonsan as it marked the anniversary.
Angered by the approach of the US aircraft carrier group, a defiant North Korea said the deployment was ‘an extremely dangerous act by those who plan a nuclear war to invade’.
Sunday, Kim Jong-Un fired a ballistic missile 500 miles into the Sea of Japan in the latest show of force amid tensions with the US.
The launch took place in the Kusong region located northwest of the capital, Pyongyang, where the North previously test-launched an intermediate-range missile it is believed to be developing.
A US official told CNN the missile landed in water 60 miles south of Russia’s Vladivostok region, home of the Russian Pacific Fleet – although the Russian defense ministry said it had landed 310 miles off the coast.
It was the first launch in two weeks since the last attempt ended in a failure just minutes into flight.
