Aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt conducts 'man overboard' search for missing sailor

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The USS Theodore Roosevelt is looking for a "possible" man overboard in the Pacific three days after deploying for the second time this year from San Diego.

One sailor is missing from the aircraft carrier, the Navy’s Third Fleet said in a statement. Other warships and aircraft are aiding in search-and-rescue operations, including the U.S. Coast Guard, U.S. Navy aircraft, USS Bunker Hill, USS Russell, USS Howard and USS Charleston.

The ship initiated search-and-rescue procedures on Friday after a lookout spotted what appeared to be a person in the water. "Three search-and-rescue helicopters and a Rigid Hull Inflatable Boat were launched in response, and one sailor was unaccounted for during a command-wide muster," the fleet said.

USS THEODORE ROOSEVELT BACK AT SEA AFTER CORONAVIRUS OUTBREAK

The Navy Times later identified the missing sailor as 20-year-old Aviation Ordnanceman Airman Apprentice Ethan Goolsby of San Antonio, according to his parents, who spoke to the publication.

The Roosevelt suffered a massive coronavirus outbreak on a deployment earlier this year, forcing the warship to dock in Guam for two months and isolate most of the crew. One sailor died, to date -- the only death from active-duty forces out of 1.3 million. 

The coronavirus outbreak ultimately infected over 1,000 sailors on board the “Big Stick,” as the aircraft carrier is known, or about 20% of the crew.

This is the latest in a series of setbacks for the massive warship.  

The former commanding officer of the aircraft carrier, Capt. Brett Crozier, was fired in early April over his handling of the COVID outbreak while deployed to the Western Pacific, which included an urgent plea for help in a letter transmitted over unsecured channels to top Navy brass and later leaked to the San Francisco Chronicle.

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Thomas B. Modly, the acting Navy secretary at the time who fired Capt. Crozier, resigned over his own conduct after sacking the aircraft carrier skipper. 

Modly flew from the Pentagon halfway around the world to Guam to berate the crew over the ship’s intercom and called their former skipper -- who was popular with the crew -- “too naïve or too stupid to be a commanding officer” for thinking his letter would not get leaked to the press. Modly’s tirade was later leaked to the press, as well.