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DDG-67 USS Cole - USNavy - October31, 2000
The semi-submersible ship M/V Blue Marlin carrying damaged USS Cole.
On 12 October 2000, while at anchor in Aden, the Cole was attacked by Al-Qaeda suicide bombers, who sailed a small boat near the destroyer and detonated explosive charges.[1] The blast created a hole in the port side of the ship about 40 feet (12 m) in diameter, killing 17 crewmembers and injuring 39.[4] The ship was under the command of Commander Kirk Lippold.
Cole was returned to the United States aboard the Norwegian heavy-lift vessel MV Blue Marlin owned by Offshore Heavy Transport of Oslo, Norway. The ship was off-loaded 13 December 2000 from Blue Marlin in a pre-dredged deep-water facility at the Pascagoula, Mississippi, shipyard of Northrop Grumman Ship Systems, Ingalls Operations. After 14 months of repair, Cole departed on 19 April 2002, and returned to her homeport of Norfolk, Virginia.