USS Benfold Went Four Days Without Power in the South China Sea. Navy Didn't Tell Anyone For Weeks.

A US Navy destroyer sat dead in the water in the South China Sea for four days last month, unable to move under its own power, while temperatures outside hovered near 98 degrees Fahrenheit.

The USS Benfold, an Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer, suffered what the Navy calls an "engineering casualty involving its generators" on July 24, according to Cmdr. Matthew Comer, spokesperson for the US 7th Fleet. The failure knocked out toilets, galley services, air conditioning and potable water aboard the nearly 10,000-ton warship, Comer confirmed in statements to CNN, CBS News and USNI News, which first reported the incident.

No one was hurt. The Navy credited the crew with "resilience, grit, professionalism and unwavering steadiness." But a warship with no propulsion, sitting in waters China claims as its own, is not a minor inconvenience. It's a target.

Towed to the Philippines, then quietly fixed

Contracted tugboats towed the Benfold to Subic Bay in the Philippines on July 28. Repair crews from the Ship Repair Facility-Japan Regional Maintenance Center met the ship on arrival. Power was restored two days later, on July 30, according to CBS News. Sailors were moved into contracted lodging off the ship starting July 29.

Full repairs weren't finished until August 7. The ship left Subic Bay a day later with engineering, combat systems and crew support all back to normal, CBS News reported, citing Navy officials.

That's a two-week window between the breakdown and full repair, plus another two-plus weeks before the public heard about any of it. The incident happened July 24. It didn't become public until mid-August, when USNI News broke the story.

Not exactly abandoned, but not exactly safe either

The Benfold was sailing with the USS George Washington Carrier Strike Group when it broke down. The strike group didn't leave it stranded. The guided-missile cruiser USS Robert Smalls cooked meals for the crew, and other ships in the group provided support during the outage, Comer said.

Officals told CBS News the ship was protected by nearby air and surface assets and that the Navy wouldn't leave a broken-down destroyer exposed "like a sitting duck." That's a fair point, and it's worth taking at face value. The Navy has ships, planes and satellites watching that stretch of water constantly, and a coordinated tow-and-repair operation isn't something you improvise on the fly.

But a fair question follows: how much protection is enough when your ship can't move, can't necessarily fight at full capacity, and is sitting in the exact waters where China has been ramping up naval patrols and territorial claims for years? The Navy hasn't said whether the outage affected the Benfold's weapons systems, sensors or communications. Those details matter for judging how exposed the ship actually was, and the Navy hasn't released them.

Timing makes it worse

The Benfold breakdown lands in the middle of a much bigger story about a Navy stretched thin. The USS Abraham Lincoln has been deployed for more than 250 days without a port call amid heightened tensions with Iran, according to The Guardian. Reports from Navy Times and Stars and Stripes described multiple attempted suicides aboard the Lincoln, prompting Democratic lawmakers to demand answers about crew mental health and living conditions.

President Trump said Monday the Lincoln had been at sea a "good period of time" but said a retired admiral told him the ship was "beautifully maintained and beautifully taken care of." The USS George Washington is now headed to the Middle East to relieve the Lincoln, according to The Guardian and CNN, which is part of why the Benfold, normally part of that strike group, is stuck in Asia instead of moving with it.

Retired Navy Capt. Carl Schuster, who once spent about four hours on a powerless destroyer near Puerto Rico, told CNN the psychological strain compounds fast. "I can assure you four hours in the waters southeast of Puerto Rico is not nearly as stressful as four days in the South China Sea," he said.

Republican Rep. Don Bacon called for congressional oversight Sunday on "Face the Nation," saying top Navy officials should testify about fleet readiness. Retired Navy Capt. Brent Sadler told Fox News the Lincoln's extended deployment is a symptom of a fleet too small to sustain the traditional six-month rotation, and pushed for more shipbuilding.

Times of India reported this is the second incident of its kind this year, though it didn't detail the first. That claim hasn't been corroborated by other sources reviewed here.

What's still unknown

The Navy's 7th Fleet says the cause of the generator failure is under investigation. No timeline for that investigation's conclusion has been announced. The Navy also hasn't said whether the outage affected weapons, navigation or sensor systems, information that would clarify just how vulnerable the Benfold actually was during those four days. Congress has not yet scheduled the oversight hearing Bacon called for, and no date has been set for Navy officials to testify.