A demolition team’s mission - to sink the USS Oriskany, a 900 foot long aircraft carrier, the most complex and best built ship in naval warfare, to create the largest artificial reef in the world. Battling through 4 inch thick steel plating and hazardous waste, the team discovers the secret of sinking an aircraft carrier, and in the process, write a new chapter in marine demolition.
#FreeDocumentary #Documentary
#FreeDocumentary #Documentary
Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:00The USS Arisconi. She was a fearsome presence in the wars of Korea and Vietnam.
00:07She hasn't served the U.S. Navy in more than 30 years.
00:12Now a rusted veteran awaiting burial at sea.
00:17Golly, it's like putting a legend on the bottom.
00:21But the Arisconi has one final mission before she's laid to rest.
00:25A salvage crew races the clock to strip the last of her riches.
00:31So this is what we're pulling out. Gold. Copper gold.
00:38Their mission is to remove tons of hazardous material from this floating city.
00:44It's pretty dangerous down there. Crack the skull open, something bad will happen.
00:49Then she will be towed more than 500 miles across the open sea.
00:54But the mighty Arisconi won't go without a fight.
01:01As her end approaches, a bomb squad will rig the ship with lethal quantities of explosives.
01:08We do not want to have an accident, and these kind of accidents kill.
01:13Then this giant will be scutted, creating the largest artificial reef in the world.
01:18It's a high-stakes project. To sink the unsinkable.
01:27Over the centuries, countless ships have been destroyed by war.
01:33Or scuttled to make artificial reefs.
01:48But no one has ever reefed an aircraft carrier.
01:52Docked at Corpus Christi, Texas, the decommissioned Arisconi is the first vessel chosen for the U.S. Navy's artificial reef program.
02:01Sinking the largest and most complex warship on Earth will test the skills of one of the best marine demolition crews in the world.
02:14Their goal is to sink the aircraft carrier with explosives.
02:18But you can't just drop a couple of bombs on an aircraft carrier and expect it to sink.
02:23It's built to stay afloat, under any circumstance.
02:28It's a top-secret ship, and the Navy doesn't want the designs to fall into the wrong hands.
02:33It will take months of planning for the team to unravel the mystery of how to sink the unsinkable.
02:40When this ship was constructed decades ago, there were thousands of engineers and shipbuilders who gave their best efforts to ensure that this ship would never sink.
02:50This is not a trivial task, and it will require almost as much effort as it took to build the vessel to finally sink the vessel.
02:58It will take thousands of hours of scraping, torching, and hydro-blasting to prep the aircraft carrier for sink day.
03:07The team will be working seven days a week, and will have only eight months to complete the job.
03:13It's an incredibly complex vessel. A floating city filled with every supply and service imaginable.
03:21Everything that 2,600 crew members would need to live and fight at sea for months at a time.
03:27It has four separate kitchens, sleeping quarters, hospitals, machine shops, and radar installations.
03:38Everything from dental offices and barber shops, to shoe repair and movie theaters.
03:44Literally thousands of rooms, and the team is still discovering new ones every day.
03:50I've been crawling this ship hard for three months, about ten hours a day, and just due to the sheer magnitude of the ship, I still come across every now and then a room that I've not ever seen before.
04:05But after 30 years in storage, the ship is in a rusted and decrepit state.
04:10It's full of lead-based paint, foil, aviation fuel, asbestos, and PCBs.
04:17All toxic materials that have to be removed, so she won't poison the ocean environment.
04:23Oriskany's journey from warship to reef began in September 1976.
04:38After an eventful and storied career, Oriskany was decommissioned twice before finally being stricken from the Naval Registry in 1989.
04:52She joined a large number of US warships, left to rot in storage.
04:59After two failed attempts to sell this monstrous vessel for scrap, the Navy chose her for the artificial reef program.
05:08People around the world have been creating reefs for centuries.
05:12Artificial reefs are created when obsolete vessels are sunk.
05:15They form an outcropping for sponges and coral to colonize.
05:22Today, reefs attract recreational fishing and sport diving to boost the local economy.
05:31Many Gulf states competed to have Oriskany reefed in their waters.
05:38The state of Florida won the bidding, and her environmental remediation began.
05:43Don Herring is project manager, and the man assigned by the Navy to verify that every job is done to strict environmental standards.
05:54We can't tell you, you don't have a ladder, do you?
05:57He has to inspect every square inch of the ship looking for toxic waste.
06:02Literally crawling through thousands of rooms and 565 tanks.
06:07We're checking in the tanks to make sure there's no oil, no residual, no hydrocarbon type material left in the tanks.
06:14So when the ship's actually reefed, we don't need a hazmat in the water.
06:20Some as large as an aircraft hangar.
06:25Others as small as a coffin.
06:27But cleaning is just half the project.
06:31The sink plant is the other half.
06:34If I think the contractor put a good sink plant together, it's going to flood basically without any mechanical means.
06:40And they decide how much water she can ballast, how much displacement she can take on,
06:46how the water has to move, where it has to move, and when it has to move.
06:50Quite involved.
06:52Involved is an understatement.
06:55The job is nearly impossible.
07:00Since World War II, not one U.S. Navy aircraft carrier has been sunk in action.
07:06To do so during war means first getting by rings of defences.
07:11A cone of aerial protection, escort vessels, and even submarines are part of the package.
07:16If an attacker makes it past these lethal weapons, it is faced with four-inch armor plate,
07:23surrounding an inner core of over a thousand rooms.
07:26Each one capable of being isolated for flotation.
07:35Nothing short of a nuclear bomb can sink one.
07:37Aircraft carriers came into their own during the Pacific Campaign of the Second World War.
07:46They revolutionized combat by providing a highly mobile air station that could supply a constant barrage of aerial attacks to the most isolated battle arenas.
07:56One of the most daunting things about the Ariskany Reef project is her size.
08:07At 911 feet long and 145 feet across the beam, she displaces 30,800 tons.
08:20Something this big needs serious moorings to keep it in place.
08:23It's secured at the dock using dozens of lines.
08:28The most effective are these massive chains.
08:36Two of them lead to gigantic anchors, weighing in at a whopping 33,000 pounds each, buried 25 feet into the earth.
08:44It's a nice little anchor.
08:48And this is only the flukes.
08:50So the anchor goes down probably another five feet.
08:54So it's pretty big.
08:56I got to try and get out of here.
08:59Definitely was easier going down.
09:01Frank Leckie is an expert on ship demolition, but he's never seen anything this big before.
09:07There's so much to do in so short a time.
09:11For instance, the lighting of the ship.
09:13We ran 25,000 lights throughout the whole ship.
09:17And 25,000 feet of lights, just for instance, it's every 10 feet apart you have a light.
09:24That's 125,000 feet long.
09:26That's just one small phase of it, one just small part of it.
09:32Every aspect of this job is a huge challenge.
09:36The peeling paint, for example, contains lead, and it's all got to go.
09:41We were tasked with 29 tons.
09:44Halfway through we got 29 tons, and we were only halfway finished.
09:48We ended up saying, okay, we'll just fill up 24 dumpsters.
09:51We ended up filling 50 dumpsters.
09:54The USS Oriskini was a ship caught in a fundamental shift in naval history.
10:00The end of World War II.
10:02Her construction began in May of 1944, and she was supposed to become the most modern ship fighting the war in the Pacific.
10:12But the war ended before the Oriskini was put to sea.
10:15The USS Oriskini 27,000 ton Essex class aircraft carrier awaits launching at the New York Navy Yard.
10:29She is the first United States capital ship completed since war's end.
10:33At that time, she was only able to launch and land propeller-driven aircraft, and her role in the fleet was uncertain.
10:49She was redesigned with more powerful hydraulics, steering system, bridge and flight deck to launch jet fighters.
10:54By 1952, she was reclassified an attack aircraft carrier, and truly became the mighty O.
11:07She was a strategic player in the wars of Korea and Vietnam.
11:11Right through to the 1970s, the Oriskini was one of the busiest ships in the US fleet.
11:16Time is 3-3, the altimeter 2-9-8-2, the temperature 84.
11:24The bomb elevators, once used to raise her firepower, are now the key to her demise.
11:30Like miners working a coal seam, the demolition team uses these shafts to cut deeper into the ship.
11:36The engine rooms are where the most toxic chemicals and hazardous materials are hiding.
11:42We develop what we call mine shafts, that go all the way down to the main engine rooms, but also they feed each of the levels.
11:57We had to cut through 2-inch armor plating, Class A armor plating here.
12:01And then on Level 4, just before the engine room down here, if you can look all the way down, we had to cut through armor plating again.
12:06From six stories below the flight deck, every level has to be cleaned of grease and oil.
12:14And the only thing that can handle decades-old grime is a hydro blast, or extreme pressure washing that peels away the filth with over 8,500 pounds of force.
12:24That starts hydro blasting down at the bottom of the ship.
12:31Gonna do the floors and some valves down there.
12:34Gonna get it all blasted out.
12:38It's all about stance, you gotta stand right, you gotta stand right, you gotta slip, you gotta fall, crack your skull open, it's pretty dangerous down there.
12:57Some of the tanks are only accessible by narrow ladders that descend 60 feet straight down.
13:03Not only are they operating in tight spaces, they have to contend with the heat.
13:10At a scorching 110 degrees, nothing is easy.
13:14What you can notice where you're under the tank is it's not only extremely hot, there's no air flow whatsoever.
13:22Okay, it's somewhat oily and it's approximately 50-60 feet deep and one has to go down a real narrow ladder to get there.
13:39So it's all in all an extremely strenuous job that requires frequent rotation of people because of the arduous conditions.
13:47But for all the risk, there is reward.
13:54The metals that the ship was made from are now being mined to pay for the operation.
14:02These are very high-grade metals.
14:05The Navy only used the best metals when they made a ship.
14:08So there's a lot of revenue coming back out of each of these loads.
14:12And we ship two to three loads of this a week.
14:15But the main reason for metal recovery is several.
14:18One is the income and the other is that putting the metals back into brass, copper, and aluminum back into the economy,
14:25it saves energy and resources.
14:27Every time you make a new ton of copper, it takes tremendous natural resources.
14:32And to have it sit in the bottom of the ocean is not helping the reef.
14:35This is our gold mine. This is where we mine our gold.
14:39This is where we're pulling out. Gold. Copper gold.
14:43But the mother load is on the outside of the ship.
14:47This is the starboard elevator.
14:49The planes came from here and were taken up this way.
15:05Anything over the water like this is dangerous.
15:10And safety, this whole elevator is not worth anything and one man gets hurt.
15:14That's not worth it. So we take our time and do it correctly.
15:20It's interesting. The Navy built this ship to be unsinkable.
15:24So it's going to take a great job engineering to have it sink properly.
15:28The sink plan is the most critical part of the operation.
15:36Before the demolition team can begin work, there is one more place that has to be inspected.
15:42The ocean side of the massive hull.
15:45A Navy dive team will check the condition of all previous repairs and look for any new damage.
15:55This is critical information for the placement of the explosives.
15:58So our job here is to identify dimensions and conditions of all the blanking plates on the openings to the sea of the risk.
16:09There are 124 on the drawing.
16:11We have to go down and identify the condition of each one to make sure the next crew knows what they need to do.
16:17When you're working underneath the ship, you can identify the patches and the patch numbers and correct the drawings.
16:23The drawings then on the inside of the ship will identify which pipes go into that patch.
16:29So when you want to sink the ship and sink it level and sink it even, you have to calculate how much water is going to come through each pipe.
16:37And if that's not done right, the ship will not sink correctly and it will probably lay on its side or something strange like that.
16:44They want to sit it down on the bottom, sitting vertically up, just like you see it sitting here pier-side, except it will be underwater.
16:59Did you see patch 111 yet?
17:01No, we have not seen any patches yet.
17:05Both divers, they're a little bit too far out.
17:07You need to swim forward to the ship.
17:09The divers are working in less than 50 feet of water, but at near zero visibility, the job comes with a few risks.
17:18Probably the worst thing that can happen is you get a diver to lose his air or lose his mask and then panic and come to the surface.
17:26If you do that and you hold your breath, the compressed air in your lungs explodes basically out of your lungs and gets in your bloodstream,
17:32goes through your heart and goes to your brain and that's called an arterial gas embolism and can result in paralysis, death.
17:41Pretty bad stuff.
17:45Despite the risks, these highly trained Navy divers are having success.
17:48Top side, red diver, I got to patch.
17:54We're on one, one, one.
17:58Oh yeah, that's the one.
18:01But sometimes, it's just the luck of the draw before disaster strikes.
18:05Okay, green.
18:06Okay, green.
18:07Okay, green.
18:08Okay, stand by.
18:09Okay, stand by.
18:10Okay, red.
18:11Okay, red.
18:12Okay, red.
18:13Okay, red.
18:14We got an unconscious diver on the surface.
18:18Tenders, lend a hand.
18:19Back up.
18:20Get over here.
18:21Get him out of the water.
18:22Red diver's on the surface.
18:23Hold him on the surface.
18:24Doc, get the stretcher over here.
18:25Stand by on the surface.
18:26Red diver's on the surface.
18:28Hold him on the surface.
18:29Doc, get the stretcher over here.
18:31Stand by on the surface.
18:33I'm afraid of the surface.
18:34I'm afraid of the surface.
18:38I've had him.
18:40No.
18:43They breathing?
18:44Give me vitals.
18:47What's it called, Doc?
18:50We got vitals?
18:51We got vitals.
18:52We got vitals.
18:53Keep breathing.
18:54Eyes open.
18:56Okay?
18:57Coming around?
19:00Come on, guys.
19:01You with us?
19:02Yeah.
19:03Hey, what happened?
19:04What happened?
19:05You all right?
19:07I was on the bottom.
19:09It just appeared that we had a diver come up ahead of schedule,
19:12so a little bit of decompression, and he seems to be fine,
19:16so I think we're okay to go.
19:18Get him up.
19:19Get him on his bench.
19:21This is the kind of close call they train for all the time.
19:26Now the demolition team will kick up the stakes another notch.
19:30Diving officer, in green and yellow, out of the water and on the bed.
19:34Stuart Sachs is the bomb squad leader.
19:37His team will be working in these huge chambers.
19:39They contain giant valves called sea chests.
19:42These valves and pipes open directly to the ocean to allow ballast water to enter the chambers.
19:51Stuart's job is to choose which valves to blow apart.
19:54We blow in this sea chest here and that sea chest there.
19:58We've identified 22 positions and valves throughout the ship.
20:05Most of them are in the center.
20:07Those are our primary.
20:08There's also some critical locations, both fore and aft.
20:12Bomb placement and complete detonation are critical.
20:18Place the charges in the wrong spot, or use an incorrect amount of explosives,
20:22and the ship could flood unevenly.
20:27And the project would end in disaster, as the ship would roll and sink on its side.
20:32Everything will detonate simultaneously, and the ship should settle on an even keel.
20:38We're using a double redundant system to ensure that all charges detonate together.
20:44We don't want to have any charges not detonate,
20:47because we don't have any unexploded demolition material left in the ship.
20:51If all goes according to plan,
20:53the top of Oriskany's control, or conning tower,
20:56will stand 55 feet below the surface.
20:59That makes her a prime sport diving site.
21:02And that's a crucial reason not to leave behind any unexploded ordnance
21:07that could put an unsuspecting diver's life at risk.
21:09This won't be the first time the mighty O has felt the devastating impact of explosives.
21:20On October 27, 1966, a signal flare accidentally ignited a chain reaction of explosions
21:27in Oriskany's forward hangar bay.
21:28And when we went in there, the fire was going up the side of the building.
21:36We went to turn on the hoses on the side of the magazine.
21:41And when somebody hit it with water with the other hose, the magnesium explodes when you hit it.
21:48And it just went like it was raining fire.
21:53Entombed by armor plating, the men inside never had a chance.
21:56Fire is the most dangerous.
22:00Most of the people that died on that fire died from suffocation.
22:05They didn't die from burns.
22:07Well, they got burned after they suffocated.
22:09It was the worst disaster in the Oriskany's history.
22:1744 pilots and crewmen lost their lives.
22:26As the remediation team rushes to prepare Oriskany for her own burial at sea, Mother Nature throws them a curve.
22:42We had a very unusual semi-tropical storm that passed through.
22:46It rained at least several inches, and it's not a major concern for the safety of the project, but what we have to do is be concerned about cleaning up the water that entered the vessel's structure so that there's no effect on stability.
23:03But this certainly isn't the last complication the team will face.
23:15The Navy is happy with the work that the remediation team has done so far.
23:19The state of Florida, however, has decided the Oriskany is not safe enough to be scuttled in their waters.
23:25But it looks like they want to make the thing a little more diver-safe, diver-friendly.
23:32And bundles of cables such as this that are hanging down, these are the potential entanglement items that we'd like to remove.
23:41As well as something like this, I'll go ahead and spray this.
23:45Everything with green has got to go.
23:46They've marked out some cabling, overhead obstructions, and stuff like that.
23:54We're running into a little bit of a problem time-wise.
23:57We're approaching hurricane season, so we need to either hurry up and get it done,
24:02if they want to get this thing towed over to Florida before hurricane season kicks in.
24:07The extra work doesn't end with entanglements.
24:10The wiring, as well as the wooden flight deck, contain PCBs.
24:13It's one of the most toxic substances in the world, and all of it has to go.
24:20That puts more pressure on the team as they race to beat hurricane season.
24:28We did a calculation, counted wires, length of the island, etc., how many levels,
24:34and we estimate that there was probably close to 200 miles of cable in this superstructure alone.
24:39All of these have to come out. These are called cable trunks.
24:45Mostly communication cables.
24:49We can't use torches because the cables contain PCBs.
24:53As soon as you heat them and put flame to them, they'll release them into the air,
24:58and then we have a problem.
25:00So we don't torch any of them.
25:01Everything's done manually with the Sawzall or with the cable cutter.
25:05A lot more aggravation, but it's what you've got to do to get it out right.
25:11This is a pile of cable that one man has removed in approximately 4 hours and 15 minutes.
25:18Dropped, not yet removed.
25:19But that's what a man with the Sawzall and a pair of cable cutters can remove in about that amount of time.
25:25As the crew puts the finishing touches to the remediation, preparations begin for RISC-ME's final journey.
25:33She'll be towed nearly 600 miles from Corpus Christi, Texas, to Pensacola, Florida.
25:39That's where the most dangerous phase of the operation will take place.
25:46Rigging the bombs that will drop the mighty O to the sea floor.
25:50But towing this giant across the Gulf of Mexico poses another risk as hurricane season approaches.
25:59I'm glad she's leaving.
26:00I think we've done everything that we were asked to do.
26:03And it's time for it to be over.
26:06And I think that we certainly accomplished everything we came here to do.
26:12The anchors that were buried eight months earlier have to be dug up and loaded onto the flight deck along with thousands of feet of chain.
26:20They'll come along for the ride and will be used to hold the RISC-ME in place on sink day.
26:27Tonight and tomorrow morning we have the tugs coming in that are going to pull it out.
26:32Monday morning we'll hook up all the tugs, we'll start heading out the channel.
26:38We'll park right up here in the Tule Lake Channel.
26:42The toughest one to get under is this lift bridge right here.
26:45I mean we cleared it coming in but it was real tight, like six or eight inches.
26:49And then we're headed straight back out to the bay and hang a lot.
26:55With the ship it's so tall out of the water that if it's windy I can't leave.
27:01So a lot of it depends on the wind.
27:04So I'm going to have all the tugs, all the people, everyone.
27:06And if it blows more than 15 miles an hour I have to start all over again on Tuesday morning.
27:11And if it blows again I've got to start all over again on Wednesday morning.
27:20The RISC-ME is a dead vessel.
27:22That means it's without power or steering ability.
27:25So wind conditions have to be calm for the tugs to handle her.
27:30With winds blowing over 25 miles an hour, it's too dangerous to leave port.
27:35Well, as you can see today, it's not a good day to go.
27:39Today we've got probably 20 knot winds.
27:42We can't leave until it's 10, at least 10 knot winds is the maximum.
27:47Today it's probably blowing 30 to 40 mile an hour winds.
27:51The pilots cancel.
27:53The pilots.
27:55But there's always a possibility, you know, this front's coming in.
27:58There should be a lull.
27:59Should give us about six, seven hour window.
28:01So, wait.
28:03Wait.
28:16Well, as you can see with the wind behind us and the flag and the smoke.
28:20With all this wind, it's for sure cancelled.
28:24With all crews on standby, the costs are mounting.
28:28It can cost up to $100,000 a day.
28:31You have the pilots, the assist tugs, the lead tugs.
28:37Put some gas in your car and look at the prices today.
28:40I've got 10,000 horsepower tugboats.
28:43For one day, that'll burn 7,000 gallons.
28:47Just that one boat.
28:49Just alone right there is $30,000 in fuel.
28:53Then you have the assist tugs, then you have the pilots.
28:55Then here they require four pilots.
28:58Guys in the morning, we're all going to come in at six o'clock.
29:02It may be good weather.
29:04It may not be good weather.
29:05But if we come in at six, we're going to finish early.
29:08We'll try to get everything done.
29:10Then the following morning, we're going to do the same thing.
29:13Until the ship leaves.
29:14There's nothing left to do now but gamble on Mother Nature.
29:20In Corpus Christi, Texas, the Oriskany has been waiting days for perfect weather.
29:27But today's forecast finally looks good.
29:29It's not been an official go yet.
29:34But if I had to bet my paycheck on it, we're out of here.
29:47Word comes down.
29:49And the job of wrangling the massive Hulk begins.
29:59Roger, roger.
30:00They're going to go ahead and cut that table for you.
30:05As soon as the dolphin tug is free, I'll just go ahead and cut this one and we're done.
30:09He's done now.
30:18With over a thousand tons of precious metals and hazmat pulled from the ship, it rides higher.
30:24The team has had to pump ballast water in to clear the bridge.
30:29The Oriskany is nearly 200 feet high.
30:33And the bridge, 203.
30:35Only the tide will tell.
30:40How much clearance did we have the last time?
30:43I had a guy up there with a sawzall ready to go.
30:46Probably going about three knots.
30:49I'd rather go slower.
30:50The danger is if it's going fast, then it hits something that's going to damage a lot.
30:55If it's going slow, it can touch it.
30:58It's a huge gamble.
31:00Wow.
31:05The tugs aim for the center of the bridge.
31:08If the tide is too high, the mighty O will rip it down.
31:20With only inches to spare, the Oriskany slips through.
31:24That's a beautiful sight right there, I'll tell you.
31:27She's done.
31:28All right.
31:31Her next challenge is to make it to Pensacola, almost 600 miles away.
31:35But as she reaches the bay, the tow line snaps.
31:41Suddenly, the Oriskany drifts dangerously close to the rocky shore.
31:47And the crew realizes that something has gone wrong.
31:49The 30-ton chain thrashes the tugs.
31:50The 30-ton chain thrashes the tugs.
31:51The 30-ton chain thrashes the tugs.
31:52The Euriskany is no help as it kills the tugs.
31:53The 30-ton chain thrashes the tugs.
31:55The Euriskany is no help as it kills the tugs.
32:14The 30-ton chain thrashes the tugs.
32:16tucks. The Arisconi is no help as it drifts without power.
32:32Repeated attempts to snag the anchor line fail.
32:46The crew of the pilot tug wrestled the chain and finally reconnected to the tow bar.
32:59They can complete the journey to Florida, where the final and most dangerous phase of the operation will take place.
33:07The Arisconi has finally arrived at the naval base in Pensacola, Florida.
33:14The team begins work on the most important phase of the operation, executing the sink plan.
33:22The naval engineers have developed a plan that they believe will sink the ship evenly and quickly.
33:29Holes are strategically cut through dozens of tanks and chambers.
33:36The Arisconi was built not to sink because of her side protection system, and she's got tanks on either side of her fore to aft.
33:44If it took a hit in the first tank, you had two more tanks inside to keep it watertight.
33:49Or maybe it would penetrate two tanks, you still had one more to keep it watertight.
33:54So in the sink plan, what they had us do was fill all of these tanks so they're already full of water.
34:01So now all of this protection system is now full of water.
34:05We flood around it, that's why the unsinkable ship is now sinkable.
34:10It's all about compromising the integrity of the vessel.
34:14Double-layered hull, side protection tanks, and thick steel walls must be cut in a precise way to allow seawater to fill the ship evenly.
34:23To fill the ship evenly and quickly.
34:28Once we get out to the sink site, Frank will have some of his people come down in the space, and they'll remove all of these patches.
34:37Too much water in one side or the other, and the ship will roll over.
34:42Our major deal has been trying to pump the ship down, putting all the ballast in it.
34:47And we put approximately 15,000 tons of water, which is about 540 tanks that we've filled.
34:58But there's a hitch. The ship is leaking like a sieve, and water is getting into the tanks where it could affect the explosives.
35:05We have engine spaces that we need to put explosive charges in.
35:12With an old ship like this, the tanks are leaking through the pipes.
35:15So a lot of the water is getting into the engine room spaces.
35:18We have to pump that out before the explosives go on board.
35:21So we need to keep these spaces real dry.
35:24Now the bomb squad moves in.
35:33Laying the detonation court through the maze of corridors within this floating city is an extremely treacherous job.
35:39The aircraft carriers are, you know, the biggest ships we've got.
35:44You think you can go one way, you know, you think you're going starboard, and then all of a sudden you get turned around and you're going port.
35:50The 22 bombs are connected with 10 miles of debt court.
35:57The most important thing for us with debt court is the route.
36:00We want to make sure that we don't think it or cross over other charges or other debt court.
36:08The detonation court runs up to the flight deck and into this boat.
36:13It houses the electronic brain center that will control the ignition of the bombs.
36:20The 45-foot boat is strapped down to the deck, but will release and float away when the aircraft carrier sinks beneath it.
36:26This actually turns on the firing system, fires the firing system, and also functions the cable cutters that cut this whole vessel away from the ship as it sinks.
36:39There's a duplicate over on the support vessel.
36:43Basically, what we have is a brake wire around each charge, and as each charge detonates, we'll get an indication here.
36:51We record it down here instantaneously, and then it's transmitted back to the support vessel for verification.
36:57Today, the number one thing is safety.
37:01We've got this entire ship rigged with explosives and with military debt court.
37:07That's the stuff right here.
37:09Kind of green, kind of smooth.
37:11Nobody goes below the hangar deck without an escort because we have all of our charges in place, and they're all attached to their debt courts.
37:18The worst that could happen would be an uncommanded detonation.
37:23If you happen to disturb it, pull it, snag it, just let me know, and we'll take a look at it.
37:29I cannot stress it enough.
37:31You know, we do not want to have an accident, and these kind of accidents kill.
37:38The demolition team rushes to complete last-minute cleanup.
37:41But now, they have to work side-by-side with the bomb squad, making for uncomfortable workmates.
37:53One misstep could trigger the explosives.
37:56The ship would sink at the dock, and lives would be lost.
38:01There's only 24 hours before the Ariskini leaves port.
38:05The pressure is on.
38:07The closer we get to the end here, probably the more dangerous it gets, because now we're opening every access that we created for the sink.
38:17So there's holes everywhere.
38:19Every hatch is removed.
38:21There's holes in the deck, holes in the bulkhead.
38:24Deck plates are gone.
38:26Which is all planned and supposed to be that way, but it gets hazardous.
38:31Gutted, cleaned, and wired to blow, there's only one thing left to do.
38:37Yeah, let's go seek an aircraft carrier.
38:44Port side, to release those tugs whenever the pilot...
38:47Loaded with explosives, the mighty R is cut loose from her moorings.
38:53The Ariskini leaves port for her final resting place.
38:56Frank and the demolition team ride along.
39:12They monitor the patches and wells, and are ready to man the pumps if she begins to take on water.
39:16It's an old ship, and look at her after all the gutting we've done. She's still tough.
39:32An armada of tugs takes up position in case the aircraft carrier breaks free from her tow life.
39:42The countdown to zero hour has begun.
39:4725 miles from Pensacola, Florida, the Ariskini floats above her final resting place in the Gulf of Mexico.
39:58N.A.S. Harbor Security, this is Alpha Tango, how copy over?
40:08This is Harbor Security, reach a line, clear open.
40:10Just want to re-clarify, we need a 1,250 foot arc from any point on the Ariskini today.
40:20Roger, sir, we'll maintain a 1,250, arms carried semi-7.
40:25Roger.
40:26Under agreement with the state of Florida, the aircraft carrier has to be sunk on a very precise set of coordinates.
40:40The tugboats carefully nudge the mighty O over a buoy that marks the spot.
40:48How far away are we, Robert?
40:50150 feet forward, forward.
40:52Good.
40:54Ranger, we're about 350 feet off.
40:57Okay, when it gets close by, give that tugboat here a hard to port, and it'll swing about over there and get right where you want it.
41:04To ensure the ship stays precisely over the target, the anchors will be deployed in a four-point anchoring system.
41:13This is the starboard anchor chain, which is connected up above to the island.
41:18From here, we're going to have approximately 100 tons of chain and anchor that's going to hold the ship offshore.
41:26And this will be the first and most major chain and anchor that we're going to deploy.
41:30The ship's anchor was normally three-inch chain. We brought three and three-eighth chain. And the original ship's anchors were like 25,000 pounds. We brought 30,000 pounds to keep the ship in one place.
41:44We only have one time deployment. Once we cut our cable, we cannot retrieve it, we cannot bring it in, we cannot shorten it, we cannot lengthen it.
41:55We have one shot, and this is the only shot that we have to deploy nearly 100 tons of chain per leg of anchor.
42:01We're on site. We're on site. We're on site. Okay, we're going to cut it.
42:06Frank gives word to cut the anchors loose.
42:10How are you looking, Flash? Yeah, you're looking good.
42:14Flash the anchor. Flash the anchor.
42:19Anchor's gone.
42:20Last anchor's in the water.
42:39But there are still a few more incisions to be made.
42:42Once these sections of the hauler opened up, there's nothing to stop her from sinking.
42:47We cut the six-by-six holes on the side of the ship.
42:51So that when it comes down to that level, the water will flow in and make the ship sink fast.
42:57We're done it to you guys' job. We're finished. We got it. Stand related. Go blow it up.
43:06Tomorrow, the sun rises on sink day.
43:1125 miles off the coast of Florida, the Oriskany is anchored above her final resting place.
43:24This is the sink day. We're doing it. We're cleared off the rest of our equipment.
43:30I didn't get ourselves off. So when they armed the explosives, we're crazy, but we're not that crazy to stay here.
43:35One of the final jobs on board the Mighty O is to mount video cameras to capture the explosions.
43:44To film the Oriskany sinking from inside the ship, cameras are mounted on the hangar deck.
43:51Images from within the sinking vessel that have never been seen before.
43:56It's been pretty smooth since we've been out here, and I expect it's going to remain that-a-way.
44:07The weather looks good, but anything can happen. You know, anything can happen.
44:13Final systems are checked and rechecked before the green light to start the countdown.
44:19Security is tight, and all ships are kept outside the one-mile exclusion zone.
44:31Who of my guys is calling on the way out here?
44:34The bomb squad rolls out the final lines of detonation corps.
44:38They'll connect the explosive charges to the Ike boat.
44:40They'll be a copy. Hey, Troy.
44:53Ike to stay. Ike to stay. Ike to stay. We're heading for final countdown.
45:03Ten. Nine. Anyway, over.
45:06Ten. Ten. Five. Five. Three. Two. One.
45:13The charges have blown successfully.
45:28But will the mighty O settle straight on the bottom, or will she go down fighting?
45:32This is really, really strange.
45:37Strange?
45:38Oh, you had to see her do this.
45:41I mean, just eerie.
45:44She's taking on a lot of water right now. A lot of water.
45:48It appears that she's just about to the third deck right now.
45:53Frank and Don are getting a little concerned as the ship begins to list to the port side.
46:05You're seeing the whole of the flight deck.
46:08What's going to happen is the house is going to help to start righting it once it goes down.
46:13The only problem is, right now, it's a little bit too much.
46:24I could roll on her side.
46:29Come on, baby girl. Do what you're supposed to do.
46:32She'll level out. She'll level out.
46:33She'll go and do it her way.
46:42Come on, baby. Roll back over again.
46:44Roll back over.
46:46Level it up.
46:50In this spectacular footage from the hangar deck camera, a wall of water engulfs the ship.
46:54Only 37 minutes after detonation, the mighty O succumbs to the sea and slips beneath the waves.
47:18She's starting to right herself.
47:21It's coming back around again.
47:25Boom, it's going to hit the bottom.
47:27There she goes.
47:29All right, let's go.
47:31All right, well done, well done.
47:33The cheers are only temporary.
47:35For the job to be successful, Ariskanie has to sit upright,
47:38and it's going to be the best.
47:40All right, well done, well done.
47:42The cheers are only temporary.
47:44For the job to be successful, Ariskanie has to sit upright on the sea floor.
47:49The only way to know for sure is to dive on the site.
48:06Sitting upright and in perfect position, the cutting and chopping behind her,
48:09the crew can rest assured that the mission is a success.
48:24From her launch at the end of World War II, through years of valiant service,
48:29the mighty O attack carrier finally lays at rest.
48:32She survived Korea, a near disaster in Vietnam, and eight months of scraping, gutting and explosives.
48:45Now she's ready to serve again, this time as the largest artificial reef in the world.
48:54It's the largest reef in the world.
49:24Unbelievable!
49:25I did not like movies in the world.
49:27There are a few bugs in the world, and you know what it's off.
49:30But she's one with a small amount of insight that he said to her.