Big Horn, the twelfth ship of the Henry J. Kaiser class, was laid down at Avondale Shipyard, Inc., at New Orleans, Louisiana, on 9 October 1989 and launched on 2 February 1991. She entered non-commissioned U.S. Navy service under the control of the Military Sealift Command with a primarily civilian crew on 21 May 1992. She serves in the United States Atlantic Fleet.
This ship was one of several participating in disaster relief after the 2010 Haiti earthquake. The Big Horn brought relief supplies to Haiti. During Operation Unified Response, Big Horn transferred 618 pallets of cargo and humanitarian assistance/disaster relief supplies and over 2,000,000 gallons of fuel. USNS Big Horn got underway from Naval Station Norfolk the day after the earthquake struck, arrived on scene in Haiti on January 17 and worked until being relieved by USNS Leroy Grumman on 11 February.[1] In 2015, she refueled RFA Gold Rover in the South Atlantic.[2]
In September of 2024, she ran aground off Oman while with attached to USS Abraham Lincoln's strike group. The incident strained American logistics within the fleet amid rising tensions due to Israeli attacks on Lebanon as she was the only oiler in the region. She was quickly brought into a local port, and no casualties or oil spills were reported; images showing flooding were released.[3][4]
References
This article includes information collected from the Naval Vessel Register, which, as a U.S. government publication, is in the public domain. The entry can be found here.
