ABOARD THE USS KIDD -- The supertanker Bridgeton, flying the American flag and under escort of U.S. warships, hit a mine in the Persian Gulf today -- triggering an explosion that ripped a hole in the hull, staggered sailors on the bridge and raised tension in the Middle East.
The Bridgeton, en route with another ship to take on a cargo of oil in Kuwait, used pumps to control water gushing into the ship. There were no injuries among the 26 people aboard. The tanker, the length of three football fields, was proceeding on its own at a slowed 11 mph, Navy officials said.
The explosion came during the first U.S. convoy of re-flagged Kuwaiti tankers, an operation to keep oil flowing in the Middle East, and raised tension another notch in the nearly 7-year-old Iran-Iraq war.
Pentagon officials said they believed the Bridgeton hit a moored mine -- not a floating device -- planted well before the re-flagging operation began. But the Kidd's skipper, Cmdr. Daniel J. Murphy Jr., said he thought the mine was brought out Thursday night from nearby Iranian-owned Farsi Island, from where speedboats had launched attacks against other merchant ships.
'We haven't gotten any proof,' Murphy said. 'It's difficult to assess who places a mine. The track record, however, would clearly point the fingers to Iran.'
White House spokesman Leslye Arsht said national security adviser Frank Carlucci called President Reagan at about 2 a.m. to describe what happened. The White House had no further comment.
The Bridgeton is the fifth tanker plying the plying the Persian Gulf to be hit by underwater mines, all believed planted by Iran. The others, including the Soviet-flagged tanker Marshal Chuikov, hit mines in May and June.
Iran's prime minister, Hussein Musavi, without saying if Iran planted the mine, said the explosion was 'an irreparable blow' to U.S. prestige by 'invisible hands.'
The Bridgeton struck the mine shortly before 7 a.m. local time (11 p.m. EDT Thursday) in 100-degree temperature, Navy Lt. Richard Vogel reported from the tanker to fellow officers aboard the destroyer USS Kidd, one of the three Navy escort ships. The explosion was heard aboard the Kidd as a loud 'boom' from the tanker a mile to the right and about a half-mile ahead of the Navy ship.
The Bridgeton hit the mine about 120 miles southeast of Kuwait - some 60 miles south of where on Sunday U.S. divers, Kuwaiti sailors and Saudi minesweepers had removed about 10 mines believed to have been set by Iran.
In London, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher urged the United States to respond 'very calmly.'
'The important thing in the gulf now is to see that we protect vessels which are going up and not react suddenly,' she said. 'The whole strategy now is to de-escalate things ... and to keep freedom of navigation going.'
Senate Democratic leader Robert Byrd said the explosion is 'one of those things I think we foresaw, one of the perils of the administration's ... ill-conceived plan. This is one of the things that we warned against ... it's frought with peril and uncertainties. Fortunately in this instance it didn't take any lives.'
After being hit, the convoy fell into a single-file line and slowly headed for Kuwait. Three hours after the explosion, the convoy encountered a Soviet Navy Natya-class minesweeper escorting two Soviet merchant ships heading south and an American captain warned the Soviet sailors of the mine danger zone.
'Thank you, American warship,' a Soviet captain replied.
Sen. Sam Nunn, D-Ga., chairman of the Armed Services Committee, said the Bridgeton has a 2-degree list 'which is not an awful lot' and the 'situation is under control.'
'It's a hostile act and the question is who committed it and whether it was aimed at our ships or our flag vessels or whether it was just a random mine,' Nunn said in an interview on NBC's 'Today' program.
The damage was done to the left side of the 1,200-foot tanker about 200 feet back from the bow, Vogel reported. Officers aboard the tanker said the mine hit about 7 feet below the waterline. Patchy oil slicks from the Bridgeton dotted the water.
The explosion was so strong that crew members standing on the bridge about 1,000 feet back were almost knocked off their feet, Vogel said.
Seconds after the explosion, Vogel radioed the bridge of the Kidd, which is the command ship of the Navy convoy: 'We've been hit! We've been hit!'
'We have flooding that filled to sea level one inner port in about three minutes,' the Bridgeton radioed, according to a pool dispatch. 'We are listing. There is no danger to the ship -- plenty of reserve bouyancy.'
Murphy ordered his ship slowed from 17 mph to 6 mph and then picked up speed again. Officials said the Bridgeton would have to placed in dry dock in Bahrain or Dubai, taking it out of service for months.
The explosion area is 12 miles outside the exclusion zone that Iran has declared on its side of the waterway. Two Saudi Arabian minesweepers were working the waters off Kuwait to try to clear the area of explosives believed planted on the seabed by Iran.
Extra lookouts were posted aboard the Kidd's bow to check for mines. At least nine sailors were on the bow, some of them armed with M-14 rifles to fire at any suspicious objects in the water.
The mine blast occurred as the convoy of Navy ships and two Kuwaiti tankers, the 407,822-ton Bridgeton and the 46,723-ton Gas Prince, headed for Kuwait, where they were expected to arrive later today to complete the first leg of a perilous and politically explosive operation that began this week.
White House spokeswoman Leslye Arsht said national security adviser Frank Carlucci called President Reagan at about 2 a.m. EDT to describe what had happened. The White House had no further comment.
At the time of the mine hit, all three Navy ships were at 'general quarters,' their highest state of alert, because they were passing Farsi Island, from which Iran has recently launched speedboat attacks against gulf shipping. The site of the explosion was 18 miles west of Farsi Island.
The tankers entered the Persian Gulf Wednesday, flying the American flag and under heavy U.S. naval and air protection. Their escorts were the guided missile destroyer Kidd, the cruiser USS Fox and the frigate USS Crommelin.
Kuwaiti tankers have come under frequent attack by Iran because of Kuwait's support of Iraq in the Iran-Iraq war.
The tankers, to be filled with crude oil and propane gas, have been expected to leave Kuwait by July 29 on a return journey taking them south -- back through the gulf, out the Strait of Hormuz and into the Gulf of Oman.
They again would be under constant U.S. naval protection in the operation code-named Earnest Will.
In Kuwait, U.S. Ambassador Anthony Quainton had said before the Bridgeton hit the mine that the first trip under the U.S. escort operation was going well despite threats from Iran that it would attack Kuwaiti and American vessels.
'I have no reason to believe that any U.S.-flagged ship will be attacked,' Quainton said Thursday. 'Obviously there are some risks but those risks have been calculated.'
The next convoy is scheduled for August.
The official Iranian news agency IRNA reported Thursday that Revolutionary Guard naval forces will stage 'martyrdom maneuvers' in the gulf next month.
Revolutionary Guard spokesman Ali-reza Afshar said the 'great shahadat (martyrdom) maneuvers' will 'show to the world how rapidly (the guard) can deploy its martyrdom-seekers to suppress global arrogance in the southern Iranian waters.'
Earlier, Rear Adm. Harold Bernsen, commander of the U.S. Middle East Force, said the chief fear remaining for the convoy as it headed for Kuwait was of a possible Iranian speedboat attack from Farsi Island.
Iran has used its fleet of about 30 Swedish-built Boghammer speedboats, which can travel up to 50 mph, to attack commercial ships at night with machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades.
Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Velayati said Thursday in a message sent to U.N. Secretary-General Javier Perez de Cuellar that Iran regards any oil carried by re-flagged Kuwaiti tankers as 'prohibited goods' for Iraq.
'Iran, in order to defend its revolution, independence and territorial integrity, will act decisively and powerfully in confronting expansionist and interventionist policies of the U.S. in the Persian Gulf,' he warned, calling on Perez de Cuellar to push the United States to reduce its military presence.
Neither Iran nor Iraq has attacked shipping since a U.N. Security Council resolution demanding a cease-fire was adopted Tuesday.
Upon leaving the Persian Gulf, the Gas Prince was to go to Japan to unload while the Bridgeton was to run a shuttle service, emptying its oil into other ships just outside the gulf and returning to Kuwait for another load.
