In the early morning hours at approximately 12:30 a.m., USS Daniel Inouye received a call from the U.S. Coast Guard to assist the commercial fishing vessel Sea Diamond. Sea Diamond had lost all propulsion and reported a shafting propeller casualty.

Inouye was quick in her response and contacted the vessel Sea Diamond at 2:00 a.m. During this time the engineering team deployed the ships rigid-hulled inflatable boat (RHIB) to assist. It was determined that the casualty to propulsion of Sea Diamond was external and the RHIB team would be unable to further support. Daniel Inouye then decided to take the Sea Diamond under tow back to Honolulu. The ship maintained a speed of 6 knots for approximately 12 hours before turning over custodianship to the Coast Guard five nautical miles outside of Honolulu Harbor.

Sea Diamond is a seventy-one foot long commercial fishing vessel weighing approximately 100 tons. At the time of the casualty there were 7 crewmembers onboard, including an observer from the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) who acted as an interpreter between the Sea Diamond and Inouye crew.

"I am glad that USS Daniel Inouye was in the best position to assist the Sea Diamond," said Cmdr. Dave Haile, Commanding Officer of USS Daniel Inouye. "It is our duty to provide help to our fellow mariners whenever and wherever they need it, and the Daniel Inouye's crew responded admirably and professionally to make sure we could return the Sea Diamond and her crew to safe harbor."

Following the rescue, USS Daniel Inouye is expected to make port calls to various Hawai’i Islands for a project known as “Trip Around Islands” that aims to strengthen relations with the Hawaiian people. More than 40 members of the crew will be participating in volunteering events on the islands to give back to the community and honor Hawaiian culture.

The mission of Commander, Naval Surface Group Middle Pacific is to manage the overall warfighting capability of the Surface Combatant Force homeported at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam (JBPHH), HI; to coordinate through the Fleet Response Plan (FRP) cycle the manning, operations, combat systems, engineering, maintenance, training, logistics, administration, and support of assigned units to achieve the highest levels of combat readiness.

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