The 1969 USS Enterprise fire was a major fire and series of explosions that broke out aboard on January 14, 1969, off the coast of Oahu, Hawaii. The fire started when a Zuni rocket detonated under a plane's wing. It spread as more munitions exploded, blowing holes in the flight deck that allowed burning jet fuel to enter the ship. 28 sailors were killed, 314 were injured, 15 aircraft were destroyed, and the total cost of aircraft replacement and shipboard repair was over $126 million (roughly $1.017 billion adjusted for inflation in 2022). The damage was lessened somewhat by improvements made after the similar 1967 USS Forrestal fire. Background , built between 1958 and 1961, was the world's first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier. Its enormous construction cost caused the cancellation of the five other carriers planned for the class. Enterprise departed Alameda, California, on January 6, 1969, for its fourth deployment to Vietnam and its eighth deployment overall. On January 14, the ship was off the coast of Hawaii conducting a final battle drill and Operational Readiness Inspection (ORI) before steaming for Vietnam. Additional personnel were aboard Enterprise to observe the ORI. Fire About 8:18 a.m., Enterprise was turning to port to conduct flight operations. On the stern sat a McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II armed with Zuni rockets. The exhaust from an MD-3A "Huffer", a tractor-mounted unit used to start aircraft, heated one of the Zunis until it exploded, detonating its warhead of Composition B explosive. The explosion perforated the aircraft's fuel cells and ignited the leaking JP-5 jet fuel. About one minute later, three more Zuni rockets exploded; these blasts blew holes into the flight deck, allowing the burning jet fuel to pour into the level below. Captain Kent Lee, commanding officer of Enterprise, directed the port turn to continue after the first explosion, steering the ship into the wind to blow smoke away from the ship. About three minutes after the initial explosion, a bomb exploded on the burning Phantom, blowing a hole in the flight deck that measured about . The heat ignited additional fires on the lower level, and debris caused holes in the deck which allowed burning fuel to spread farther, entering the two lower levels and eventually the first deck. This explosion also severed nearby firehoses and damaged and rendered inoperable the twin-agent units that provided firefighting foam to the area. Two Mark 82