Litton Ingalls gets funding for USS COLE restoration

February 14, 2001 – Litton Ingalls Shipbuilding has received a U.S. Navy contract modification valued at $105.5 million for the ongoing repair and restoration of the Aegis guided missile destroyer USS COLE (DDG 67), which was damaged in an October 2000 terrorist attack.

Ingalls was selected in November 2000 to perform the work on the ship, which arrived at Ingalls in mid-December. The Company had been working under a letter contract, which covered a damage assessment as well as work required to return the ship to an on-land production area at Ingalls for the actual restoration project. Today’s contract modification provides the initial funding for the project. Additional modifications to the contract are subject to a full damage assessment and changes in the scope of the restoration work.

"We began work on USS COLE as soon as she arrived in December," said Jerry St. Pe’, Chief Operating Officer of Litton Ship Systems and Executive Vice President of Litton Industries. "Our mission is not only to return COLE to fleet duty, but to return her to the fleet in ‘better-than-new’ condition. We have the assets, the capacity, the skills, and the knowledge of the ship to do just that -- and to do it in the shortest possible time.

To perform the repair and restoration work, Ingalls returned USS COLE to almost the precise spot where she was built six years ago.