By Randy Griffith
AVONDALE, La. -- One of the U.S. Navy's newest workhorse ships will be a floating tribute to the passengers and crew of a United Airlines flight who died while thwarting a terrorist attack on Sept. 11, 2001.
The USS Somerset, designated as LPD 25, is under construction at the Northrop Grumman Shipbuilding yard in this New Orleans suburb. Once finished, it will join other San Antonio-class amphibious transport ships that represent the Navy's latest effort to quickly move soldiers and equipment.
Somerset is the Pennsylvania county where United Airlines Flight 93 crashed, killing 40 passengers and crew, as well as four hijackers. Terrorists had pirated the flight from Newark, N.J., to San Francisco, Calif., as part of that morning's organized attacks but were overcome by a passenger revolt.
A keel authentication ceremony was held for the USS Somerset on Friday. Steel used to build the ship will include 22 tons melted down from a large dragline that had towered above the crash site near the community of Shanksville, Pa.
As the ship approaches its fully completed length of 684 feet, its builders will slide it along huge wooden skids onto a floating dry dock in the nearby Mississippi River. It should be lowered into the water sometime next year.
The Somerset's "LPD" designation stands for "Landing Platform Dock," referring to how vessel it can be used by smaller boats, shipbuilders said.
"It's able to submerge itself in the back and let the hovercraft come out the back," program manager Dirk Cortez said, standing beside the ship's keel last wee "They actually have big doors on the back."
Cortez said LPDs can carry more than 600 Marines into battle. "It has well decks inside of it that can carry all the tanks, all the armament and everything needed. It can bring the battle to wherever they need it," he said.
The ship has a flight deck large enough to handle helicopter operations.
While the LPD ships are designed for modern warfare, the Navy can use their rapid-response capability with humanitarian aid, Cortez noted.
Shipbuilders at Northrop Grumman's facilities in Avondale and Pascagoula, Miss., take pride in producing quality vessels for the Navy, said construction manager Tommy Barrett.
Ships today are constructed from a collection of pre-built units, assembled much like building blocks, Barrett said.
"You have 123 units that are built into a ship," he said.
"We mega-block the units, put them together and then we erect them all on-site. It is like a puzzle, but a big sequence to the puzzle."
Various components are added as the huge steel pieces come together, he said.
"We build it from the ground up," he said.
