Sailor Found Dead Aboard USS John C Stennis, Navy Launches Investigation

The U.S. Navy on Tuesday released the identity of a young sailor found dead aboard the aircraft carrier USS John C. Stennis. Engineman fireman recruit Akiree Pointer, 22, was found dead Saturday when the ship was in port in Bremerton, Washington.

The circumstances surrounding Pointer’s death were unclear and the Navy said it had launched an investigation into it. The Navy also offered its condolences to the sailor's family and friends “in their time of loss.”

Speaking to Kitsap Sun, a local daily from Bremerton, Lt. Cmdr. Frederick Martin, a spokesman for the ship, said there was “no obvious and apparent cause of death.”

The report also said that Pointer attended basic training at the Naval Recruit Training Center in Great Lakes, Illinois, before joining the aircraft carrier. Pointer's Facebook profile showed him in Navy uniform and featured videos of him discussing his future duty station in Bremerton prior to his deployment there. Military.com reported that he attended Texas Southern University and Tarrant County College.

USS John C. Stennis had completed a six-month maintenance period in August and had been training in preparation of its next deployment. According to its official website, more than 3,000 men and women live and work aboard the carrier.

This is not the first time that a sailor’s death has been reported from aboard the carrier. In 2009, Gatlin Scott Green, coincidentally also 22, an aviation boatswain's mate, died while performing a routine procedure on a Stennis catapult system. The sailor was aboard a small boat conducting a routine procedure to secure drains from the ship's catapult system when he was crushed between the small boat and the ship's hull. He was taken to a local hospital where he was pronounced dead. The ship was moored at Changi Pier in Singapore at the time. Green was posthumously awarded a Navy Commendation Medal and the Enlisted Aviation Warfare Specialist pin.

There were also multiple reports in 2017 about deaths of sailors deployed to ships that were involved in collisions. Of these, two were quite significant.

USS John McCain collided with a merchant vessel in August, killing 10 sailors and injuring five other crew members. USS Fitzgerald — a first class Navy destroyer — collided with the ACX Crystal, a 30,000-ton Philippine container ship that was bound for Tokyo from Nagoya on June 17. Seven of Fitzgerald’s sailors had initially been reported missing but were later found dead.