Bridgeton incident

The Bridgeton incident was the mining of the supertanker SS Bridgeton near Farsi Island in the Persian Gulf on July 24, 1987. The ship was sailing in the first convoy of Operation Earnest Will, the U.S. response to Kuwaiti requests to protect its tankers from attack amid the Iran–Iraq War. The explosion of an Iranian mine in the Gulf's shipping channel damaged Bridgeton's outer hull but did not prevent it from completing its voyage.

Within a year of launching the Iran–Iraq War in 1980, Iraq began attacking ships carrying oil from Iranian ports, seeking to intimidate Tehran's allies and trading partners and deprive Iran of oil revenues. In 1984, Iran began to follow suit, attacking the tankers of countries that supported Iraq. In 1987, Kuwait, whose ships carried Iraqi oil, asked both the Soviet Union and the United States for military help. Initially, Moscow offered to loan Kuwait three Soviet-flagged oil tankers and to protect them with Soviet Navy warships. In response, the United States suggested that Kuwaiti tankers fly American flags and travel in convoys protected by the U.S. Navy. This convoy effort was dubbed Operation Earnest Will.

Assembled to protect Kuwait's tankers were four frigates, three cruisers, and a destroyer in or around the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz. As well, the U.S. Navy aircraft carrier Constellation and its task force were nearby in the Indian Ocean, while the battleship Missouri, two more cruisers, and a helicopter carrier were patrolling the area. The operation's plan called for convoys protected by three or four U.S. warships and carrier-based aircraft, including A-6 attack aircraft, F/A-18 strike fighters, EA-6B jamming aircraft, and F-14 fighters.

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