Construction of the giant carrier was underway in the Brooklyn Navy Yard when a forklift operator who was moving a metal trash bin on the hangar deck accidentally pushed the bin against a steel plate. It shifted and sheared off the main plug of a tank carrying 500 gallons of diesel fuel, causing fuel to rush through holes in the steel flooring to decks below. When the fuel came in contact with “hot work,” (such as a welder’s blowtorch or hot metal being worked on), it began to burn, and then set wooden scaffolding on fire.
The ensuing blaze took almost 17 hours to extinguish, but despite injuries to more than 300 workers, none of the firefighters were injured even though they had to contend with darkness and with flames that spread rapidly along an unfamiliar complex of passageways filled with dense smoke.
The disaster delayed completion of the ship by an additional seven months and cost more than $75 million to repair. But, the Constellation (CV-64), a Kitty Hawk–class (and so-called supercarrier), was the third ship of the United States Navy to be named in honor of the "new constellation of stars" on the flag of the United States and the only naval vessel ever authorized to display red, white, and blue designation numbers. She was also one of the fastest ships in the Navy, and she was nicknamed "Connie" by her crew and officially as "America's Flagship."
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