USNS Impeccable

USNS Impeccable (T-AGOS-23) is an Impeccable-class ocean surveillance ship acquired by the U.S. Navy in 2001 and assigned to Military Sealift Command's Special Missions Program.

Impeccable was built by American Shipbuilding, Tampa, Florida. The contract was awarded on 28 March 1991. The ship's keel was laid down on 15 March 1992, but the Tampa shipyards went bankrupt by November 1993. On 3 December 1992, the General Accounting Office published a report that concluded that T-AGOS 24–27 should not be built. Shortly afterwards the government decided to discontinue this class of ships, but Impeccable was to be completed as the sole ship in her class. The hull was towed to Gulfport, Mississippi, in 1995 where she was finished by Halter Marine Inc. She was launched on 28 August 1998 and was delivered to the Navy on 22 March 2001 which assigned her to the Military Sealift Command (MSC) Special Missions Program.

The ship is a designated T-AGOS vessel built to tow a Surveillance Towed Array Sensor System. The ship's catamaran-type small waterplane area twin hull (SWATH) design prevents the vessel from rolling in heavy seas and gives additional deck space for storing the acoustic equipment.

The mission of Impeccable is to directly support the Navy by using SURTASS passive and active low frequency sonar arrays to detect and track undersea threats.^{[citation needed]}

On 5 March 2009, Impeccable was in the South China Sea monitoring submarine activity when it was approached by a People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) frigate, which crossed her bow at a range of approximately 100 yards without first making contact. This was followed less than two hours later by a Chinese Y-12 aircraft, conducting 11 flyovers of Impeccable at an altitude of 600 feet (180 m) and a range from 100–300 feet (30–90 m). The frigate then crossed Impeccable's bow again, this time at a range of approximately 400–500 yards.

On 7 March, a Chinese intelligence ship contacted Impeccable over bridge-to-bridge radio, calling her operations illegal and directing Impeccable to leave the area or "suffer the consequences."

On 8 March 2009, Impeccable was 75 miles south of Hainan, China, when it was shadowed by five Chinese ships: a Bureau of Maritime Fisheries Patrol Vessel, a State Oceanic Administration patrol vessel, a PLA Navy ocean surveillance ship, and two Chinese-flagged naval trawlers, which maneuvered close to Impeccable, with two closing in to 50 feet (15 m), waving Chinese flags, and ordering Impeccable from the area. Impeccable sprayed water at one of the nearest Chinese ships; the Chinese sailors stripped down to their underwear and their vessel closed in to within 25 feet of the American ship. Shortly after the incident, Impeccable radioed the Chinese crews, informing them of her intentions to leave the area, and requesting a safe pass to travel. When she was trying to leave the area, the two Chinese trawlers dropped pieces of wood in Impeccable's path and stopped directly in front of her, forcing her to do an emergency stop to avoid a collision. Once Impeccable got under way, the crew aboard one of the trawlers used a grappling hook to try to snag Impeccable's towed sonar array.

The United States lodged formal protests following the incident, stating that under international law, the U.S. military can conduct activities "in waters beyond the territorial sea of another state without prior notification or consent" including in an exclusive economic zone of another country. "The unprofessional maneuvers by Chinese vessels violated the requirement under international law to operate with due regard for the rights and safety of other lawful users of the ocean." China's Foreign Ministry responded that the Pentagon's complaints that five Chinese vessels had harassed Impeccable were "totally inaccurate", although this claim was disputed by several released reports, which all state that Impeccable was interfered with numerous times, both while operating in the area and when attempting to leave.