Does a photo show damage to the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier? No, that's not true: There is no evidence that the American ship was damaged during Operation Epic Fury against Iran. The image actually shows repair crews in 1967 working to fix the damaged deck of the USS Forrestal after a deadly fire in the Gulf of Tonkin during the Vietnam War.
The claim appeared in a post (archived here) on X on March 3, 2026. Translated from Spanish, it read:
And what the hell happened to Abraham? 👀
This is what the post looked like on X at the time of writing:
(Image source: post by @PitPad3 on X.)
Conflict in the Middle East
The United States and Israel launched a military operation against Iran on Feb. 28, 2026, which killed Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in an airstrike on his compound in Tehran. Iran has responded with drone and missile strikes against the U.S. and allied targets across the Middle East.
USS Abraham Lincoln
The USS Abraham Lincoln has been deployed in the Arabian Sea and Persian Gulf region since late January 2026 and is supporting U.S. operations in the Middle East, including carrying out strikes as part of Operation Epic Fury.
A Google News search (archived here) found no evidence that the ship had been damaged in an attack. Also, the U.S. Central Command denied similar claims by Iran in a post (archived here) on X on March 2, 2026:
🚫The Iranian regime's false messaging machine continues to falsely claim that it has sunk a U.S. aircraft carrier.
✅The TRUTH: The only carrier that has been hit is the Shahid Bagheri, an Iranian drone carrier. U.S. forces struck the ship within hours of launching Operation Epic Fury.
Original video
A reverse image search on Google Images traced the photo to Getty Images (archived here) and is from 1967. It shows repair crews working to fix the damaged deck of the USS Forrestal (archived here) after a deadly fire killed 134 sailors aboard the ship in the Gulf of Tonkin.
(Image source: Dick Swanson/Getty Images.)
