WASHINGTON — Democratic senators have begun raising concerns about the extended deployment of the USS Abraham Lincoln, amid reports about poor living conditions and a lack of downtime for the crew after more than 8 1/2 months at sea.

The Lincoln, a San Diego-based aircraft carrier with a crew of about 5,000 sailors, is supporting U.S. operations in the Middle East against Iran.

In a letter to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Hung Cao, the acting Navy secretary, Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., described a list of reported problems on the ship.

“There have been widespread reports of shortages of basic supplies, water contamination, plumbing issues, deteriorating mental health, deck safety concerns and disruptions in the mail system, which have caused many care packages in route to the ship to be lost in transit for months,” he wrote about the problems, many of which were reported earlier by Navy Times and Stars and Stripes.

The Navy is sending the aircraft carrier George Washington to the Middle East to relieve the Lincoln, according to a U.S. official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about ship schedules.

“We ​make sure every ship, every crew, every captain has everything we can provide ​them at every single moment,” Hegseth told reporters ​during a visit to Panama on Thursday, according to Reuters. “Some deployments are longer than others, and I have more respect and gratitude for those sailors than anybody. What they do in ​those high seas in those austere conditions with less port calls — it’s incredible.”

A second carrier, the USS George H.W. Bush deployed on March 31 and is already operating in the Middle East.

The Lincoln itself had to fend off attacks from Iran during the early phase of the war.

When the Lincoln’s relief will arrive is unclear, but the George Washington recently passed through the Strait of Malacca — a major transit route through the Pacific Ocean in Indonesian waters — heading west, according to a second U.S. official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss warship movements.

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This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

By John Ismay, Helene Cooper and Eric Schmitt
c. 2026 The New York Times Company