Key Points and Summary – HMS Prince of Wales, Britain’s newest Queen Elizabeth–class carrier, has become a case study in bad luck and bad headlines.
-Since commissioning in 2019, the £3 billion warship has suffered repeated breakdowns: serious flooding from engine-room leaks, multiple propeller shaft failures, and a high-profile breakdown that derailed a landmark U.S. deployment.
HMS Prince of Wales and HMS Queen Elizabeth pictured at sea for the first time. Image Credit: Royal Navy.
-In early 2024, she even missed NATO’s Steadfast Defender while standing in for her also-ailing sister ship, HMS Queen Elizabeth.
-Now placed under NATO command for Mediterranean exercises, Prince of Wales is finally at sea again—but her growing reputation as a jinxed flagship lingers.
HMS Prince of Wales Aircraft Carrier Drama
During World War II, aircraft carriers dethroned battleships as the capital ships of navies everywhere.
However, after eight decades of this glorious reign, many experts wonder whether the age of the aircraft carrier is over.
Observers point to carriers’ potential vulnerability to ship-killing missiles. Further, their time-consuming, money-devouring maintenance needs and reliability issues seem to relegate the mighty warships to dock dweller status.
The U.S. Navy’s mighty Nimitz-class nuclear-power supercarriers, such as the USS Harry S. Truman (CVN-75) and USS George Washington (CVN-73), see their readiness repressed by the rigamarole of the Refueling and Complex Overhaul.
Meanwhile, the navies of Russia and India have endured lengthy and embarrassing setbacks related to the Admiral Kuznetsov and INS Vikramaditya, respectively—setbacks ranging from onboard fires to sunken dry docks.
Not to be outdone is HMS Prince of Wales, one of the Royal Navy’s two Queen Elizabeth-class carriers.
Brief Backstory Bit: Prince of Wales” The Unluckiest Name in the Royal Navy?
Attributing the ship’s troubles to its name may sound paranoid and superstitious. But then again, sailors have long been a rather superstitious lot. While the title Prince of Wales is very prestigious in the British royal family, it seems to be somewhat of a curse for Royal Navy warships.
During World War II, the battleship HMS Prince of Wales was the pride and joy of the Royal Navy.
But it was sunk along with the battlecruiser HMS Repulse on Dec. 10, 1941 by Imperial Japanese Navy bombers, resulting in the deaths of 840 commissioned officers and enlisted seamen.
F-35 test pilot Marine Maj. Paul Gucwa from Air Test and Evaluation Squadron Two Three (VX-23), Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division (NAWCAD), flies an F-35B Lightning II fighter aircraft to the U.K. HMS Prince of Wales aircraft carrier in the Western Atlantic Oct. 11, 2023. Gucwa will embark with a detachment from the Patuxent River F-35 Integrated Test Force (ITF) to conduct developmental test phase 3 (DT-3) sea trials with the specially instrumented, short takeoff vertical landing variant of the stealth jet aboard Britain’s largest warship.
The U.K. Queen Elizabeth-class (QEC) aircraft carrier HMS Prince of Wales (R09)’s participation in WESTLANT 23 encompasses a range of U.K. and U.S. naval aircraft trials in the Western Atlantic throughout the autumn of 2023.The HMS Prince of Wales continues to push the boundaries of naval aviation capabilities and operations from QEC aircraft carriers, including increasing the range and lethality of F-35 operations. The U.K. is the only Tier I partner in the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) Program. U.K. and U.S. interactions during this deployment are characterized by cooperation and reinforce international relationships, as well as enhance interoperability between the U.S. Navy and Royal Navy.
The F-35 Joint Program Office is the U.S. Department of Defense’s focal point for the 5th-generation strike aircraft for the Navy, Air Force, Marines, and our allies. The F-35 is the premier multi-mission, 5th-generation weapon system. Its ability to collect, analyze and share data is a force multiplier that enhances all assets in the battle space: with stealth technology, advanced sensors, weapons capacity, and range. The F-35 has been operational since July 2015 and is the most lethal, survivable, and interoperable fighter aircraft ever built.
(US Navy photo by Dane Wiedmann)
Despite their bristling firepower, the two British behemoths only managed to shoot down three enemy planes. Sir Winston Churchill said of this catastrophic event that, “In all the war I never received a more direct shock.”
The current carrier of the Prince of Wales name is the newest flattop in the British fleet.
She was launched in September 2017 and commissioned in December 2019. She hasn’t sunk or cost the lives of any of her sailors, but her own struggles add to the lore of the bad luck surrounding the name.
Problems Periling Pennant No. R09
Prince of Wales has experienced the following incidents:
–Two separate water leaks in 2020, one in May and one in October. The latter leak occurred in an engine room and resulted in 3 feet of flooding; one of the sailors responding to the incident was recorded as exclaiming “That’s deep. Oh s***. That’s one meter above the floor.”
-August 30, 2022 saw this rather verbose headline in the UK Daily Mail: “Britain’s new £3BN [$3.48 billion USD] warship ‘ground to a halt off the Isle of Wight because the propeller shaft wasn’t GREASED properly’: Defence chief blasts ’embarrassing’ gaffe which could see HMS Prince of Wales‘ landmark U.S. mission CANCELLED while it undergoes repairs.”
-In February 2023, a second, separate shaft on the star-crossed ship was found to have “similar issues” to the shaft involved in the embarrassing occurrence six months earlier.
Reporting to a Defense Select Committee inquiry, Vice Admiral Paul Marshall stated, “We will be repairing the port shaft at the same time as the starboard shaft” (as quoted in a Forces News article penned by Tom Sables).
-In September 2023, those shaft repairs were finally completed at Rosyth, Fife, Scotland, and Prince of Wales got underway for the United States to participate in a joint exercise off the East Coast.
However, the Prince of Wales’ problems continued. In February 2024, she failed to depart for the NATO exercise Steadfast Defender. Ironically enough, she had been set to stand in for her sister ship HMS Queen Elizabeth, which suffered her own propeller shaft issue.
So, both Queen Elizabeth-class warships have experienced propeller problems at one point or another.
What About Now? Where Is She Now?
Today, Prince of Wales is committed to NATO exercises in the Mediterranean.
The UK has placed the warship under NATO control, thus giving NATO direct command of a full carrier strike group for the first time in the transatlantic alliance’s history.
Thus far—knock on wood—it’s been smooth sailing for the ship during these exercises, but her crew members are almost certainly asking themselves, “Gee, what will go wrong next?”
About the Author: Christian D. Orr, Defense Expert
Christian D. Orr is a Senior Defense Editor. He is a former Air Force Security Forces officer, Federal law enforcement officer, and private military contractor (with assignments worked in Iraq, the United Arab Emirates, Kosovo, Japan, Germany, and the Pentagon). Chris holds a B.A. in International Relations from the University of Southern California (USC) and an M.A. in Intelligence Studies (with a concentration in Terrorism Studies) from American Military University (AMU). He is also the author of the newly published book “Five Decades of a Fabulous Firearm: Celebrating the 50th Anniversary of the Beretta 92 Pistol Series.”
