Overview
- U.S. Central Command says a military helicopter struck the rudder of a Panama-flagged merchant vessel on July 24 after the ship ignored multiple warnings and tried to run a Strait of Hormuz blockade.
- CENTCOM confirmed this was the second deliberate disabling since the blockade was reimposed on July 14 and said forces redirected a dozen other vessels in the same enforcement window.
- Independent trackers and a maritime firm named Vanguard offered different accounts that identified the struck ship as the Vela Nova and described a missile hit about 71 nautical miles off Pakistan, creating a contested record of the weapon, ship identity, and location.
- U.S. officials and reporting say all crew were accounted for and there were no reported fatalities after the July 24 disabling, reflecting an enforcement pattern that targets rudders or engine rooms to immobilize ships rather than destroy them.
- The blockade, first set in April and briefly eased under a June memorandum that allowed Iran to export roughly 80 million barrels of oil, has since expanded U.S. interdiction tactics to include boardings and unmanned vessels and is raising costs and delays for commercial shipping and insurers.