US aircraft carrier with 5,000 crew to call on Phuket

USS George HW Bush the second large warship to visit Kingdom after Mideast duty

PUBLISHED : 29 Sep 2026 at 18:11

Phuket is preparing to welcome 5,000 US navy personnel during a port call by the USS George HW Bush, the second aircraft carrier to visit Thailand after seeing action in the Middle East war.

Pol Col Chatree Chukaew, the Phuket city police chief, held talks on Tuesday with Lu Pham and Robert Robinson, deputy assistant defence attachés at the US Embassy in Thailand, to discuss arrangements for the scheduled visit from Oct 4-9.

Participants discussed co-operation and security arrangements for the visiting sailors during their time on the island. Thai authorities advised US personnel to respect and comply with Thai laws during their stay.

The USS George HW Bush left left Norfolk, Virginia, on March 31, 2026 and was deployed to the Arabian Sea to support operations in the US Central Command region during the conflict with Iran.

The aircraft carrier, with about 4,800 personnel, will be accompanied by the USS Delbert D Black (DDG-119), an Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer carrying about 320 personnel.

The visit of the carrier comes just a month after a port call in Pattaya in Chon Buri by the USS Abraham Lincoln, also carrying about 5,000 personnel.

The five-day visit was almost incident-free and helped promote a new image of Pattaya as a diverse destination, rather than being mainly about “nightlife and beer bars”, said Pattaya mayor Poramet Ngampichet.

The visit was believed to have pumped about 100 million baht into the local economy, he said.