USS Fort Worth participates in its first-ever CARAT exercise

The littoral combat ship USS Fort Worth completed its first-ever Cooperation Afloat Readiness and Training (CARAT) exercise recently with Bangladesh in the Bay of Bengal.

"The sea phase of CARAT Bangladesh was short, but filled with a large number of naval war fighting core competencies that advanced our navies' interoperability," Cmdr. Christopher Brown, commanding officer of the Fort Worth, said. "Fort Worth once again proved to be an ideal platform to interact with our Bangladesh Navy partners, given our size, displacement, armament and capabilities -- true hull-to-hull partners."

For the last four years, steady progress has been made in increasing the complexity and scope of the bilateral engagement, and the 2015 sea phase consisted of several highly complex surface-warfare exercises, small-boat operations and deck-landing qualifications.

"We conducted night DLQ's (Deck Landing Qualifications) with the Bangladesh flight crew, observing from the helicopter tower in order to explain to them our procedures for safely landing on the ship at night," Lt. Michael Chertude, operations officer assigned to Helicopter Maritime Strike Squadron (HSM) 35, Detachment 3, currently stationed on the Fort Worth, said. "This experience will hopefully enable the Bangladesh Naval Aviation community to develop their own techniques and procedures for safely conducting night landings on board their own ships."