Kidd was
christened by Admiral Kidd's granddaughters, Regina Kidd Wolbarsht and Mary Kidd Plumer on 22 January 2005, at
Ingalls Shipbuilding in
Pascagoula, Mississippi. Commander Richard E. Thomas of
Westwood, New Jersey, served as her first commanding officer until February 2008. Commander Charles P. Good of
Huntington Beach, California, took
Kidd on her maiden deployment. While in the midst of final outfitting, the ship was holed and partially flooded at the shipyard docks during
Hurricane Katrina on the Mississippi
Gulf Coast, requiring a return to dry dock for repairs, which included cutting out a turbine, delaying her commissioning and deployment with the Navy. She was commissioned at
Galveston, Texas on 9 June 2007. Kidd is currently homeported in Everett, Washington. On 5 January 2012,
Kidd rescued the 13-member crew of the Iranian-flagged fishing vessel
Al Molai from
Somali pirates who had been holding them hostage for over 40 days, capturing fifteen pirates in the process with no casualties.
Search for Malaysia Airlines MH 370 On 10 March 2014, the ship joined the search for
Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 two days after it went missing over the
South China Sea.
Kidd was the second Navy ship to be deployed in the search. It joined , and more than 40 other ships and 32 aircraft from
Malaysia,
Australia,
China,
India,
Thailand,
Indonesia,
Singapore,
Taiwan,
Vietnam,
New Zealand, and the
Philippines taking part in the search and rescue. On 14 March it was announced that
Kidd would be relocated to the Indian Ocean in search of the plane, since new evidence pointed to the possibility of the plane being there.
2020 COVID-19 pandemic On 24 April 2020, the
United States Navy reported that a sailor assigned to
Kidd had tested positive for the virus after being medically evacuated the previous day from operations at sea. After the sailor's test returned positive, the Navy sent a medical team to the ship to conduct
contact tracing and test sailors for the virus on board.
In Popular Culture The ship was featured in the
Michael Bay film
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009). In the film, the ship had a rail gun used to shoot and kill a
Decepticon named Devastator. However, it was the
USS Preble (DDG-88) that was filmed during the production of the movie to portray as the USS Kidd. ==References==