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Drone films the USS Ranger on her final journey to the scrapyard

Posted at 1:05 PM, Apr 13, 2015
and last updated 2015-04-13 13:24:43-04

The aircraft carrier USS Ranger, which saw action in the Vietnam War and Operation Desert Storm and appeared in the movies “Top Gun” and “Star Trek IV” is on its final journey.

The once-mighty carrier is on a five-month cruise at the end of a tow cable from Bremerton, Washington, around the top of South America to a scrapyard in Texas.

LiveLeak user captainslog used a drone to capture this footage of the ship as it stopped in the Bay of Panama.

The 56,300-ton warship, which was launched in 1956, was decommissioned in 1993 but kept in storage for possible reactivation until March 2004 when it was stricken from the Naval Vessel Register and made available for donation to a group that could preserve it and turn it into a museum.

But attempts by groups in Long Beach, California, and Fairview, Oregon, to do so came up short of meeting U.S. government requirements for donation.

CNN Wire contributed to this report.