It looks like an airfield runway in the middle of the desert, but this is actually the deck of the the Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson. The ship was navigating across the Arabian Sea on March 19 when a powerful sand storm crossed her path.
Sometimes, sand storms can come from inland deserts into the sea powered by sustained strong winds. On occasion, the sand storms are huge and can affect many ships. Like this one, which blew from the Sahara into the Atlantic sea back in January 19. It was so big that could have covered the entire Northeastern United States
Nothing bad happened to the USS Carl Vinson, however. Just some serious visibility problems and probably a lot of clean up later.
She is deployed to the U.S. 5th Fleet area of responsibility along with and Carrier Air Wing 17. [US Navy]
Image by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Benjamin Stevens/US Navy