A runabout assigned to the USS Enterprise-D
The USS Enterprise-D could carry at least three Danube-class runabouts in its shuttlebays. (DS9: "Emissary") One runabout assigned to the Enterprise was used by Captain Picard to attend a three-day conference on the effects of deep-space assignments in 2369.
It was while onboard this runabout and returning from the conference that Enterprise personnel Picard, Troi, La Forge and Data discovered the Enterprise and a Romulan Warbird locked in a temporal fracture in the space-time continuum. Ultimately, the runabout was deliberately destroyed via remote control by Picard from the Enterprise's bridge. The vessel was steered into a power transfer beam, which was the direct cause of the temporal fractures. (TNG: "Timescape")
- While runabouts are usually named like starships, with a name and unique NCC registry, this one was never referred to as such, and no identification was visible on the ship's hull, although some stock footage from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine might bear the name USS Rio Grande, apparently in error since the Rio Grande was in service at Deep Space 9 and could not have been the ship in question – especially since Picard and crew destroyed the runabout in the end of "Timescape."
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