Will the carrier assist even though I am not American?

You have been under observation since long before you spotted the ship with your mark one eyeballs. You’ve been marked as an object of interest, tracked, used for training exercises or practice. The ocean is a boring place, and anything that shows up is interesting. It MIGHT be an enemy craft, but even it it’s not, it’s still better than looking at a blank screen.

You shoot a flare. This indicates that you’re in distress. Until this point, you were interesting as a target, now, you’re a mission. First of all, all the pilots are not asleep. That’s not a thing. Someone is on shift at all times. A plane is in the air much of the time (note, I said all the time, but people who know better have set me straight), in overwatch mode. There are 5000 people on this armed mobile military base, and it is a potential target at all times. Someone’s watching.

Nobody knows whether you are American or not. You are a human lost at sea. All seafaring nations have a tradition of rescuing people lost at sea. All sailors, not just government ones. It’s us against the great blue deep, after all.

You’ll be rescued. The people doing the rescue will be heavily armed and looking at you and your craft at every moment as though it might be a trap, or a lure. Radar, sonar, IR goggles, satellite records looking for your path. Two things. One, you might be a trap or a lure. Two, training opportunity. Three, boredom relief.

You might not be rescued by anyone on board the Nimitz. She travels with a whole carrier escort group. Depending on the weather, light conditions, positions of assets, your rescuers might come from any of the other craft in the group

But you’ll be fine. As long as you make damn sure your hands are empty when they show up.