by Bob Walsh
You
might remember the Bonhomme Richard caught fire in San Diego last
year. It burned for four days and the amphibious assault ship was
essentially destroyed. The report on the fire has been finished but not
released yet. It is not kind to the chain of command.
The
report named specifically 36 naval personnel, including five admirals,
whose failures contributed significantly to the loss of the ship thru a
series of cascading failures.
One
sailor has been charged with arson for starting the fire, because he
was pissed at the brass. Lack of response to the initial fire is cited
as the reason the fire went from a relatively minor irritation to a
disaster.
Among those
failures is the fact that crew members were aware of the fire for ten
minutes before anybody bothered to report it. The foam system was not
activated. The crew was not properly trained in fire fighting and lack
of participation in fire fighting drills was routinely ignored.
The
$1 billion ship was one of the few from which the new F-35 aircraft
could operate. The ship was commissioned in 1998. It has been decided
to decommission and scrap the vessel due to the extensive damage.
The navy has yet to comment on the report.
I
strongly suspect a couple of careers are in the crapper over this, with
justification. Fire drills and fire control are not a joke on a vessel
that carries jet fuel and ordnance.
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