A Wasp Class ship only cost a cool $1.98 Billion when adjusted for the 2020 Dollar. The cost to repair had a high end estimate of $3.8 Billion which is where this channel is getting its misleading figure. Why fix it when you can order 2 new ones for the estimated repair costs of 1?
I am a retired USCG CPO with nine years of sea duty on their frigate sized ships. The CO is always, always, always solely responsible for everything involving his ship. This incident isn't the first time a command has placed blame on a junior enlisted sailor, in this instance an E-2. The deplorable incompetence up the chain of command resulted in billions of taxpayer dollars being wasted. Training videos alone don't prevent catastrophic failures.
It boggles my mind that the CO of LHD-6, nor the local FedFire commander, weren't running fire suppression drills regularly during the ship's overhaul.
To continue. Especially in this case as they had already lost a boat in similar circumstances. Aboard the Richard it seems that even the most basic first alarm mechanism (see smoke yell fire) wasn't dinned in.
An excellent summary of how this went down, and a sober analysis of just how institutional and command failures can cause far more damage than enemy action. Also, good on you for not buying into the Navy's and BATFE's scapegoating of enlisted seamen. The seaman the judge advised against prosecuting at the end of September, as an aside, had a court martial (prosecution) ordered against him by the base admiral notwithstanding the judge's findings.
This was the most sickening problem. While yes, the sailor accused was considered a troublemaker, he was presumed guilty the whole time. They knew it was a problem with the leadership, but they didn't want to accept that responsibility. It sounded like most of the issues with the sailor were a failure of his NCOs and officers to mold him into a better sailor. I suppose this goes to show why you don't want to stick out in the military.
And just like with the USS Iowa turret explosion fallout, the more things change, the more the Navy seems to stay the same. After what happened with the Iowa and how the Navy came down on this guy so quickly as a suspect, I was seeing the same parallels instantly. Lo-and-behold they were extremely similar situations. Only, this time with the Bonhomme Richard, thank god no one was killed. That said, there was still a huge accident and immediately instead of trying to find out what actually happened and why the Navy and government tried to immediately find out who they could blame and try to make it look like the Navy wasn't at fault for anything. If you look at the investigation, it was a laughingstock. The ATF investigator found what he claimed to be a possible ignition site/source and... stopped looking for other potential ignition sources. Like, he saw that and just said, "Nope, we don't have to look any further for any other evidence. This is it." Despite the place where the fire originated on having tons of other things like lithium batteries, cardboard, machinery and vehicles that could spark, etc. That's... not how you do an investigation. The eyewitness account? Changed over time. Other suspects, including the guy that was searching about steel melting and stuff and they wrote him off because he was researching about dragons? Just discounted. They had their guy, no need to look at anyone or anything else! It wasn't an investigation. It was a witch hunt. One which the sole objective was to find someone to pin the blame on that would make the Navy look less incompetent. Only, in the end, it made the Navy look *_even more_* incompetent and even more pathetic in terms of leadership than it already did. ...Seriously, would it have been so terrible for the Navy to come out and say, "leadership was lacking and failed at all levels and negligence and complacency let this happen and the responsibility lies with us to prevent to from happening again"? I mean, sure, losing a $4 billion dollar amphibious assault ship because "whoopsie, it was clusterfcuk and we didn't do our jobs correctly" is a bitter thing to have to come to terms with... But it's better than having it happen and just trying to pin the blame on someone innocent and ignore the actual problem - which is what the Navy did this time. Again. They say the first step to dealing with a problem is admitting there is one int he first place. In that case, the Navy failed once again as well.
@@stormycatmink "It sounded like most of the issues with the sailor were a failure of his NCOs and officers to mold him into a better sailor." Looking at how many people were disciplined in the aftermath of the Bonhomme Richard and what their failures were... honestly, the sailor in question was the least of the Navy's problems. The guy was not happy with the Navy and was "disgruntled," sure... But from all indications he was also actually doing his job. Which is more than could be said for most of the crew in leadership positions on the Bonhomme. Also, I wish I knew where I saw it (swore it was in a SubBrief video on the incident, but I don't see it), but the conditions during that maintenance period were absolute dogshit. Basically months on end of being in the ship, oftentimes in extreme heat with little or no ventilation doing the same tedious work day-after-day-after-day with no end in sight. Not saying that this guy was disgruntled because of that or it caused someone to start a fire, but... when you put sailors in that environment for that long and you start throwing around accusation of "being disgruntled," I would be more concerned with who *_WASN'T_* disgruntled. Like somehow that means something in this case.
@matchesburn To be fair to the Navy, there were two investigations. Despite the Navy's efforts to sabotage and restrict it, the command investigation was brutal and appropriately self-reflective... and then essentially buried in favor of NCIS/BATFE's witch hunt. It's worth noting, too, that this base's NCIS division was just coming off another scandal right when this happened. The "disgruntled" sailor was a BUDS washout who was doing literally everything in his power to get a second shot, because apparently BUDS has a 3-strike policy. I'm not in the Navy, so that might be wrong, but that certainly appears to be what the seaman in question believed. "I'm busting my butt to qualify, even going for extra certifications like rescue diver training," doesn't line up with, "I hate the Navy and am going to burn my PoD down."
The US Navy never apologized to the accused. Sub Brief has really good videos that go more in depth about the different reports, events, and agents involved in this case.
This is probably a good indicator of how leadership looks across the entire Navy, and other branches, currently. Any somewhat competent officer would have had enough ability to properly manage the situation until more senior Officers arrived. First day on watch or not. I'm also surprised that there weren't more senior officers in the general area who would run over to assist when the gravity of the situation became apparent.
The Navy specifically seems to be in some dire straights with its leadership recently. This incident, Hawaii fuel leak, sailors drinking water with jet fuel in it. Each one has leadership ignoring red flags, and trying to scapegoat enlisted.
@@TheLightypants I can only talk from what I heard by third parties. But my sergeant in the German navy told me he once visited an American navy vessel. He said he was super envious of how much equipment they had stored, said we could only dream of having that much stuff. While at the same time he was super pissed about how the American soldiers just didn't give a shit about proper maintenance. Like we'd investigate when a motor runs out of oil a bit faster than supposed to, the Americans would pour 5-10 gallons a day into some motors and be like "It's fine, it just oils a bit that is normal"
Leadership is need however, it would have been better to assign a real commanding officer and XO with an advance STEM Degree during a shipyard period....Manpower scheduling mishaps....
@@rgloria40 Or they moved the incompetent ones to shoreside duties, where they were less likely to kill the enlisted under them, and thus get a reputation for being as useful as a chocolate teapot, or being so bad that the underlings decide to allow the enemy to kill the idiot.
As with just about everything in the military, officers are technically in charge. The smart officers say "fix it" and GTF out of the way while the Enlisted do their jobs. The very LAST thing you generally want is a gaggle of officers working on a problem.
If you are civilian, insist on touring vessels in your area, and discussing best attack methods with their crews. If you are already on vessels, please be the one that makes a point to invite the local civilian departments. Our maritime academy was able to save our training ship from a contractor caused fire. Our students did the work. We also made sure to pair every civilian firefighter from the nearby city each with their own student as a guide. The local department later coordinated future training with our school on our ship, when they realized how different the shipboard environment and tactics were.
I can tell you with personal experience there was not any lessons learned. We have a naval base and college in my mutual aid area and the information about how to respond to the naval base is still very limited. Even the federal firefighters on base do not have a hard and fast SOP about how to approach shipboard fires. Officers on board still believe that a fire on ship is best handled in their own damage control with the their own people. With that being said, having my own fire companies operate on a naval ship is suicide as we have 0 training on how to navigate a ship.
@@hihfty military bases with ships the size of a city should be obligated to put on training for all of the departments near them that could respond. Guess 4 billion dollars of damage isn't a big enough lesson. We will just have to wait till someone dies as a result, as usual in the fire service.
@@Zaiderr Absolutely!!! Unconscionable that even without guidance CO should involve local firefighters in a consolidated plan - chain of commands, necessary staged equipment, emergency response call-tree, etc. How come I can think,of this and more and Navy didn’t do it?
The "greatest military in the world"; 2022 Defense Budget = $737b. 2022 Navy budget is nearly as much as China's entire defense budget, and Russia's total is far less than this. This is what happens when you let imperialist mafia coke addicts and child predators run everything and let them build bases around the world to assert their will. Somehow, you end up with a baffling mess which can't function. I can't imagine why...
It's the fault of the Top Brass and the lack of implementation of basic fire standards. It's a good thing we're lowering our recruitment standards to fill our open slots...
As a former officer in a different navy, I watched this thing unfold in the news. I have no knowledge of the USN's approach to refits of this scale. I do understand how easy it is to let this kind of disaster creep up on you. Ships in refit are incredibly vulnerable to fire, for all the reasons explained and more, it is very easy to slide into a disaster. For this reason, it is a primary responsibility of the ships command team to be aware of what hazards are present. They must ensure that the remaining crew are equally aware, are trained, and absolutely sure of their responsibilities if they even suspect there is a fire, including being empowered to raise the alarm, how to react, what fixed firefighting resources are available, and how to conduct a timely attack on a fire. Frequent drills, with blunt critiques of the response; of the timeliness of the response; of the integration of external response teams; of the overall situational awareness maintained by leadership; and of the exercise outcomes are essential. This tragedy seems to me to be a direct result of failed leadership from the top down, with the "top" extending well above the level of C.O.
Absolutely. This was a CO level failure, though. This was all about a CO not accepting blame for his lack of attention, and I'd also blame the ship's CPO for not keeping up training. The XO for not keeping up with the situation. This was a direct failure on the part of the entire command staff of the ship. Also. An hour to get to the scene? A freaking hour? Where the hell was the captain that it took him an HOUR to get to his ship? I don't blame him for going home when he's in port. Who doesn't take every opportunity to go home? But it shouldn't have taken that long. Get out and run if traffic is bad.
Why weren't there automatic warnings alerting the sailors to the fire danger? All these radars and sonars and sensors to detect oncoming outside threats, but no sensors for what could damage a ship INSIDE it? Do these things not come with smoke detectors??
@@williamyoung9401 Lots of systems were offline for maintenance. Maintenance periods are the best time for a fire to get out of hand. Not a lot of people, alarm systems and fire suppression systems can be offline... But they should have doubled firewatch for just that reason, advised sailors to report EVERYTHING because of the possibility of systems being offline, and just be generally more aware of threats.
Great analysis, only two things missing: Your average ship has up to 1/4 of it's crew diverted to war on terror operations, this means your average sailor is expected to literally do more with less. Also, starting on 2009, navy leadership decided it was much more important to buy new boats than to care about such petty things as ship maintenance and upgrades. Leading to this incident, the Fitzgerald, the John McCain, etc ....
Not to mention that when a ship is in the yard for overhaul, most of the damage control systems are locked out or otherwise disabled for ease of access. It’s not a matter of pressing a button or flipping a switch, but rather valves, handwheels, etc, all over the ship with multiple locks on them. Even the hatches and doors that could stop the spread of the fire are locked in the open position.
You’re blaming lack of upgrades and maintenance as the cause for those ship collisions? It was obvious from the start the reason. Stupidity and incompetence.
@@SamBrickell Not the one you're thinking of - it is either his grandfather who was one of Nimitz's admirals in WWII or his father who was CINC SE Asia during the Vietnam War. Salt water runs in that family's veins...
_"This room isn't usually filled with smoke... Nah, this is probably fine, plus I have some equipment I should be losing right now anyway."_ Truly they are the best of the best.
My heart goes out to the crew that lost their ship. It was upsetting when I saw it on the news. The more that I learn about the incident, the more upset I get at all involved. It almost happened to one of my ships. My training ship was used annually for approximately three months. The other months, it was at our dock, cold iron, with dehumidifiers. Students, "Middies," did most of the work, under the supervision of officers and staff. Some jobs were contracted out. A contractor, welding on bulkheads, failed to properly do inspection and monitoring, before, during, and after a job. They didn't even leave a fire watch for complete cool down. Instead, their entire crew left the ship to go to lunch. SOP is a deckie & an engineer are on the quarter deck 24/7 watches. Fortunately, one of them was diligent in their rounds, especially in spaces with work activity. They called the alarm on a smoldering fire. They called the campus office, the day watch officer, the nearby boathouse, every dorm phone, the front gate watch, and the local fire department. I can't remember if the fire pumps drew from the surface water, or if we were attached to shore supply water that day. We did both back then. I do remember that the watch had all lines primed before anyone else arrived. Students and staff came running. The space had become fully involved by then; and the smoke plume could be seen for miles. Everyone had firefighting training, knew the systems, and where the gear was. Many Middies were already fighting the fire directly with fog lines, while others were cooling bulkheads, and inspecting all connecting spaces, above, and below. The gate awaited the arrival of the firetrucks from the city & directed them to the ship. Every city firefighter was paired with a student guide in turnout gear, etc. Students also protected the ship with extra techniques unique to shipboard fires. Fire was just barely out as the contractors returned to campus. The watch & the Middies had saved their ship. Our mopups and repairs took ages and added a lot of excessive workload to a tight budget. The local firefighters also arranged to use our ship for training afterwards, since they had previously been unaware of the difference in tactics needed. This was DECADES ago. HOW can a modern Navy and a professional base firecrew not do what a civilian maritime academy was able to do? Fire is THE number one enemy of ships, and ALL crew members should have firefighting training tactics, and intense knowledge of their individual ship's systems. It was my habit to get immediately oriented to a new ship's physical layout, and it's fire & emergency systems within my first 24 hours aboard. My life depended on it. Please, even if someone isn't putting it into your schedule, take it upon yourselves, both civilian and military, to educate yourself on your surroundings, how you can make a safe egress in the pitch black; and where all emergency resources are located. Your life, and others, might depend on it one day. Sorry for the length; but the USS Bonhomme Richard fire hits too close to home.
I know this is an old video and an old story, but as a retired sailor from the USN, this enrages me to no end. The incompetence at EVERY level is astonishing. Every single ship I served on (5 total) had a "rapid reaction team" (or flying squad) within the in port duty section, whose soul purpose was to respond to a casualty (fire/flooding) outside of other normal casualty actions and have agent on a fire (or working controlling actions for flooding) within 3 minutes. They didn't go to the repair locker for assignments, they didn't wait for boundaries to be set, they didn't wait for the Locker Leader or OSL ("On Scene Leader") to give orders. They went straight to the problem and engaged as they saw fit. They were the very tip of the spear. These were predominantly engineering sailors (engineering sailors were typically best suited for this role). At duty section muster and turnover in the morning, those assignments were given and KNOWN. That team is typically the same people every single duty day so there should be no question or confusion. Being a "small boy" sailor for my whole career, that part may different on a "big deck", but that particular operating structure is in place (or it was back in the day, at least) on EVERY SHIP. A proper RRT could probably have put this out with CO2 bottles at its inception had the first sailor at least investigated the "haze" and called away a fire. At the very least, one of them would have had the gumption to activate AFFF (assuming it available). AFFF isn't intended for class A fires, but it probably would have worked. Agent on the fire 2 HOURS after called away is simply unbelievable to me. 3-5 minutes could have saved this ship. I was enlisted so I stood MANY duty days as EDO (Engineering Duty Officer), and I place a HELL OF A LOT OF BLAME for this on the EDO. A solid EDO who has a handle on system status (Engineering owns the firemain system) within the ship would have been crucial in this whole mess. DC plates not being properly updated or even used were also HUGE issues here as well. Any sailor would know what I am talking about here. This one hurt my heart. To see a ship lost while pier side. I just don't understand.
Very good video. I live in San Diego, and we watched this ship burn four days. The smoke was thick and toxic blowing onto Barrio Logan (a neighborhood) causing many to evacuate. This was first class FUBAR. The OOD and Captain should have been on trial, not the seaman scapegoat. If you don't train for damage control in every situation, you don't have people with the situational awareness to fight a shipboard fire. You won't have a ship long. Who makes sure damage control adapts to changing shipboard conditions like a rebuild? The Captain.
Institutional corruption. If we hold this asshole accountable, why, someone might blame us when we do something grossly negligent! Like sit around humming and hawing when multiple ships crash into civilian vessels.
The captain obviously did horrible but the crews non-response is also concerning. What was the previous captain doing? He wasn’t keeping the crew at a state of readiness either.
My old boss said that the difference between a failure and a disaster is that a failure is caused by a single component stopping something temporarily, and a disaster a many failures in a series that lead to an unrecoverable outcome.
Because they didn't have a trans bi racial women who is in a poly relationship to deal with it. All the forces should be OK now that this is being mandated
@@EFFEZE I'm picturing 15 sailors in a huddle taking a vote regarding the fire: "Is everyone clear on what we're doing about this fire? I will text our boss with a message about the fire, eight of you said Madam, and 7 said Sir, so the message we send to our boss will start "Madam, there is a fire."
@@EFFEZE Yeah bro because clearly the all white guy crew can handle it on their own, after all they only managed to burn down a 4 billion dollar ship, havent seen a trans person do that yet.
One of the things about fire fighting onboard a ship is that they're not designed to have fires fought from the outside in. They're designed to be fought from the inside, where the fire fighters (sailors) are. Coming at it from the outside limits access to the fire and onboard fire fighting gear, as well as the swarming response from everyone on board when the PA makes the all hands call. It's unbelievable as a former sailor that NOBODY said "OH SHIT! SMOKE" and sounded the alarm onboard. Even a skeleton crew should have been able to handle this. Even if the stations are randomly nonfunctional, it takes a few seconds to check.
@@andrewstackpool4911 I can't imagine this happening. I can still hear damage control class.. '' congratulations, recruit! All your fucking crewmates are dead and it's your fault! '
@@Canthus13 Ok, I do not go for that type of instruction, based on negativity and criticism. They are immediately setting up a barrier in the JR. Be positive and tell them where they have gone wrong and, if necessary, run the exercise again. If you went through that I am sorry. But when push comes to shove, I don't want some kid making a difference positive or minus. Nor do I want a DCO whether his first day or 200th. You got a probably LCDR bands on the blouse. FFS. Get out there and take fkn command. Screw the gd phone. Call the CO shortly.
@@andrewstackpool4911 Dunno when you went to boot, but that was pretty normal for the 90s. And I'm not complaining. My point is there's no way I wouldn't have taken it seriously at the first hint of smoke. You don't need an officer to sound the alarm and get moving. By the time an officer was even alerted it sounds like it was too late. These failures are inexcusable from the bottom to the top. I'm still dumbfounded by someone ignoring smoke. sounding the alarm and having it turn out to be nothing is a lot cheaper and safer than ignoring it.
As a former (german navy) sailor i am amazed by the sheer incompetence (or lack of proper training). On a warship there is never ever a benign reason for smoke OR burn smell. You ALWAYS anounce ANY potential fire and (after announcing the fire) you immedeately start evaluating the situation and fight the fire if possible. And after round about 5 minutes the dedicated firefighting team will ALWAYS show up in full firefighting gear and also fight the fire if there is any. Best case is a false alarm and nobody will blame you for it (at least not for long)
Was onboard her with my NJROTC unit while she was getting ready for her refit. Got to talk with her Captain while we got to tour the bridge. Was insane to see her burning, and seeing shots of the places we had walked. Insane!
The sad thing is the San Diego Fire Department was the first entity to put water on the fire(almost two hours after the first report of smoke)per the Navy's report.
My ship's fire marshal was on the BHR as an investigator. He now does fire drills, flood drills, and toxic gas drills at least 2-4 times a week. They're really annoying but now they're needed because its better to be overtrained then undertrained. I can say with certainty, if a fire occurred on our ship, it will be handled much smoother and quicker than the BHR.
The most sad part is that the Navy tried to blame a single junior sailor when this is a command problem. Third fleet, a three star admiral, the group commander who is likely a 2 star admiral, the CO, the XO, the chief engineer, the CDO, and all the chief petty officers of the engineering department should all be facing severe disciplinary actions, with the most harsh going from the highest ranking to the lowest ranking. The senior officers should all be facing prison sentences. This should apply even if none of them were there, because this is the nature of responsibility that comes with rank. I am a 22 year navy vet and this whole thing was just despicable and makes me ashamed of all navy leadership even remotely involved.
Instead of trying to figure out how to how to prevent another fire from getting out of control like this again, the Navy tried to prosecute a sailor for arson, just because he was seen in the area.
My guess is the Captain tried to Captian's Mast a lower enlisted sailor and when that happened the sailor probably requested a Court Martial as a Mast is basically the captian is the investigator, prosecutor, judge and jury. Once you've been put up for a Mast you're gonna be guilty unless you ask for a Court Martial
When we were in drydock, or just doing welding and such jobs. We had at least 1 Deckape or snipe, watching with a fire extinguisher. USCGC CHASE/ESCAPE! The 2 Cutters I was on. DAMM SHAME!
Even civilian ships do this. When cruise ships are in maintenance, they have hospitality/housekeeping staff standing watch with fire extinguishers over any engineering work. This is just as boring, but it is considered a better post than deep cleaning passenger areas.
At first I thought the ship's name was 'Ballnumber Shark' Then I turned on the subtitles because I didn't catch the exact times (10: 30 firefighters start withdrawing and 10: 50 explosion) and only then did I found out it was the 'Bonhomme Richard!' The second US Navy ship bearing that name served in The Pacific War but didn't suffer any fatal fires. But speaking about the Pacific War, the US Navy had some excellent firefighting and damage control teams back then, didn't they?
This damage control was so bad I rather have the damage control used on fighting the fires and floods of the sinking japanese battleship yamato becuase AT least their crew was competent enough to turn a impossinle situation into a somehow manageable one albet it did sink regardless. This crew made an embarrassment of our navy and I bet those ww 2 veteran damage control officers are rolling in the graves
It was due to both a shipyard and culture issue in the naval yards amongst both crew and yard workers. It's still a problem, though now being mitigated pretty significantly.
This is unbelievable, purely from a FedFire and San Diego fire integration point of view. Here we cross train to ensure equipment, Comms, and scene management actually work. We had some absolute shambles over the years, and whilst we can never say it won't happen again, these types of multi-agency disasters shouldn't happen as often with all the historic information available. Great video, thank you 👍
One thing I think they should add from that incident is that Have Civilian Fire Departments being at least be able to communicate with FedFire and at best to train Civilian Fire Departments with FedFire where there are Navy Bases. You never know when big fire can happen and you need civis to help with containing fires.
What is crazy is 8 months before this the USS Iwo Jima, the same class of ship that the Bonhomme Richard was caught fire in a very similar way. The difference was how quickly the fire was reacted to. The personl on board were quickly overwhelmed due to inexperience and would have lost the ship if not for the actions and help from another ship moored down the pier from them. I have to wonder if there is anything to this. The Iwo Jima though was down in Mayport Florida and not San Diego. But the similarities are uncanny.
The most salient detail is the time of response. It took 2 hours from the time the fire was reported to when it was engaged. That is reflective of the total failure of ship's force from the leadership all the way down. Poor planning and management led to the ships' firefighting systems taken offline. Poor leadership led to inadequate training (or none at all). Ship's force was not capable of fighting the fire with the equipment and training they had. If ship's force had the equipment, training and organization, that fire probably would have been engaged within 10-15 min from the time it was reported and that ship most likely would have survived suffering a manageable amount of damage. The Navy knows this, but they needed a scapegoat. So lets pin it on the lowest paygrade Sailor who just happened to be in the area where the fire started.
If the ship had been in her normal configuration, then I would agree. However, when you have civilian shipyard workers not notifying Ship's Force of major FF systems down, fouling hatches by stringing leads, calbles, hoses, etc. through them, storing flammables by the 55-gallon drum wherever they please, etc.the whole dynamic changes. Ship's Force did not KNOW that installed sprinklers, firefighting stations, etc. were inoperable due to shipyard work until they tried to use them. Ship's Force did not know that the shipyard workers had taken large portions of the 1MC down. Hatches were fouled but DC Central never notified so that it could be noted on the plates. OF COURSE it will be blamed on SR Nobody rather than the shipyard (lack of) procedures. Some high-ranking officer probably saw his retirement plans of being on the Board at a major shipyard going down the drain and took immediate action.
@@kevincrosby1760 Ship's force should have known about the condition of the ship. Yard periods are planned out well in advance and every detail regarding taking down systems would be in the plan. The fact that the command signed off on this is highly questionable. One of the main jobs of the fire marshal is to document and report all problems regarding damage control equipment. So I find it hard to believe that the ship's force was not aware of the condition of ship IF they were following the 8010 instruction which came out of the USS Miami fire. The only conclusion I can come to is that they were not following the 8010 instruction in so many ways from the lack of training, to lack of awareness of the material condition of their ship.
@@dmac7128 USS Miami was before my service time. Personal observation from 2 DPMA periods was that the official schedule went out the window about the time as the water went out of the dock, and reverted to "whenever the yard sends the workers to do the work". It was to the point where I spent a good portion of both DPMAs assigned to rove through the Engineering spaces specifically monitoring for work being performed which was NOT on the day's list of work that DC Central knew about, missing equipment not on the list, work being performed with no Hot Work Permit, etc. I learned that quite interesting burn patterns, small fires, and some really foul smoke are created in your space when a yard worker starts welding brackets to the bulkhead in an adjoining space. My having a fire extinguisher present was helpful. Knowing that I might need it would have been even more so. I also learned that the Yard definition of a "Fire Watch" is your buddy who lurks around the corner and tosses a wrench down the PW so that you can stop welding before the pissed off sailor next door catches up with you. I learned that using a 5-gallon can of Lacquer thinner as a stool while welding is an accepted yard practice if your buddy doesn't toss the wrench in time. I learned that "Don't have time to fuck with that gay-assed shit" is apparently a valid reason for not having a Hot Work permit. I learned that picking up trash and such generated by yard work is the responsibility of a yard employee with the name of "Someone Else". I learned that yardworkers carry tools, so if it is valuable it might disappear even if it IS indeed bolted down. Police retrieved our test equipment AND the cabinet from a pawn shop. Yard worker was back on the ship soon after he was released from jail. I also learned that, when faced with a trip to the Porta-Potties located one deck above, more than one yard worker will simply piss and shit in a dark corner. I (and 4 shipmates) personally learned that it is quite possible for in-dash car stereos and mounted speakers to disappear from cars parked in an internal separately-fenced shipyard parking lot, past the Yard Security securing said lot, and out the front gate...all 5 within the same hour. The list could go on forever. I think the crowning glory was the yard worker who thought it was for a minor subsystem and "Didn't think anyone would notice" his opening the Shore Power Disconnect. We were Cold Iron and the EDG was not in working order. We noticed.
I worked my career as a security officer I'm currently retired., and we were drilled over and over and over again at the slightest indication of smoke either by scent or visual indication once verified pull the alarm, get on the PA system, make the designated announcement depending on what you see, and call 911 and then you notify operations if they are at home and if it is small enough for you to control yourself use extinguishers to do so if not evacuate yourself and anyone else from the area and let the fire department handle it. This was a mismanagement and training disaster,. The contractors treated this ship like a normal work site, and they got complacent and it bit them on the ass. And the commanding officer made the entire Navy look like an idiot., by the way he handled the captain's mast and the investigation that followed, and a good man's reputation got trashed for it. And the Navy wonders why they can't recruit enough new sailors or retain experienced sailors approaching the end of their service commitment. It's because of crap like this.
I am a security guard as well and you have SOPs for this type of thing. If in my building the fire system is shut down for maintenance its usually because the fire panel people are o site, which means fire control systems people where on site. So where where the fire control specialists when this disaster go on? To me that is unacceptable to turn off the fire systems without back up plans for a fire situation. Also at a basic fire fighting situation you should havw sailors on fire watch, routinely patrolling the ship so they can spot these fires at the earliest time.
@@filipinorutherford7818 yeah I remember when we had a situation where we had to go on firewatch because the system would keep activating turned out it was a wiring issue in the system. It took three different teams of technicians to restore the system to full service over an 11-week span of time that meant we had to walk firewatch every hour on the hour 24 hours a day for 11 weeks, on top of all the regular Duty that we were assigned. To say that no one from Operations , Security, building Administration as well as the tenants were happy about this was an understatement. We had shifts where you never even took a break even to go to the bathroom because you had to stay on that schedule. I remember when this first started and we ended up calling Atlanta Fire Rescue as a precaution, engine 26 was our closest responder. We explained what happened and they actually watched us reset the system back to normal after checking for evidence of fire and smoke in the building and lo and behold it went off again with both firefighters and security standing in the Fire Control Room. They eventually had to replace the entire system you don't want to know what the cost was.. the final numbers were brutal. Two of my coworkers in the team actually left because of how this was handled.
with how strict and by the book the military prides itself in being, i'm surprised at how almost nobody seemed to know what was going on or what to do. Fortunately, their general training taught most of them to be proactive and actually DO something about odd situations (like dude on the shore calling the firefed)
The CO/XO also had 14 straight fire drill failures in a row under their belt. Incompetence starts at the top, and 'Fail Upwards". (Actually rolls down from the incompetence from the current CIC!) In my DOD experience this was SOP for Promotion/Management placement...
i got out of the navy in the beginning of 2017 they were starting training on political feel good bullshit instead of the task at hand i'm glad i got out when i did, seeing the end result is fucking disgusting.edit: what happened to honor courage and commitment?
I think they will remember this along side the shinano and the junyo where improperly trained damage control/fire fighting doom a ship even tho the crew fought bravely
The bridge is the LAST place that you would coordinate a shipboard fire from. Damage Control Central is the place that has the ships diagrams, fire equipment location maps, firemain pressure monitoring, comms to all of the Repair Lockers, fire/flooding alarms, etc. Comms were mainly as issue because shipyard work had the 1MC (General Announcing) down in large sections of the ship. Would have worked out better if they had started said work according to the scheduled date a week or two out, or notified Ship's Force that they had disconnected several sections of the 1MC. Ditto for most of the firefighting stations that the crew tried to use...critical pumps and such were sitting on benches over in the shipyard.
I was at San Diego Naval Base in September. I noticed the fireies doing a lot of drill on the wet side. Which was great to see! As well as a month ago, I was at JBPHH onboard an Aussie destroyer and we did firefighting exercises with the USN. Cross platform on their ships with our equipment, it's a great exercise and is a great way to learn how different Navies use different firefighting techniques!
Just a few days before this incident, China’s 1st Type 075 LHD also caught fire. Remarkable coincidence for two ships of similar types in two different navies catching fire one after another.
That was my last command in the Navy I got out a few months before the fire but I lived down the street from base and watched it burn up, pretty surreal to watch.
during world war a similar accident during the transformation of a french civil boat to military ship occured due to uncompabality between french and americans pipe and no adaptator despite the brand new and evolved firefighting system of this ship, they didn't have learn anything of all those failures. the "normandie" ocean liner
The loss was because fire fighters put so much water into her upper decks to put out the fire they caused the ship to capsize due to the change of her center of gravity, as soon as she had the slightest list it was all over and she rolled
Did you remember few years ago, Indonesian Navy just made a new LCS ship looks like independence class..but smaller KRI RENCONG, they boast on every national media the ship can't catch fire and prone to fire because it made from hitech composite and strong structure... Well..before she was commissioned, the ship caught fire while on port on daily maintenance and upgrade.. Well..that's escalated quickly...
If the civilian Emergency Services were part of the base Emergency Response plans, then not having compatible _AND TESTED_ comms with each service provider is truly an epic failure at many levels in San Diego. I'm certain that a number of savvy E4's and E5's probably identified this shortcoming to their superiors, only to be overlooked. This also highlights the necessity of the terribly mundane but always critical _"Watch Duty"_ with appropriate oversight at number of levels.
Even with the communication failures; there was a way around it. My maritime academy had a dockside ship fire. Our local city firefighters had never been aboard. So each paired with a student as they came up the gangway, onto the quarter deck. It kept the FFs from getting lost in the superstructure. Every student could make their way around blindfolded. We actually trained for it. It also helped that the students all knew the unique tactics for firefighting aboard ships. It's infuriating to see that basic problem solving wasn't used in San Diego at the start of the fire attack.
@@elizabethbottroff1218 Yes, your Maritime Academy had substantially more wisdom aforehand than a major U.S. Naval base. Thank you for pointing this simple, yet elegant solution to all whose eyes land upon this thread. "But wait!! We're the U.S. Navy, FFS!?!?!" - heard from the peanut section. "That might've carried some water, if you had said: 'We're the British Navy, FFS!' - My retort. Sorry, I foresaw some low hanging fruit and couldn't let it slide. I truly respect all Sailors, Naval Aviators and Marines from around the world, as they pin their very survival on slim number of inches of cold-rolled steel. - A former U.S. Army Infantry leg.
I was serving on a sub that was moored next to the Miami in the EB shipyard when it burned. It was arson by a shipyard worker who had seeded smoldering wads of wipes between bulkheads and in the outboards. All because he "wanted to go home".
As a FF I can tell you how important command and communication is. I can also tell you that no matter who can talk to who on radios (which is almost everyone these days), each departments commanding officer will be at the command post, their all together so you can focus on your dept while with the other leaders. It works great. (This is for our local area but similar in most places).
The stunning lack of discipline, competence and training lies with the senior staff, which I hope resulted in demotions and punishment. Ironic, since private industry has strict safety regulations and guidelines for licensing and permitting. The Government continues to practice “Do as I say, not as I do “. Resulting in another “9/11 catastrophe” to bring about change.
as mentioned above strict safety regulations hits home with the Navy, as other agencies don t have authority. (like OSHA) I was on a carrier that had a opening cut in the deck that went down very far and there was no barrier. It was left like this for weeks as the ship was in dry dock.
PRIVATE INDUSTRY WAS RESPONSIBLE FOR THE UNSAFE CONDITIONS! Large quantities of flammable liquids improperly stored by SHIPYARD workers. Hatches fouled with welding leads, cables, hoses etc. by SHIPYARD workers so that they could not be closed to contain a fire. Fire and communications systems inoperable due to ongoing work by SHIPYARD workers. Lack of notification to Ship's Force by SHIPYARD workers that major safety systems were down. Are you seeing a pattern here?
Shipyards and contractors are often the biggest hazards for a ship. Competent leadership becomes hyper vigilant. It appears that this ship suffered from leadership that did the exact opposite.
@@elizabethbottroff1218 Unfortunately, politics can come into play which makes it nearly impossible for Ship's Force to correct an unsafe condition. I once stopped Hot Work being performed by a shipyard worker due to no permit, no firewatch, flammables being present, and a fire being started on the opposite side of the bulkhead which he was welding on. The welder's complaint went up through the worker's supervisor to the shipyard management, collected a senior Union rep, kept climbing, did a lateral somewhere way up high, and came back down to the ship through the CO. After that incident, we were forbidden to interfere with any yard worker action unless it presented an immediate danger to life. Basically, put out the fire and send somebody to find the Command Duty Officer to document the problem.
A fire is bad, a fire on a ship is terrible. But hearing the different problems of being able to put the fire out, made me think of the three stooges. Hopefully a lot, if not all, of the issues were solved.
Having been in overhaul before, this is a lesson we learn and forget. Rinse and repeat. Overhaul is an extremely dangerous operation for a ship. No doubt the Navy will be more diligent in the near term. Such a waste.
Absolutely!!! Short of actual combat, the yard is the most dangerous place for a ship!!! This would've never happened at sea- well at least not 30yrs back when I was a junior sailor on a fire team. We were well trained back then...
*"The announcement was delayed 20 minutes because sailors thought the smoke might have ad a benign reason, like starting an EJ20. It's probably just another head gasket"*
Really enjoyed your video. I would love to see you report on the turret explosion on the U.S.S. Iowa in 1989. The navy concocted a gay love story to blame for the explosion when they had been using fifty year old powder charges. It was a hell of a cover up yet nobody in command seemed to suffer after the deaths of scores of sailors.
This is a video about a ship that burned and got lost right? An American ship? A ship from the navy that prides itself for their excellent damage control teams and can get a knocked out carrier back to being fully operational in just 20 minutes? They can save a stricken ship in the middle of combat and can't save a burning ship right at their doorsteps.
Things change when you add a bunch of civilian shipyard workers who just plain don't give a shit. In this case, the ship was under control of the civilian shipyards, NOT the crew.
@@kevincrosby1760 the thing though is that there are sailors in the ship who should have known how to handle emergencies. Also, the ship's CO actually showed up but didn't know anything effective to make efforts more effective. A CO's duty is to protect his/her ship and it's crew regardless of situation. The ship might be in the dock yard undergoing maintenance but in terms of Authority, that ship is still basically his turf. He could have lead and better organized the early response together with his XO.
@@CoffeeMug2828 In the real world, Officers do not generally lead. They say "XYZ" and rely on Enlisted to know how to properly handle "XYZ". My last Electrical Division Officer, responsible for everything from the Ship's Turbine Generators down to electrical checks on a set of hair clippers, was a CHEMIST trained to compound specialty medications. Again, it wasn't that the crew did not respond appropriately, it was that the material condition of the ship did not allow for an appropriate response.
Aluminum melts relatively low temperature for metal. Am also cracks under stress of seas. Seriously steel is still the way to go until titanium is cheaper
Sam Mercliago "what the ship" YT channel highlighted in detail the magnitude of missteps that transpired to cause the loss of this ship. NCIS tried to blame a lowly sailor for the catastrophe, but it was the ship's leadership that allowed a culture of substandard to permeate and ultimately doom the vessel.
Few points. 1. The USS Miami was a fire deliberately set by a shipyard employee who wanted to go home. Effective fire response was hampered by the fact that significant hoses, temporary services, and other equipment clogged the already narrow passages. Many of these partially falling in areas of ingress and egress when melting. Lessons were learned and temporary services and ventilation now require metal cable hangars and more attention is paid to routing. 2. While it may sound like a good idea to have ships’ radios compatible with civilian firefighting networks, this is not feasible for security reasons.
What a dog and pony show, and the US navies response was to throw some poor junior sailor to the wolves instead of taking responsibility for their piss poor training, maintenance and safety procedures.
Worked at a nuke plant for years SRO, burned into our conscious you even suspect a fire pull the alarm. If a false alarm people might be a little annoyed but better than not sounding the alarm. We were under special fire brigade procedures during refueling operations when there was heavy amount of maintenance and many contractors on site.
A Wasp Class ship has a price tag of only $1.98 Billion (in 2020 dollars). The estimated cost to repair was between $2.5 and $3.8 Billion. That is why they scrapped it. They could build an all new one for less than the cost to repair (plus they can sell the dead ship for scrap).
Unfortunately, a superpower requires strong enough military to support and protect its supremacy on the world ranking. Moreover, don’t teach USA how to use their money
I was on this ship in 1999, crazy how it's service time ended. Lastly, glad for sailor Mays, a 'patsy' to cover up failed leadership is abysmally trash weakness at its finest.
I would believe that DoD has higher standards in safety; So Where were the mandatory fire watch personnel stationed in the ship’s sections where the fire suppression systems were inop?
