Fire on the USS Bonhomme Richard (LHD-6)

[TopHatter]

More than two dozen sailors punished for their actions during the USS Bonhomme Richard fire
Several commanders, including a vice admiral, were disciplined for failing to properly prepare the crew for such a fire, which destroyed the ship.




The Navy laid out a series of punishments for more than two dozen sailors, including a vice admiral, for their handling of the fire onboard the USS Bonhomme Richard in 2020. The four-day fire off the coast of San Diego left the amphibious assault ship doomed to be scrapped. The Navy announced the set of disciplinary actions on Friday, the first public move since an earlier investigation found the fire preparedness for the USS Bonhomme Richard to be substandard.

U.S. Pacific Fleet head Admiral Samuel Paparo gave out letters of reprimand and forfeited pay for Capt. Gregory Thoroman and Capt. Michael Ray, who were respectively the commanding and executive officers of the USS Bonhomme Richard at the time of the fire. The ship’s command master chief Jose Hernandez also received a letter of reprimand. Letters of instruction were sent out to base and maintenance commanders as well. The punishments were sent out for failing to take action soon after the fire started, over disputes and confusion over who had operational command over the ship while it was in port.

At the highest level of those disciplined is retired Vice Admiral Rich Brown, who at the time of the blaze was commander of Navy Surface Forces, U.S. Pacific Fleet. Secretary of the Navy Carlos Del Toro issued a letter of censure to the now-retired Brown, who told Defense News earlier this month that he had been cleared of culpability in the response to the blaze.

The four-day fire in July 2020 started with arson, but continued while commanders tried to untangle who was in charge and would coordinate firefighting operations. The ship had gone to port for upgrades to let it carry F-35B fighter planes on it. The fire caused more than $3 billion in damage and the Navy decided it was better to scrap the ship entirely rather than attempt repairs on the heavily damaged vessel.

The alleged arsonist, Seaman Apprentice Ryan Mays, was already charged prior to this announcement. His case is ongoing.

An earlier investigation into the blaze found that the ship’s crew was ill-equipped and not properly trained for such a fire at the time of the incident. 87 percent of fire stations were not maintained. Sailors took improper risks and without the right equipment in some moments, resulting in cases of smoke inhalation. The investigation also zeroed in on the confusion at the time of the fire, noting there wasn’t clarity over who was in charge and what the chain of command was in the event of a fire such as the one that hit the ship. In a June memo, Del Toro said that the fire could have been prevented with proper oversight of the fire prevention equipment and preparedness.

The punishments are some of the most sweeping the Navy has handed out in recent months, and for the clearest reasons. Since May, the Navy has been relieving multiple commanding officers from ships, in almost every case for unspecified losses of confidence in their ability to lead. Most recently on July 8 the Navy removed the commander of the USS Scranton after only eight months in command of the nuclear submarine.
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"The four-day fire off the coast of San Diego..."

Well, I guess that's technically correct...

[Gun Grape]

So we lose a ship and no one loses rank. Except for the E-3

[TopHatter]

So we lose a ship and no one loses rank. Except for the E-3

Different spanks for...and you know the rest.

[tbm3fan]

So we lose a ship and no one loses rank. Except for the E-3

Strange isn't it. At a minimum the CO, XO, and CDO all should have lost rank. Instead the CO was left in command all the way till the ship made it to Brownsville.

Bigger issue is do you think the Navy will learn anything from this? Lots of officers have been relieved this year except the one with the biggest booboo in years. He retired at rank.

[Monash]

Strange isn't it. At a minimum the CO, XO, and CDO all should have lost rank. Instead the CO was left in command all the way till the ship made it to Brownsville.

Bigger issue is do you think the Navy will learn anything from this? Lots of officers have been relieved this year except the one with the biggest booboo in years. He retired at rank.

Jump or be pushed?

[TopHatter]

Sailor found not guilty of setting fire that destroyed ship

SAN DIEGO (AP) — A Navy judge ruled Friday that a sailor was not guilty of setting a fire that destroyed the USS Bonhomme Richard in San Diego in 2020.

The ruling came after a nine-day trial at Naval Base San Diego. Ryan Sawyer Mays, who had been charged with arson and the willful hazarding of a ship, let out a deep breath, put both hands on the defense table, broke into sobs and began hugging supporters.

“Seaman Recruit Mays was found not guilty on the charges of willful hazarding of a vessel and aggravated arson. The Navy is committed to upholding the principles of due process and a fair trial,” said Lt. Samuel R. Boyle, spokesman for U.S. 3rd Fleet.

Prosecutors accused then-19-year-old Mays of igniting cardboard boxes in a lower vehicle storage area to drive home an earlier text to his division officer that the ship was so cluttered with contractors’ stuff it was “hazardous as (expletive).” They contended that Mays was angry and vengeful about failing to become a Navy SEAL and being assigned to deck duty and ignited the ship to send a message.

There is no physical evidence, however, tying Mays to the fire on the ship, which was docked and undergoing maintenance at that time.

Outside the courtroom building at Naval Base San Diego, Mays read a brief statement to reporters and declined to answer questions. He did not address his plans.

“I can say that the past two years have been the hardest two years of my entire life, as a young man,” he said. “I’ve lost time with friends. I’ve lost friends. I’ve lost time with family and my entire Navy career was ruined. I am looking forward to starting over.”

The prosecution acknowledged that a Navy report last year concluded the fire that destroyed the $1.2 billion amphibious assault ship was preventable and unacceptable and that there were lapses in training, coordination, communications, fire preparedness, equipment maintenance and overall command and control. The failure to extinguish or contain the fire led to temperatures exceeding 1,200 degrees (649 Celsius) in some areas, melting sections of the ship into molten metal that flowed into other parts of the ship.

More than 20 senior officers and sailor were disciplined in connection with the incident.

Defense lawyers argued the trial exposed a shoddy probe by government investigators who rushed to judgment and failed to collect evidence showing that the culprit also could have been lithium ion batteries or a sparking forklift instead of arson.

The prosecution said that investigators found no scientific data to back the theory that batteries or a forklift malfunction sparked the inferno, while testimony from fellow shipmates bolstered the case against Mays along with his own words when he was being escorted in handcuffs and blurted out, according to the sailor escorting him to the brig: “It had to be done. I did it.”

The defense said Mays, known for being flippant, was being sarcastic after denying doing it more than 150 times during 10 hours of questioning by investigators.
______

[Albany Rifles]

Looks like proper justice as defined in the UCMJ was executed here. I sat on several courts martial and did tens of administrative disciplinary actions. I recall in every court martial if there was no physical evidence it was hard to convict anyone. Looks to be the same in this instance.

[Albany Rifles]

A postmortem on the Bonnie Dick disaster from this month's Proceedings from the US Naval Institute


A Catastrophic Mishap | Proceedings - January 2024 Vol. 150/1/1,451 (usni.org)

A Catastrophic Mishap
By Captain Thomas Beall, U.S. Navy (Retired)
January 2024

Proceedings

Vol. 150/1/1,451
NOW HEAR THIS
I read of the loss by fire of the USS Bonhomme Richard (LHD-6) with dismay. The ship was undergoing a depot-level availability pierside in San Diego, California. Ships are particularly vulnerable to fire and flooding during such periods because watertight integrity and fire boundaries are compromised to support depot-level work. Flammable materials can find their way on board in quantity, and ships easily become very dirty. Shipboard firefighting and damage control equipment are shut down and tagged out.
These hazards can be mitigated only by the vigilance and actions of those who “own” the ship: the crew. Failure of vigilance and response can lead to disaster, as happened to the Bonhomme Richard.
Root Causes

There were a number of internal and external factors that contributed to the loss of the Bonhomme Richard. However, the root causes cited in the command investigation fall squarely on ship’s force:
Material Condition. Throughout the maintenance period, the material condition of the ship was significantly degraded, including heat-detection capability, communication equipment, shipboard firefighting systems, miscellaneous gear clutter, and combustible material accumulation. On the morning of the fire, 87 percent of the ship’s fire stations were in inactive equipment maintenance status.
Training and Readiness. The training and readiness of ship’s force was marked by failed drills, minimal crew participation, lack of basic knowledge on firefighting in an industrial environment, and unfamiliarity with how to integrate supporting civilian firefighters. The crew had failed to meet the time standard for applying firefighting agent on the seat of a fire on 14 consecutive occasions leading up to the 12 July 2020 fire.¹
Poor Housekeeping. Every seagoing naval officer must learn this truth early: A clean, well-maintained ship is a successful ship. Cleanliness and good maintenance are a reflection of a crew dedicated to excellence in their ship’s operations and material condition. Unfortunately, the converse is also often true, as Vice Admiral Scott Conn’s investigation led him to conclude was the case with the Bonhomme Richard. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) investigators assessed that the fire was caused by arson:
ATF conducted a systematic fire scene examination and determined the fire originated in Lower Vehicle Stowage Area (Lower V). . . . ATF determined that once the fire ignited, it spread to the significant amount of combustible material stored within Lower V, which included dozens of tri-walls filled with gear and equipment and three fueled vehicles (a forklift, a man-lift, and a cargo tractor).²
Regardless of what initiated the fire, however, its spread was facilitated by poor housekeeping in a remote compartment that clearly was not regularly visited or inspected.
To minimize the risk of such a fire, all naval vessels should have one or more roving watches whose job it is to visit all shipboard spaces and report problems such as developing damage control emergencies. Division officers should inspect their spaces daily for cleanliness and accumulation of fire hazards. The damage control assistant should walk the ship below the damage control deck daily, ensuring no fire or flooding hazards are present. That none of these measures appear to have been taken left vulnerable spaces unattended and permitted the accumulation of fire hazards.
Firefighting Deficiencies. Commander Joel Holwitt and Captain Mary K. Hays’ article “Every Sailor a Firefighter” in the August 2022 Proceedings is excellent in identifying deficiencies in and offering a solution to shipboard in-port firefighting training and execution.³ The article also reads much like Naval Ships’ Technical Manual (NSTM) chapter 555, “Surface Ship Firefighting.” In other words, what Holwitt and Hays propose is nothing new. The procedures they offer have been an integral part of shipboard in-port and at-sea damage control for years.
Twenty years ago, when I was in command of a frigate, every sailor reporting to a Navy ship was required to complete the Basic Damage Control qualification within a prescribed time frame. In addition, the new sailor had to complete the two-day Basic Shipboard Firefighting course. Only when these requirements were met could he or she be assigned to a duty section in-port emergency team. Timely completion of these qualifications was essential to permit the ship to man four complete fire parties in homeport to sustain a reasonable four-section duty rotation.
Continual training, including daily drills, was essential to create and sustain effective teams that could act as first responders to fires and other damage control emergencies. In-port readiness was considered so important that the command duty officer was expected to observe and evaluate the drills conducted by his duty section. Further, certification of in-port fire parties by the Afloat Training Group and Propulsion Examining Board were prerequisites to successful completion of basic predeployment training.
This level of training clearly was not occurring in the Bonhomme Richard. This can be explained in part by the high crew turnover that occurs during an extended depot-level availability. Experienced sailors depart and are replaced by inexperienced ones. Higher priorities often lead to postponement
of required training until the predeployment training cycle looms near the end of the yard period. However, given that it is during the availability that the ship is most vulnerable to any number of casualties (fire, flooding, toxic gas, etc), failure to provide adequate damage
control capability greatly increases the risk of catastrophic damage. Lack of operational risk management aggravates the problem.
What’s Gone Wrong?
The Navy has promoted a culture that deprives junior officers of the opportunity to exercise meaningful responsibility and real accountability for sailors, equipment, and compartments. Instead, they are encouraged to focus on personal career development. For example, Lieutenant Commander Emma McCarthy writes in the October 2022 Proceedings:
The submarine force devalues the experience of shipyard junior officers whose mission has been returning warships to fighting shape. These junior officers spend their days in shipyards laboring over work controls and complex maintenance procedures to the detriment of their navigation and tactical prowess. They are at a disadvantage because they spend less time at sea honing their skills on the tip of the Navy’s lethal spear.⁴
I have a number of reservations about this statement. First, only a small portion of time at sea is spent honing lethal, tip-of-the-spear skills. Many more hours
are spent standing watch, honing seamanship and navigation skills or propulsion plant operations skills. This is important, but experience has shown there will be time enough for this essential training when the ship or boat comes out of the shipyard.
Second, the leadership experience a junior officer gains in a shipyard can be invaluable. Leadership in port is in many respects more challenging than at sea. The distractions of home and family life are more immediately present in a sailor’s life, as are other distractions that can lead to destructive behaviors such as alcoholism and drug abuse. In the face of such challenges, it is up to division officers to inspire high morale among their sailors, by enforcing high standards of performance while providing opportunities for personal and professional development. Enforcing high standards requires division officers’ untiring vigilance and recognition that they bear responsibility for their sailors 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Learning to live up to this responsibility is infinitely more important in preparing for command than earning a gold qualification pin.
If the Navy deprives junior officers of challenging leadership opportunities such as leading a division during a long-duration shipyard availability, it deprives its ships of intelligent officers who can meet the high standards of leader accountability. It also conveys the message to junior officers that their own professional development is more important than leading their divisions.
Officers should embrace the idea that it is their responsibility to accomplish the mission and bring the crew home safe. The mission spans operations at the tip of the spear to an extended shipyard availability. An officer brings the crew home safe by ensuring that every sailor, regardless of the mission, leaves the ship to return to his or her family, intact in body and mind. Fostering this attitude in Navy culture may go a long way to preventing a catastrophe such as that which befell the Bonhomme Richard.
1. VADM Scott D. Conn, USN, memo N00/156 dtd 5 Apr 21, “Command Investigation into the Circumstances Surrounding the Fire Onboard USS Bonhomme Richard (LHD-6) on or about 12 July 2020.”
2. Conn, “Command Investigation,” 21. The sailor charged by the Navy with starting the fire was acquitted of all charges on 30 September 2022. See Gidget Fuentes, “UPDATED: Former Bonhomme Richard Sailor Ryan Sawyer Mays Acquitted of Arson,” USNI News, 30 September 2022, “Defense attorneys had argued that there was more than enough reasonable doubt in the Navy’s prosecution to find him not guilty of the charges. They said he’s consistently pressed his innocence and questioned whether it was arson that started the blaze or just an accidental fire sparked by faulty vehicles or lithium-ion batteries that were stored in the area, which sailors and contractors working on the ship had used as a junkyard.”
3. CDR Joel I. Holwitt and CAPT Mary K. Hays, USN, “Every Sailor a Firefighter,” U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings 148, no. 8 (August 2022).
4. LCDR Emma McCarthy, USN, “Take JOs Out of the Shipyards,” U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings 148, no. 10 (October 2022).

[Ironduke]

Not sure I ever shared my photos of the Bonhomme Richard conflagaration back in 2020... I'd happened to going down I-15 when I noticed the orangeish-brown smoke in the direction of the harbor. Asked my friend what he thought that was, and he said it was probably the marine layer. Given it was afternoon, I started Googling stuff like "San Diego Fire" on my phone, saw some preliminary reports on it, and we took a trip over the Coronado Bridge and back. These photos were taken from the passenger side of his Jeep on the way to and from Coronado Island. It then occurred to me there might be munitions onboard, overblown concerns in retrospect, and I said to my friend maybe we should get the hell away from there.

[Ironduke]

More photos:

[Ironduke]

Other photos:

[Albany Rifles]

Thanks for sharing, Iron Duke. Damn!!!!

[tbm3fan]

If I don't do a walk around the Hornet, at least twice a year, then debris and garbage start to pile up from the ship's paid crew who can't seem to just bring the stuff to the dumpster. If there is a nook or cranny where they are working then stick the stuff there when finished. I am talking paint cans, brushes, rollers, wood extensions, paper, gloves, you name it. I once opened up the door to the O6 Level head, small and not active, and this stuff I listed was in there but not the year before. Two trips to dump it all. Luckily hot work is only done by Tom and he knows what he is doing.