Despite days lengthy efforts to struggle the Bonhomme Richard fireplace, injury was so in depth that it was determined to decommission the ship [U.S. Navy photograph]
According to the Navy, greater than $4 billion in estimated complete injury resulted from 15 main fireplace incidents that occurred onboard ships present process upkeep from May 2008 via July 2020. Two ships had been misplaced throughout this era, together with the USS Bonhomme Richard [a loss which a subsequent Navy report found to have been “completely preventable”]. Additionally, a number of personnel suffered from accidents within the ship fires, though no deaths had been reported from these incidents.
In response to Congressional requests, the U.S. Government General Accounting Office (GAO) has reviewed points associated to fires on Navy ships throughout upkeep.
In its report on what it discovered, the GAO notes that U.S. Navy ships present process upkeep face a excessive threat of fireside, partly as a result of repairs can contain sparks or welding in confined areas with flammable materials.
Navy organizations accumulate and analyze classes realized from fires via plenty of processes. However, says GAO, the Navy doesn’t have a course of for constantly amassing, analyzing, and sharing the teachings realized. As a end result, the Navy has misplaced classes realized over time—equivalent to steps {that a} ship can take to enhance fireplace security. Organizations that GAO interviewed collected classes realized from fires; nevertheless, that they had not constantly used the authorized Navy-wide system to retailer and share them. Establishing a course of for the constant assortment, evaluation, and sharing of fire-related classes realized would help the Navy in enhancing conduct and scale back the chance of ships repeating expensive errors.
Although the Navy has begun enhancing the gathering of information associated to fires aboard ships throughout upkeep within the Navy’s security database, no group is analyzing the broad results of fires on the Navy’s operations and strategic sources. Without conducting such analyses, says the GAO, the Navy is not going to have a whole image of the magnitude of dangers related to ship fires. In addition, senior leaders and policymakers can use these analyses to tell their prioritization of sources for fireplace prevention and mitigation relative to different competing pursuits.
Navy organizations answerable for coaching have assessed the effectiveness of their particular person coaching efforts in a number of methods—equivalent to conducting course evaluations and fireplace drills. However, the Navy has not assessed the effectiveness of its collective coaching efforts service-wide. The Navy has not set service-wide objectives, efficiency measures, and a course of to observe progress for its collective coaching efforts to enhance fireplace security and response. By establishing these practices service-wide, Navy management would have the data wanted to find out the extent to which its coaching efforts are efficient in decreasing the incidence and severity of ship fires.
RECOMMENDATIONS
GAO is making three suggestions to the Navy:
- The Secretary of the Navy, in collaboration with the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations, ought to be certain that the Navy points steerage to require a course of that can permit constant assortment, evaluation, and sharing of fireside safety-related classes realized.
- The Secretary of the Navy, in collaboration with the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations, ought to be certain that a single group is answerable for utilizing present fire-incident information to investigate the broad results that fireside incidents for ships present process upkeep have on Navy operations and inform the Navy’s response to dangers.
- The Secretary of the Navy, in collaboration with the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations, ought to guarantee institution of (1) service-wide objectives and efficiency measures for the Navy’s fire-safety coaching actions and, (2) a course of to observe and report progress towards these objectives.
Download the complete GAO report HERE
