In July 2020, a fire on the USS Bonhomme Richard at the Naval Base San Diego ranked as one of the most expensive disasters in the history of the Navy during peacetime. The fire, which stripped the ship of its amphibious assault capabilities, went on for almost five days until it was finally extinguished. Consequently, the ship that was retired from its service 22 years ago was sent to the scrapyard. Nevertheless, the fire was an indication of substandard operations, deficient upkeep, and lenient leadership, which suggested the level of the Navy’s preparedness with a large question mark.
The conflagration on board the Lower V space of the ship on the morning of July 12 during the Bonhomme Richard’s $249 million refit to accommodate F-35 operations was the start of the fire. The ship was highly susceptible at the time, with nearly 90% of the fire stations being offline and workspaces filled with flammable materials. Thus, the reaction was disjointed and weak from the outset.
Because radios were not working, sailors had to use their personal phones to give information. The officer of the deck, not being too quick to make a general alarm call, assumed the smoke to be harmless. So, the fire got the chance to become out of control during those very first moments, which are usually crucial in suppression, and were wasted. Along with some of the hoses being found missing, some of them were not functional when firefighters tried to fight the fire—a situation that could have been avoided by proper inspections.
On the other hand, as the fire got bigger, the civilian firefighters from the base and the San Diego Fire Department came to the rescue, but there was little coordination between them. Getting to work side by side did not mean the ship crews and firefighters were combined into a single seamless team, and incompatible communication systems added to the confusion.
Leadership was a no-show at the time when it was most needed. The Navy probe described a “command-and-control vacuum.” Sobeck escaped the scene and assumed control only when he arrived by Rear Adm. Philip Sobeck of Expeditionary Strike Group 3; any meaningful coordination, therefore, could not have taken place until then—but, at that point, the fire had already gotten out of hand.
First of all, the official document showed a picture of the perpetrators who failed in training, maintenance, and leadership. Fire drills had not been conducted regularly and had not been properly attended. An extremely limited number of sailors were trained enough to handle fires in a shipyard environment or to collaborate with civilian fire crews.
Lack of maintenance led to some of the most important safety systems either not being operational or being unreliable. Organizations for oversight, like Southwest Regional Maintenance Center, were not doing enough to put the protocol in place or notify the people about the dangers. The learning from the fire on the USS Miami in 2012 were barely taken into account.
Investigators asked that 36 Navy leaders be disciplined, including commanding officers on the ship and senior officers responsible for the safety and maintenance of the region. Leadership of the tragedy was not the outcome of one command’s decision; rather, it was the result of a ‘domino effect’ of errors committed by different command groups. It is still uncertain what consequences, if any, were put into effect.
The catastrophe was immense in terms of money. It was estimated that fixing the ship would have costs that exceed $3 billion, with a duration of seven years. Even if the vessel was going to be converted into a hospital ship, the costs would have been over $1 billion. Finally, the Bonhomme Richard was taken apart in Texas after it had been sold for less than $4 million.
Due to the fire, the Navy’s amphibious assault fleet has been reduced to just nine ships, and the Marines’ plan to deploy F-35Bs from these vessels has been delayed. Moreover, on a wider scale, it revealed a strategic flaw: the Navy’s limited capacity to rapidly replace or repair a major warship that has been lost, not caused by combat. According to retired Capt. Jerry Hendrix, the threat is not concentrated on the ships alone, but is extended to the country’s industrial base and its capability to bounce back from such failures.
The fire of the Bonhomme Richard acts like a loud alarm: when there are safety breaches, the maintenance is not done properly, and there is no oversight, even the biggest and most technologically advanced warships can vanish without any attack by the enemy. What is left for the Navy now is to make these realizations count as practical reforms– before it happens to another ship and mission, which are lost due to a preventable disaster.