Fitz CO: Fire safety @ risk to repairs

Poor fire safety practices at Huntington Ingalls Industries’ Pascagoula, Miss., shipyard are putting a nearly 18-month, $523M repair effort of USS Fitzgerald (DDG-62) in jeopardy, the ship's commander wrote in a status report to Navy officials. Fitzgerald is the Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer that was heavily damaged in a deadly 2017 collision. Cmdr. Garrett Miller noted the issues in a May status report submitted to officials in early May, and obtained by USNI News. There have been more than 15 fire safety incidents aboard the ship since it arrived at HII-Pascagoula nearly 18 months ago. Fitzgerald was heavily damaged in June 2017, when it collided with ACX Crystal off the coast of Japan, killing seven sailors in what was the first of two deadly DDG collisions with commercial ships that summer. “The lack of fire safety is a major concern on this project and I am extremely concerned we are on a path to have a catastrophic fire event on board. NSA (Naval Supervisory Authority) and KTR (contractor) leadership have taken measures to curtail,” he wrote, “but they have been marginally effective.” Miller also wrote that there have been “improvements in government (oversight) in the past few months, but little change in craft deck plate compliance.” The most recent incident is “uncomfortably similar” to the recent USS Oscar Austin industrial fire at BAE Systems’ Norfolk, Va., shipyard, he indicated. It was nearing an end to a year-long $41.6M upgrade when the fire broke out last November causing major damages. The Navy has not identified the cause of the fire or repair costs, but has awarded Raytheon $16.8M to repair DDG-79’s electronics damaged by the fire. During the most recent incident aboard Fitzgerald, shipyard workers expanded their hot work - generally involves welding or heated equipment - into a space with no fire watch. Expanding the hot work area, Miller wrote, “caused damage to bulkhead lagging and electrical panel which will likely require replacement.” In a May 31 statement, HII stressed the shipyard is taking measures to keep work on the ship safe. Since March, no hot work has been allowed to start unless an HII’s fire marshal signs off on the work. The bottom line, Miller stated, is that “management control processes in place have been ineffective at the deck plate level, (and NSA) must take significantly more aggressive and punitive actions to force (contractor) leadership to take fire safety seriously.” (Source: USNI News 05/31/19)