Fire on USS Bonhomme Richard in San Diego - Large Amphibious Ship - Sabotage?

Large fire aboard USS Bonhomme Richard in San Diego. I worked as a health and safety worker on large great lakes barges. Fire was a huge concern, like number 1 concern when doing dry dock repairs. Either this is serious ineptitude or was sabotage. Hard to think a fire could get this out of control.

Live feed here
www.youtube.com...

Last year, there was a huge fire on a barge near Toledo on the St. Clair, these fires are almost impossible to put out. I was working in Ashtabula, Ohio at the time on five other barges.

www.fox21online.com...

What is the initial intention of the dry docking? Did the crew know they had a problem they couldn't fix themselves underway? Why sabatoge as a first guess besides creating a muddied narrative that will follow this incident forever?

Navy is saying welding accident and not foul play.

a reply to: AugustusMasonicus

I was reading that as well. I am a welder and have served aboard naval vessels so I am curious as hell to know what kind of welding accident? Like did a bottle of acetylene explode or something absolutely bonkers happen? Has to be one hell of a series of freak accidents or safety failures going on there.

a reply to: Brotherman

If I were to take a guess I'd say it lit wiring on fire.

a reply to: AugustusMasonicus

Something like that for sure but I have a hard time believing that from welding. I would think some sort of insulation behind a panel or something to that nature.

a reply to: AugustusMasonicus

The live feed is off right now and the caption says fire, explosion so theres that all of a sudden

originally posted by: Brotherman
a reply to: AugustusMasonicus

The live feed is off right now and the caption says fire, explosion so theres that all of a sudden

That's right an explosion was heard, they are not sure of the source, oil drum/s or ordnance.
It appears they are not able to be at the seat of the fire thus far.

a reply to: Brotherman

Yea, wiki just updated..

IncidentsEdit

On 5 August 2017, after taking off from Bonhomme Richard a U.S. Marine Corps MV-22 Osprey of Marine Medium Tiltrotor Squadron 265 with the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit crashed in Shoalwater Bay on the east coast of Australia. 23 personnel were rescued, while three died, but their bodies were recovered about three weeks later.[10][11][12]

Learn more

This article documents a current event. Information may change rapidly as the event progresses, and initial news reports may be unreliable. The latest updates to this article may not reflect the most current information.

On 12 July 2020, an explosion occurred onboard the Bonhomme Richard resulting in a significant fire. 11 sailors were treated for minor injuries at local hospitals.[13] Per Pulsepoint, the first call for assistance to the San Diego Fire-Rescue Department went out at 8:54 am and was then upgraded to a 3-alarm fire call.

It is possible for a welder to ignite vapors.

a reply to: smurfy

I wonder if the fire caused the Haylon (i think thats how its spelled but is basically a pressurized system used to actually remove 02 out of a compartment to stop fire burst) burst while trying to weld repair a different system? Old systems like that are as far as I know never purged and recharged normally and I have heard before when I was in the marines that our AAVs sometimes those lines would burst. I don't know the interworkings of that ship so I am just making wild guesses here.

a reply to: Bigburgh

Absolutley can ignite vapors but that is a gross safety overlook if they made welds in an area with a concentration of combustible vapors


Then again if that were the case it would've probably killed the welder I saw 11 minor injuries. If that were what happened it would be more then likely a major injury or on the job fatality.

Last month:

French submarine burns in ‘unbelievably fierce fire’ for 14 hours

One of France’s six Rubis-class nuclear-powered submarines, the Perle, burned for more than 14 hours “in an unbelievably fierce fire” June 12 in dry dock while undergoing major renovations

Not enough incidents to form a pattern but thought I'd bring it up in case we see more of these.

originally posted by: Brotherman
a reply to: smurfy

I wonder if the fire caused the Haylon (i think thats how its spelled but is basically a pressurized system used to actually remove 02 out of a compartment to stop fire burst) burst while trying to weld repair a different system? Old systems like that are as far as I know never purged and recharged normally and I have heard before when I was in the marines that our AAVs sometimes those lines would burst. I don't know the interworkings of that ship so I am just making wild guesses here.

I'm not sure about that, it's Sunday, would there be someone at work on a Sunday.

a reply to: smurfy

The marines and navy don't care about weekends someone is always on duty.

Also I wanted to give more clarity to the last response I made to you... What I was trying to say is, if the fire suppresion system burst trying to drown out a fire would make a "explosion" sound on something that big but failed to put out the fire because was probably never purged and maintained.

Looks like the fire is getting bigger. Lots of black smoke, needs more white smoke.

news.usni.org...

I did a MEU on that boat about 10 years ago.

Not the oldest one we have I don't think, but not new either.

I'm not sure if they'd leave ordnance on board while it's in for maintenance.

Hopefully they'll be able to get it under control sooner than later.

a reply to: Brotherman

Theoretically the Halon system can over pressurize and burst. But to my knowledge not to the extent you're asking. Now we do have glass halon balls that are meant to break under heat and burst to suffocate the fire.



I'm not familiar with ships and their fire suppression systems. I do know how they work in aircraft. I've never heard of the system exploding. But stranger things have happened.

originally posted by: Brotherman
a reply to: smurfy

The marines and navy don't care about weekends someone is always on duty.

No, I know that since I already mentioned the 11 crew injured.
Judging by the amount of superfluous buildings that you can see on the deck of the ship there is fairly major maintenance going on, I would doubt that would be a crewman's task alone, and I'm sure civilian staff would be a major user of those buildings, I don't know that as a matter of fact of course, and indeed it might be a co-operative effort.

Overall though you could well be right about the maintenance being poor somewhere down the line given the current conditions,
news.usni.org...

a reply to: Bigburgh

I am not an expert on it either, like I said I heard stories for all I know they were meant to scare infantry guys that don't get to ride the wave but then again the guys telling the stories to me throughout my stint generally highly regarded my MOS and often wished they could come with us wherever we were going. The scary one is that mice pack the exits for the system up with paper and MRE garbage and it is unseen until taken apart and half the time no one knows they are there. Again I am not an expert and just throwing out some wild stuff based on BS I was once told.