New details have emerged about the fire on the US Navy landing ship Bonhomme Richard in 2020

The Defense News publication has revealed new circumstances of a severe fire on the universal amphibious assault ship of the US Navy USS Bonhomme Richard. Recall that the ship caught fire on July 12, 2020. The USS Bonhomme Richard was extinguished until July 17, 2020. As a result of the fire, the ship burned out by 65%, and experts estimated the cost of restoration work at $ 3 billion. This amount was three times higher than the cost of building a landing ship, so the Pentagon refused to restore the USS Bonhomme Richard.

Earlier, the US Navy called the unsatisfactory technical condition of the ship and the low level of crew training as the cause of the fire. However, as we understand it, these are general formulations, and what is hidden behind them? Defense News writes that the initial reaction to the fire was uncoordinated and confused, as it was not very clear which admiral should take over the leadership of extinguishing the fire.

This confusion on the ship led to the fact that the sailors could not take measures in time to contain the fire. One admiral, who said he had no authority to give the order, writes Defense News, begged the commander of the ship to return to the ship and extinguish the fire, while the commander and his team were waiting on the pier. The name of this man is called – Vice Admiral Rich Brown, now he is retired. Brown led the U.S. Navy's Surface Forces in the Pacific region from January 2018 to August 2020. According to him, he created a special command group to coordinate actions to extinguish the fire.

According to Brown, the ship's crew and federal firefighters missed the opportunity to localize the fire in the lower storage room, where it originated. The investigation showed that the crew of the ship was in no hurry to seek help from the fire services, but also did not take any action to prevent the spread of fire to other parts of the ship.

Vice Admiral Brown called the ship's commander, Captain Gregory Scott Toroman, who said that he and the crew had left the ship and were on the pier. Toroman had to coordinate his actions with the Federal Fire Service of the base and the Southwest Regional Maintenance Center. However, in practice this did not happen. Brown believes that the reason for this was the contradictions between the naval and civilian fire services. Federal firefighters were removed several times from extinguishing the ship, but at the same time the Navy firefighters did not have the equipment necessary to extinguish the fire.

Also, Brown (pictured) told about his call to the commander of the 3rd Expeditionary Strike Group, Rear Admiral Phil Sobek, who was not his direct subordinate, but listened to the vice admiral and headed to the place where the ship was moored. In addition, Brown ordered the destroyers Fitzgerald and Russell to leave the pier, as they were adjacent to Bonhomme Richard and there was a risk of fire spreading to other ships.

In the Third Fleet of the US Navy, requests for help were answered that the ship was under maintenance, which means that what is happening to it is not within the competence of the fleet and the fleet will not solve the problem.

Distracting from the details of the events taking place that evening and at night, we note that the story of the fire on the landing ship USS Bonhomme Richard testifies to the blatant inconsistency of actions in the command structures of the US Navy. The admirals shifted the responsibilities of fire fighting management to each other, and initially the ship's crew did not show proper activity. Probably, this is due not only to the low level of training of personnel, but also to excessive bureaucracy in naval structures, with the neglect of commanders to perform their duties, and simply with an indifferent attitude to everything that is not included in the sphere of direct responsibility.