WASHINGTON — A new report says the Navy hasn't learned many lessons from numerous ship-board fires in recent years.
The 2020 USS Bonhomme Richard fire was one of 15 major fires on U.S. Navy warships between May 2008 and July 2020 that caused an estimated $4 billion in damages and resulted in the total loss of two vessels.
The Bonhomme Richard was one of those losses. A 2012 fire aboard the Los Angeles-class submarine USS Miami resulted in the other loss.
The new report from the Government Accountability Office found that Navy ships experience fires in port more than what is documented
"Ninety percent go unreported. So, the Navy doesn't really have a good handle on the frequency of the problem," said Diana Maurer, a director in the GAO's Defense Capabilities and Management team.
In an interview with 13News Now, she said lessons learned from fires aren't being shared consistently across the service, adding that the sharing of fire-related lessons learned would assist the Navy to improve behavior and reduce the risk of ships repeating costly mistakes.
"Going forward, our hope is that the Navy takes on the problem of addressing minimizing risk of fires, because it's a major problem," she said. "They can't afford to lose ships. They can't afford to lose sailors."
The GAO recommends that the Navy establishes a new service-wide system for properly training sailors on reporting and documenting fires so that it can improve safety measures across the board by studying these incidents.