
Bonhomme Richard, fate uncertain, would be one of largest ships Navy has lost - molecule
https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/military/story/2020-07-13/bonhomme-richard-fire-future
======
scarier
Fires on a ship can spread scarily fast, which is one reason sailors devote so
much time underway to cleaning--I've heard anecdotal stories of at least one
lethal fire spreading through a ship's ventilation system due to the amount of
combustible stuff it sucked up.

In port, a ship may be particularly vulnerable to this sort of thing,
partially because fire boundaries that are normally closed while underway may
be open to facilitate maintenance.

Here's a diagram showing a rough LHD cross-section near the bottom of the
page:
[https://fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/ship/lhd-1.htm](https://fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/ship/lhd-1.htm)

The fire here broke out in the lower V, close to one of the ship's magazines
but pretty far from a lot of the bulk fuel (although there are a number of
fuel pipes in and around the area in order to facilitate fueling assault craft
and ground vehicles, which may be contributing to the fire with residual
fuel).

Fortunately, even if there is a magazine in close proximity to the fire, it's
likely well-protected, and unlikely to be full of ordnance. Furthermore,
ordnance approved for shipboard operation has special thermal coating to
reduce the likelihood of cook-off, which may be enough to protect it against
the indirect heat of a fire on the other side of a bulkhead.

~~~
jasonwatkinspdx
I've read some comments by someone that's been on scene since the start as one
of the DC teams.

No ordinance is in the magazines. It's standard procedure to unloaded it at a
pier specially designed for that task before extended port stays.

The fire has definitely reach the fuel lines you mention, and they're
sustaining the fire. The team my commenter was a part of was one of the first
to try to push inside. They made it about 25 feet in. The floor was so hot
their team leaders boots melted. The writer said he had to stand on a pile of
hose to avoid the same problem. The heat pushed them back out after less than
half an hour. His opinion was that there was little choice but to just let the
fuel burn off.

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yingw787
I think this would be the first U.S. capital ship lost since WWII.

It's also interesting that China, Russia, and now the U.S. have all lost
carriers while undergoing construction / maintenaince in just the past few
years:

[https://www.cnn.com/2019/12/12/europe/russian-carrier-
fire-i...](https://www.cnn.com/2019/12/12/europe/russian-carrier-fire-
intl/index.html) [https://www.forbes.com/sites/hisutton/2020/04/11/brand-
new-c...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/hisutton/2020/04/11/brand-new-chinese-
aircraft-carrier-catches-fire/#44ab06cf7f4d)

Something to bond over, I guess. Dangerous work, and I hope everybody stays
safe, better a carrier burns in peacetime than a life lost.

~~~
vonmoltke
Neither of those was stricken.

------
RcouF1uZ4gsC
> McGrath described military shipyards in general as places “where an almost
> insane devotion to safety, good housekeeping and procedural compliance is
> required. It’s hard to imagine one or more of those things not being
> involved in the cause or spread of the fire.”

It seems like the culture of safety and competence of the US Pacific Fleet is
not what it was. Another example is the USS John McCain colliding with a
freighter[0]. Then there was the whole Fat Leonard corruption scandal[1].
Maybe these are just anecdata and a side effect of greater attention.

0\.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_John_S._McCain_and_Alnic_M...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_John_S._McCain_and_Alnic_MC_collision)
1\.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fat_Leonard_scandal](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fat_Leonard_scandal)

------
walrus01
I'm surprised this article doesn't mention at all the Los Angeles class
nuclear attack sub that was deliberately set on fire by a dockyard worker.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Miami_(SSN-755)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Miami_\(SSN-755\))

~~~
ornxka
>Fury admitted to setting the 23 May fire by igniting some rags on the top
bunk of a bunk room. He claimed to have started the fire to get out of work
early.[10][11][12][13] On 15 March 2013 Fury was sentenced to over 17 years in
federal prison and ordered to pay $400 million in restitution.[14]

Wow, uh, that's a lot of money. Is this the poorest individual (by assets sans
debts) in America? I can't imagine anyone being able to acquire personal debt
on that scale by any other means.

------
curionav
One month ago, the French Navy lost the nuclear submarine "La Perle" meanwhile
the ship was being maintained. The similarities with the "Bonhomme Richard"
accident are striking.

~~~
boomboomsubban
This is just a guess, but I assume both are suffering crew shortages as a
result of the pandemic, resulting in the excess trash that fueled the fire.

------
gorgoiler
It is a cruel irony of Earth that our atmosphere is made up of such an odd
mixture. It’s odd to think that air itself is outright dangerous.

Four fifths of the fluid in which we live and breath ranges from inert to
_noble_. The remaining fifth is one of the most dangerous, angry, reactive,
poisonous gasses we know: _Oxygen_.

It is crucial to life and yet at the same time is quite capable of partially
or completely destroying everything we hold dear. Our tools, belongings, us,
our homes, warships, forests, crops and savannahs. It needn’t even burn with a
flame: most things will decay in its presence with or without spectacle.

If one encountered a planet where almost everything was made of gelatinous
gasoline, whose principle inhabitants were a form of highly evolved sentient
matchstick that kept striking boards as pets, one might think them a little
risk averse. Then of course you’d realize that life and society on this planet
have evolved in such a way because they are neither unfortunate or insane
enough to live on a world that’s blanketed in O₂.

On a visit to this planet you explain to their ambassador about the atmosphere
on your home world. She doesn’t know whether to laugh hysterically or faint in
horror. The knowledge terrifies her and she takes deep methane breaths while
stroking her phosphorous hands on tibbles-the-striking-board, trying to calm
down. You decide it’s best not to further disturb her with stories of plate
tectonics and the major cities, nuclear reactors, etc your people have built
on fault lines, at sea level.

~~~
rckoepke
> One fifth is the most dangerous, angry, reactive, poisonous gas we know.

Obviously you're utilizing hyperbole here, but I'm assuming you're referring
to oxygen's oxidative potential (really "standard reduction potential"), but
other gases have significantly higher reduction potentials than oxygen.
Fluorine and Chlorine cause bigger, hotter fires at conditions that would
generally be considered "non-flammable" if oxygen were involved instead. They
also corrode/rust things faster than oxygen does.

Charts like [0] are misleading because they list the standard reduction
potential of the monoatomic forms, which isn't realistic when most of these
form diatomic gases (e.g. Cl2, O2, etc).

Both fluorine and chlorine gases are more oxidative than oxygen. Chlorine has
electron affinity of -2.4 eV and while O2 is -0.4 eV.

0:
[https://www.angelo.edu/faculty/kboudrea/periodic/trends_elec...](https://www.angelo.edu/faculty/kboudrea/periodic/trends_electronegativity.htm)

~~~
Reelin
> at conditions that would generally be considered "non-flammable" if oxygen
> were involved instead

"Generally considered non-flammable" doesn't even begin to describe it. From
([http://www.lateralscience.co.uk/Fluorine/Fluorine.html](http://www.lateralscience.co.uk/Fluorine/Fluorine.html)):

> the problem was its collection and containment. Fluorine chemically reacts
> with just about everything, usually very vigorously. He fashioned collection
> vials from platinum, palladium and gold. All were destroyed.

As to the GP:

> > the most dangerous, angry, reactive, poisonous gas we know

To continue the nitpicking, bear in mind that a gas is just one phase of
matter for a particular chemical. What we're really after then is something
from among the most reactive _chemicals_ we know. I nominate dioxygen
difluoride which will (for example) react with liquid methane at -180C. It's
antics are summarized by Derek Lowe.
([https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2010/02/23/th...](https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2010/02/23/things_i_wont_work_with_dioxygen_difluoride))

------
stormdennis
According to Wikipedia, the Richard refers to"Poor Richard's almanac" a
publication of Benjamin Franklin, who was US ambassador to France when John
Paul Jones named the original Bonhomme Richard in his honour.

------
everybodyknows
1,000,000 gallons of fuel oil reportedly on the ship. And munitions.

~~~
NikolaeVarius
Last time I checked, the fire was controlled to be away from munitions and
fuel. The stuff burning is pretty much anything that isn't metal scattered
around the ship.

~~~
cyberlurker
I'm obviously ignorant on this, but I would have expected anything short of
munitions or fuel would not have caused this much damage on something as
advanced as an aircraft carrier. The article mentioned that having fewer crew
members made it harder to handle, but having 160 crew on board with fire and
smoke detectors doesn't seem like it should have resulted in this. I hope to
one day read the report on how this happened, I clearly have a lot to learn.

~~~
Element_
Apparently the fire suppression systems were locked out to facilitate the work
and the doors/hatches had temporary cabling/hoses/vents running through them
which prevented the crew from quickly locking down areas and control the
spread.

------
tandr
Curious - why they did not pump out all the fuel from the ship? 3500t of fuel
can a lot of ecological damage, be that spilled or burned.

------
galacticaactual
The BHR is old as it is. I don't see it ever leaving port again after this.

~~~
newacct583
It was laid down in 1995, that's not particularly old for a naval vessel in
general. The Wasp class are still active, their replacements are just now
entering service, and there was no plan to decommission it that I'm aware of.

Whether it gets repaired or not is more of a financial decision than anything
else. Surely the hull has many decades left.

~~~
linuxftw
The fire has been raging for 2 days now and the forward mast has collapsed.
I'd be absolutely shocked if that ship sailed again.

Steel really warps when you heat it up. Each compartment needs to be water
tight. Just fixing the doorways alone would be a monumental task. Not to
mention all the cabling and equipment that needs to be replaced. The amount of
labor it will take to fix the steel will probably more than just laying down
an entire new ship.

~~~
rwmurrayVT
You have to evaluate the cost of the work, the cost of a new build, dry dock
availability, and the ability to parallel path a repair + a new LHA.

It'll be an interesting decision.

~~~
linuxftw
Yeah, not just costs, but also scheduling concerns. The amount of spaces in
shipyards is not elastic. The amount of labor needed for the repairs is not
elastic. How will deferring the maintenance of other ships that are operation
impact ship availability and how much will deferring maintenance end up
costing those other ships in additional repairs?

Unfortunately, the military is run by MBAs now. There's no excess funding
available for emergencies. Every penny is allocated, and it's still not
enough. I was on a smaller amphib class ship, we routinely ran out of budget
for replacement parts. Every quarter was an exercise in prioritizing what was
going to be fixed and what was going to not get fixed because we simply didn't
have the budget for maintenance.

Another concern is the crew. You've now got 200 or so sailors with nothing to
do. Are they supposed to just mill about and wait for the ship to be repaired
for a couple years? The crew will need to be rotated to other assignments.
Now, you have a ship with no crew, it's going to have to go basically through
the entire commissioning process again, sea trials, etc.

It's all a logistical nightmare.

------
737min
Do we know if this was possibly not an accident, but a hostile act by one of
our adversaries? Taking one of the 8 USNavy’d mini-carriers without a fight is
certainly something China dreams about...

~~~
jasonwatkinspdx
No, that's a rather preposterous idea. What exactly would China gain from this
that would be worth the possible blowback?

The CCP's #1 priority is stability to enable continued economic development.
That's why they advance their more adversarial goals via sustained incremental
efforts. They view democracies as vulnerable as they so often change
leadership, whereas they can sustain very long term goals.

Life tends to be more banal than James Bond. The simple explanation here is
that something went wrong and sparked a fire during maintenance work, likely
welding, and because the ship was in dock with a bazillion service lines
running through the hatches, the fire was able to spread to find fuel
trivially. Based on a comment I read from one of the DC folks fighting the
fire, they don't know the origin, but they do know it got into the fuel lines,
which caused a minor explosion. The odds are pretty high they're just gonna
have to let the fuel burn off.

~~~
modwest
When I was deployed aboard Naval vessels in 2000 a hole was blown in the side
of a ship in our group, the USS Cole.

My real life includes attacks on US naval vessels that kill people and destroy
equipment.

~~~
jasonwatkinspdx
Of course I know about the Cole. But this was not a bomb. There's a pretty
clear difference in frequency of ships bombed in port vs ones that simply
catch fire. The whole point of terrorism is to create a public spectacle and
take credit for it.

And of course, now we've shifted the goal posts yet again from "It was China!"
to "It was terrorist!" with none of this changes in belief motivated by new
information or evidence.

