USS Bonhomme on fire at San Diego

[Trevatanus]

Lots of media reporting a large fire with multiple injuries.
Sounds like a big one.
https://www.rt.com/usa/494549-navy-ship-fire-san-d...

[Condi]

Must admit I expected a modern warship to have better fire suppression systems than seem to be visible on her.

Can't they flood the ship with CO2 or foam from a central location?

[Dogwatch]

Perhaps an aircraft (or two) rather than the ship itself?

Though once it really gets going it won't matter.

[elanfan]

There’s quite a lot of aluminium in ships, it burns at around 800C

[ninja-lewis]

Condi said:

Must admit I expected a modern warship to have better fire suppression systems than seem to be visible on her.

Can't they flood the ship with CO2 or foam from a central location?

Sounds like it was disabled for maintenance.

Also depends where the damage is in relation to the system; the missile that hit HMS Sheffield didn't explode but the impact disabled her electrical distribution systems and ruptured her pressurised sea water fire main, severely hampering any firefighting response and eventually dooming the ship to be consumed by the fire.

[hidetheelephants]

It appears to be in refit; shipyard fires occur with monotonous regularity, although it's fair to say that looks like a doozy. It looks to have been in there since 2018 so the normal firefighting systems may be inoperative while the dockyard mateys are doing things, although the ease with which it has spread doesn't say much for General Dynamics' safety management.

Edited by hidetheelephants on Monday 13th July 04:10

[aeropilot]

hidetheelephants said:

It appears to be in refit; shipyard fires occur with monotonous regularity, although it's fair to say that looks like a doozy. It looks to have been in there since 2018 so the normal firefighting systems may be inoperative while the dockyard mateys are doing things, although the ease with which it has spread doesn't say much for General Dynamics' safety management.

Yep, no aircraft etc on board, although there's reports its still got quite a bit of fuel on board, as in for a re-fit.

At her age, and being one of 8 x Wasp Class, I suspect that's the end of the Bonnie Dick, especially as the SDFD and the USN FD have said last night that they can't fight the fire, and are basically leaving it to burn out, and are just trying to contain the heat. They said it could burn for several days.

Reminds me of what happened to the SS Normandie in the port of New York during WW2.

[Eric Mc]

It's a pity to see one of those old carriers meet its end like that. I'm pretty sure the Bonhomme Richard saw service in Korea. I hadn't realised it was still in service.

[aeropilot]

Eric Mc said:

I'm pretty sure the Bonhomme Richard saw service in Korea. I hadn't realised it was still in service.

Different Bonnie Dick. That was one of the old WW2 Essex Class carriers, which served in WW2, Korea and Vietnam and was decommissioned in 1971.

This Bonnie Dick was built in the early 1990's.

[Trevatanus]

Eric Mc said:

It's a pity to see one of those old carriers meet its end like that. I'm pretty sure the Bonhomme Richard saw service in Korea. I hadn't realised it was still in service.

She was built in '98.
CV-31, the previous incarnation was decommissioned in '71

[Eric Mc]

That makes sense. Someone previously mentioned it was a Wasp class carrier, which were in service from the mid 1950s.

[aeropilot]

Eric Mc said:

That makes sense. Someone previously mentioned it was a Wasp class carrier, which were in service from the mid 1950s.

No.

These are the Wasp Class LHD's.

The only other Wasp Class 'carrie'r was during WW2, and there was only ever a single one built, the USS Wasp, and it never survived WW2.

[Condi]

Fire now spread into the bridge. Given is has flames coming out the windows, and the fire reportedly started below the waterline, she'll only be making 1 more trip after this and that will be to the scrap heap.

https://twitter.com/BruinsWinter/status/1282584587...

[Smiljan]

There's a whole raft of info and photos on this site.

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/34769/amphib...

[mgreenwood]

Sad to see. Was in SD in February this year and saw her in the docks and got a photo of her.

Glad that it appears from reports so far that no one has been seriously injured

[Krikkit]

What a shame, and must be very embarassing - to completely lose a ship like that while it's alongside.

Fortunately it sounds like no serious injuries which is the important bit.

[IanH755]

In an attempt at a "silver lining" from this - at least the US Navy is getting some extremely realistic battle-damage/fire-fighting training done, far exceeding what is usual done during the tightly controlled training they get, and yes I know that both Military and Civilian firefighters are there.

I think the ship will be a mission loss leading to it being scrapped, where the hull remains floating but the the repairs will cost so much they just write the ship off.

[aeropilot]

IanH755 said:

I think the ship will be a mission loss leading to it being scrapped, where the hull remains floating but the the repairs will cost so much they just write the ship off.

Its already a complete loss I expect.....no way will they try and repair it I would think, especially if the temps inside it have done permanent damage to the strength of the steel. The fact that are letting it burn and just trying to contain heat means they have accepted its a loss imo.

[IJWS15]

ninja-lewis said:

Sounds like it was disabled for maintenance.

Also depends where the damage is in relation to the system; the missile that hit HMS Sheffield didn't explode but the impact disabled her electrical distribution systems and ruptured her pressurised sea water fire main, severely hampering any firefighting response and eventually dooming the ship to be consumed by the fire.

The exocet rocket motor also continued to burn for some time inside the ship - not good with an aluminium superstructure.

[Simpo Two]

Makes you realise how heroic the attempts to save the USS Yorktown were. No help from land there.