This…is criminal at best…
Shipuilder Newport News Shipbuilding, Va., informed the Department of Justice of faulty welds that may have been made intentionally on non-critical components on in-service Navy submarines and aircraft carriers, USNI News has learned.
HII reported to the Navy that welds on new construction and in-service submarines and Ford-class aircraft carriers were made not following welding procedure, according to a Tuesday memo from Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Research, Development and Acquisition Nickolas Guertin to Secretary of the Navy Carlos Del Toro and Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Lisa Franchetti.
Guertin told SECNAV and CNO the workers did not follow proper techniques to weld the suspect joints with an early indication that some of the welding errors were intentional. Based on the Newport News assessment of the welds, the shipyard notified the Department of Justice over the issue.
Full article, HERE from USNI.
And from a second article… Yeah, right…
In a separate statement to USNI News, HII said that while the shipyard workers had violated the welding rules, they did not have “malicious intent” to damage the submarines or aircraft carriers they were working on.
Full article, HERE, also from USNI.
Excuse me, but if you’re screwing up welds ON PURPOSE, that is malicious intent as far as I am concerned, because your s**t work can kill a sailor or entire crew, depending on what happens on that ship in combat, or a sub on patrol.
This is the LAST thing the Navy needs right now, especially in light of what is going on in 5th Fleet with Israel, the Houthis, Hezbollah, and Iran.
Grrrr…
So glad I got out. So sad about the current state of the navy
Non critical components? Anything could become critical when it gets airborne and becomes a projectile . Think about the messdecks ,galleys…. MachinistMate nuke , goes in for breakfast , pops in a piece of bread to a toaster set on a stand welded to the counter in a chowline thinking about some good ol SOS , toaster gets airborne and bonks ol Jimmy the nuke in da head , shit’s gonna hurt , just one thought (I love SOS), people get hurt doing stupid shit on boats all on their own , don’t need any faulty welds to increase the odds . I’d bet shipyard welders make good money, and know a good weld from a bad weld, if you gotta be there anyway , do a good job . I’ve seen some beautiful welding work on ships,( I’ve painted enough of them !!), even hydrostatic tested new piping, welding is a trade I’ve always admired and wish I knew how to do . These guys know how , know specs, know metals,and know blueprints …like I said the other day “gundecking” . Maybe they are hiring idiots …fire them and let them go make stock tanks , they’ll make good money , not shipyard money , maybe have to sell the Harley.
Problem is proving intent. You can fire the workers responsible but unless you can find evidence of them saying “yeah, I’m going to screw the Navy” there’s not much can be done.
Welds on ships are signed for, by both the welder and an inspector. Noncritical still is signed for.
What do they expect when they hire day-labor illegals to do the work, with Cubans and Chinese to supervise them? Musn’t discriminate, don’cha know.
First off, this is NOT acceptable. I will say however, that I have seen welds at a nuclear power plant that were impossible to do per procedure, due to physical interference at the weld location. In one case the welder came up with a “creative procedure” to get the job done, no malicious intent. I don’t know the specifics of the current situation. The length of time that this has gone on (multiple ships) is indicative of management “overlooking” the problem. Also interesting is that Newport News notified DOJ as well as the Navy. Criminal charges pending? Admiral Rickover must be spinning in his grave.
I suspect DEI and the usual ignorant people allowed to be employed.
Notice how the names of the miscreants are not released. One would guess that to do this work, one would need a bare minimum clearance. No naturalized citizen should EVER hold a clearance. But that’s just my opinion. I used to be a clearance investigator and the vast majority of those naturalized types were either dual citizens or folks with questionable backgrounds. Yet they still received a ticket.
If the find the responsible parties, fire them. Out of a torpedo tube that is, at a significant depth.
It’s sabotage, DEI or the Crisis of Competence.
Dang it Jim, I WAS having a good day.
Time to bring back keelhauling. It won’t kill the bastards (maybe, if they can hold their breath long enough) but it might get through to these idjits that risking other sailors’ lives like this will result in their own lives being put “significantly at-risk” as well.
(tone)(sing) Look for the union label!
Think that USW 8888 is going to give back anything from their massive raise in 2022?
A;;- Good points, not enough answers, and interestingly, folks from Newport News/Huntington are ‘conspicuously absent’ from social media all of a sudden…
It’s something that men will board a sub for long periods of time, but at least with the assurance of conscientious QA.
When they then question the integrity of vessels they ride in, how are they expected to maintain faith? Morale?
The people who did this should be identifiable. Ahd then HUNG. Nothing less will do. Deliberate acts like this are treasonous and since we are “at war”…..the “war on terror” has never been terminated, hangings would be both legal and justified.
They know everyone who did those welds.
Jose, Jose, Jesus, Jose, Mohammed, Jose…
This brings to mind the story from a few years ago where the steel inspector for submarines was deliberately falsifying the temperature fracture results. “Because she didn’t think the requirements made sense.” So I’ve wondered how many subs are out there that have steel that might fail from cold embrittlement. (This caused the Titanic failure – lab testing from its’ steel in the late 90’s.)
Tin foil hat time – Another way to defeat your enemy is to make sure the armaments don’t work/are intended to fail. How many times to we need to run across these stories before we conclude it is enemy action targeted at us.
I remembered something about the sulfur in the T’s steel being an issue. Naturally, it’s more complex than that…
I think this is the report you mentioned.
https://tsapps.nist.gov/publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=852863
In the early ’70s, I had a summer job for a steel company doing the structural stuff for nuke power plants. All of the steel that went into the containment buildings had to have chemical and physical certifications, complete with documentation and identification for Every. Single. Piece. (Guess who had that duty. Whee.)