The San Antonio: Thousands of problems found

[CommunityEditor]

At sea for 200 days, the San Antonio and crew worked through and around a multitude of issues on a ship that was commissioned incomplete. From the article --

A copy of the unclassified report, dated April 13, was obtained by Navy Times. The survey detailed thousands of items reflecting how much work has been left incomplete since the ship was commissioned in January 2006. The InSurv also, in the opinion of some former commanding officers familiar with the report, raises questions about the ability of the Navy and the ship’s crew to properly maintain the vessel.

The Navy knew this would be a difficult InSurv, said Capt. Bill Galinis, program manager of the LPD 17 program at Naval Sea Systems Command.

“There were no substantial surprises” in the survey, Galinis said. “I knew going in it was going to be a hard inspection.”

The number of defects listed in the report, Galinis pointed out, actually represents a significant improvement over the ship’s last InSurv in July 2005, which listed nearly 19,000 discrepancies.

Among the problems:

* The Ship-Wide Area Network, or SWAN, has numerous hardware and software problems.

* The crew has to jury-rig the Engineering Control System to hook up shore power.

* The ship’s ability to make fresh water or ventilate living and working spaces is degraded or not functional. “Operational availability” of the reverse osmosis units — necessary to make fresh water — is “one of the most troubled systems onboard,” the latest InSurv noted.

The Navy hoped to receive the ship in 2004 from Northrop Grumman Ship Systems, but delivery was constantly delayed by problems. Eventually the service agreed to take the ship in an incomplete condition in July 2005 and finish the work later. Problems were made worse a few weeks after that, when Hurricane Katrina struck the Ingalls shipyard in Pascagoula, Miss. The San Antonio rode out the storm pierside and, by all accounts, performed well, but the shipyard was devastated.

The San Antonio was commissioned in January 2006 and became a member of the Atlantic Fleet. Northrop Grumman’s responsibility to complete work on the ship expired that April, and the Navy is relying on two post-commissioning overhauls to finally put in place all the fittings the ship was intended to have from the beginning.

More problematic, however, is that “electrical work remains unfinished throughout the ship,” according to the InSurv.

Among those issues, reads the InSurv, are numerous dead-ended coiled cables. “An energized, dead-ended cable was discovered on top of Locker 36 in Operations Berthing Compartment,” according to the report.

And of the ship’s 269 watertight closures, 124 are not watertight.

The InSurv found that safety issues abound throughout the ship, including “safety of personnel, safety of equipment, safe ammo handling, safe navigation and safety of flight. All safety deficiencies that can be corrected near-term should be corrected by ship’s force and/or the program office as soon as possible.”

The ship received an unsatisfactory rating in three major areas during the March survey — main propulsion, auxiliaries and aviation areas.

But Galinis hastened to point out that in all other areas the ship scored higher than in the 2005 survey.

But although significant finishing work remains, most of the problems uncovered by the latest InSurv appear to be crew-related concerns.

“About 40 percent of the cards were ship-completion related. About 60 percent, maintenance related,” Galinis said.


Full article: http://www.militarytimes.com/news/20...ntonio_070420/


This board is for discussion on the San Antonio, the issues with its construction and related topics.

[BEDEREST]

I live near the Northrup Grumman shipyard in Pascagoula, MS. The problem usually is the Navy's habit of changing construction patterns; but the big problem is unions and lazy workers. The UNIONS build the ships. They run the shipyard, and most of the workers are foot-dragers!

[BigMack]

When I read this INSURV report, the only thing I found unusual was the "Sensationalism" of the Navy Times article. Most of the cards were very common discrepancies (for example the difference between a Sat and an Unsat for Watertight doors depends on how experienced/savy the crew is ..... in order to get a Sat by INSURV standards you literally have to the PMS <8 hours prior to the inspection or it WILL fail the chalk/ edging gap test due to temp expansion).

Again, pure sensationalism and possibly the words of the former CO/crew taken out of context (unless the CO never served as a CHENG and had never done or prepared for an INSURV before)

[Lousailor]

If it was little more than sensationalism, why is the next ship in the class so over budget and schedule that the Navy has agreed to have the PCU crew finish much of the finish construction jobs? The Navy continues to bail out big U.S. shipbuilding companies by guaranteeing work, and then gets screwed over by the financial bueracracy and the the union labor. Work is not getting done, jobs are being deferred due to lack of funding, and sailors bear the brunt, by going to sea in less than a fully operational asset. When will the leaders accept that we're headed towards a hollow fleet?