![\"01](\"https:\/\/media.cnn.com\/api\/v1\/images\/stellar\/prod\/02-fire-uss-gerald-ford.JPG?c=original&q=w_639,c_fill\/f_webp\")
<\/picture><\/div>\nObtained by CNN<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
<\/picture><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\nThe senior US official told CNN that the Navy\u2019s public statement downplayed the impact the fire had on the Ford as it was in the Red Sea supporting US military operations against Iran, as the fire did have an effect on capabilities. Two days passed before the Ford was able to fly sorties again, Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Daryl Caudle said in April, and the ship was forced to head to port in Greece for temporary repairs.<\/p>\n
Asked about the extent of the fire and the fire control system\u2019s failure to function, a Navy spokesperson told CNN, \u201cThe investigation of the fire is ongoing.\u201d<\/p>\n
F-14D Tomcat VF-31 \/ CVW-14 embarked on USS John C. Stennis (CVN 74) crashed in the Pacific<\/a><\/h1>\nIt took the Ford\u2019s crew about 30 hours to put out the fire, clean it up and prevent it from reigniting, and roughly 600 sailors lost access to their bunks due to the damage, CNN previously\u00a0reported.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt shouldn\u2019t have gotten that bad. The fire-suppression system built into the ship should have put it out,\u201d the sailor said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to avoid retaliation from the Navy. \u201cEverybody \u2014 me included \u2014 helped put the fire out.\u201d<\/p>\n
Videos obtained by CNN and accounts of sailors on the Ford paint the clearest public picture yet of the adversity that sailors experienced during a record-breaking, 11-month deployment that included the war with Iran and the US military operation in Venezuela.<\/p>\n
\u201cBig fires are always a challenge, and this was significant \u2014 laundry and dryer-based fire,\u201d Caudle told CNN after the Ford returned to its home port in Virginia. \u201cThe crew handled that so well, and they fought it brilliantly and courageously and basically was back in the fight within a matter of days.\u201d<\/p>\n
The $13-billion ship was central to US military operations against Iran. Pilots aboard the Ford flew wave after wave of bombing sorties that hammered Iranian targets. But the massive carrier wasn\u2019t solely on the offensive.<\/p>\n
America Tests New F-35 Firepower as Hypersonic-Era Air Combat Enters a Dangerous New Phase<\/a><\/h1>\nThe carrier strike group that includes the Ford was under \u201cpersistent threat from enemy missiles and one-way attack drones,\u201d a\u00a0Presidential Unit Citation awarded\u00a0to the group said.<\/p>\n
The sailor interviewed by CNN recalled at one point, when the Ford was in the Red Sea, seeing an orange streak in the sky as Iranian munitions appeared on the horizon. When Iranian missiles or drones would come within a certain range of the Ford, the ship would \u201csound an alert, telling us to expect to get hit and do damage control,\u201d the sailor said.<\/p>\n
The fire wasn\u2019t the only issue during the deployment. The ship\u2019s toilets were repeatedly clogged. Another video from aboard the Ford obtained by CNN shows human waste filled to the brim of toilet after toilet.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you were in the forward section of the ship, you\u2019d have to walk all the way to the aft section, just to find a toilet that worked,\u201d the sailor said.<\/p>\n
The fallout from the fire could\u2019ve been worse. Hunter Stires, who served as a maritime strategist to the then-Navy secretary until 2025, said the ship\u2019s quick recovery from the fire was a testament to the crew\u2019s training and resiliency amid a record-breaking deployment.<\/p>\n
\u201cFire and flooding are the two greatest dangers aboard any ship,\u201d Stires told CNN. \u201cThe US Navy, to its credit, has an organizational culture and design philosophy that is relentlessly focused on damage control preparation and system redundancy in order to assure ship survivability.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWar and battle damage is inherently unpredictable,\u201d Stires said, when asked about the failure of the fire-suppression system. \u201cYou don\u2019t know what is going to break,\u201d he said, adding that\u2019s why training and preparing sailors is so important.<\/p>\n
Commissioned into the Navy in 2017, the Ford is the newest and most technologically advanced of the 11 US nuclear-powered aircraft carriers and has become a symbol of the strength, and limits, of US naval power.<\/p>\n
The Ford\u2019s electronic catapult system allows it to launch anything from small drones to big aircraft, giving commanders an array of firepower options, Brent Sadler, a 26-year veteran of the Navy and former submarine officer, previously told CNN. The other 10 US aircraft carriers don\u2019t have that capability, according to Sadler.<\/p>\n
After the Fighter Jet: Elon Musk, Drone Warfare, and the Battle for the Future of Airpower<\/a><\/h1>\nThe Ford\u2019s deployment, which\u00a0ended\u00a0when it returned to Norfolk, Virginia, in May, also saw the ship help with the US operation to capture former\u00a0Venezuelan President Nicol\u00e1s Maduro. The deployment \u2014 the longest operational one by a carrier since the Vietnam War \u2014 also included stops in the Mediterranean and Norway.<\/p>\n
The Ford is now looking at an extended phase of maintenance from all of the wear-and-tear of the voyage, including additional repairs related to the fire. One US official told CNN it could be a least a year before the Ford is ready to sail again, and that other ships may have to fill the gap.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
When a fire burned aboard the world\u2019s biggest aircraft carrier in March as it took part in operations against Iran, the US Navy released a … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1632,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,46,3,45,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1630","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-aviation","category-featured-stories","category-military","category-motivation","category-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/talesofmotivations.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1630","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/talesofmotivations.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/talesofmotivations.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/talesofmotivations.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/talesofmotivations.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1630"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/talesofmotivations.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1630\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1633,"href":"https:\/\/talesofmotivations.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1630\/revisions\/1633"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/talesofmotivations.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1632"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/talesofmotivations.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1630"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/talesofmotivations.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1630"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/talesofmotivations.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1630"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
The carrier strike group that includes the Ford was under \u201cpersistent threat from enemy missiles and one-way attack drones,\u201d a\u00a0Presidential Unit Citation awarded\u00a0to the group said.<\/p>\n
The sailor interviewed by CNN recalled at one point, when the Ford was in the Red Sea, seeing an orange streak in the sky as Iranian munitions appeared on the horizon. When Iranian missiles or drones would come within a certain range of the Ford, the ship would \u201csound an alert, telling us to expect to get hit and do damage control,\u201d the sailor said.<\/p>\n
The fire wasn\u2019t the only issue during the deployment. The ship\u2019s toilets were repeatedly clogged. Another video from aboard the Ford obtained by CNN shows human waste filled to the brim of toilet after toilet.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you were in the forward section of the ship, you\u2019d have to walk all the way to the aft section, just to find a toilet that worked,\u201d the sailor said.<\/p>\n
The fallout from the fire could\u2019ve been worse. Hunter Stires, who served as a maritime strategist to the then-Navy secretary until 2025, said the ship\u2019s quick recovery from the fire was a testament to the crew\u2019s training and resiliency amid a record-breaking deployment.<\/p>\n
\u201cFire and flooding are the two greatest dangers aboard any ship,\u201d Stires told CNN. \u201cThe US Navy, to its credit, has an organizational culture and design philosophy that is relentlessly focused on damage control preparation and system redundancy in order to assure ship survivability.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWar and battle damage is inherently unpredictable,\u201d Stires said, when asked about the failure of the fire-suppression system. \u201cYou don\u2019t know what is going to break,\u201d he said, adding that\u2019s why training and preparing sailors is so important.<\/p>\n
Commissioned into the Navy in 2017, the Ford is the newest and most technologically advanced of the 11 US nuclear-powered aircraft carriers and has become a symbol of the strength, and limits, of US naval power.<\/p>\n
The Ford\u2019s electronic catapult system allows it to launch anything from small drones to big aircraft, giving commanders an array of firepower options, Brent Sadler, a 26-year veteran of the Navy and former submarine officer, previously told CNN. The other 10 US aircraft carriers don\u2019t have that capability, according to Sadler.<\/p>\n