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There is some controversy over the trial of Ryan Mays, the young sailor accused of setting fire to the USS Bonhomme Richard when she was docked for refurb\u00a0 July 12, 2020. The out-of-control fire gutted the ship, causing its total loss.<\/p>\n
The article concerned spends a lot of time arguing the systemic leadership failures in the chain of command: from chaotic conditions on board, pencil-whipped inspections of safety equipment, poor chain of command before and during the fire – basically no matter which way you slice it, the chain of command screwed the pooch and many need to be relieved, demoted, or just plain thrown out.<\/p>\n
The command investigation, led by a three-star admiral, sent a team of investigators on a prodigious and methodical examination of the fire. As the months passed, the investigators uncovered in exhaustive detail an astonishing array of failures \u2014 broken or missing fire hoses, poorly trained sailors, improperly stored hazardous material \u2014 that had primed the ship for a calamitous fire.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Seems to me that the facts of a broken or incompetent chain of command are pretty much indisputable.<\/p>\n
Then the question devolves to “how did the fire start?”.\u00a0 Regardless of the ship’s state of chaos or its seemingly incompetent leadership: if the fire didn’t start somehow, it would not have led to a loss of the ship. And it seems there is no consensus on HOW the fire started: lithium batteries, arcing forklift motor wires, human action?\u00a0 NCIS says a seamen E-1 did it, but their conclusions are based on what reads like uncertain witness testimony and a “confession” which sounds suspiciously more like attitudinal snark more than ‘ya got me’.<\/p>\n
Last month, the prosecutor, Capt. Jason Jones, asked the judge to forbid Mays\u2019 counsel from presenting the conclusions of the command investigation. Mays, who now holds the lowest military rank of E1, should not be able to ask the court to view him as the fall guy, Jones said.<\/p>\n
The Navy wasn\u2019t the problem, Jones said in court, and the trial argument shouldn\u2019t in any way imply that \u201cthe Navy needs a scapegoat and therefore we picked an E1.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n