# Navy Announces Punishments for Bonhomme Richard Fire, SECNAV Censures Former **URL:** \ **Category:** Marine Incidents\ **Created:** [July 16, 2022, 4:47am UTC](https://forum.gcaptain.com/t/navy-announces-punishments-for-bonhomme-richard-fire-secnav-censures-former/63629 "2022-07-16T04:47:08Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![shipengr](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/forum.gcaptain.com/shipengr/32/485_2.png) [@shipengr](https://forum.gcaptain.com/u/shipengr)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2022, 4:47am UTC](https://forum.gcaptain.com/t/navy-announces-punishments-for-bonhomme-richard-fire-secnav-censures-former/63629/1 "2022-07-16T04:47:08Z")
> **[Navy Announces Punishments for Bonhomme Richard Fire, SECNAV Censures Former...](https://news.usni.org/2022/07/15/navy-announces-punishments-for-bonhomme-richard-fire-secnav-censures-former-swo-boss)** > > This post has been updated with an additional statement from U.S. Pacific Fleet. More than 20 sailors were punished for the four-day fire that led to the loss of the warship Bonhomme Richard (LHD-6) in 2020, the Navy announced Friday. The actions... > “This fire could have been prevented with adequate oversight into the ship’s material condition and the crew’s readiness to combat a fire.” ---
**Author:** ![john](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/forum.gcaptain.com/john/32/5_2.png) [@john](https://forum.gcaptain.com/u/john)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2022, 7:32pm UTC](https://forum.gcaptain.com/t/navy-announces-punishments-for-bonhomme-richard-fire-secnav-censures-former/63629/2 "2022-07-16T19:32:08Z")
@Salvatore_Mercoglian has a good update on this: [![](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/uploads/gcaptain_maritime_forum/original/3X/1/1/11a9a5b7f8e1c8f7d092a8f32a0c4e559ec7a50a.jpeg "US Navy Finally Announces Punishments for Bonhomme Richard Fire, Two Years After Ship's Loss") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n7SSdlyW8dQ) ---
**Author:** ![shipengr](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/forum.gcaptain.com/shipengr/32/485_2.png) [@shipengr](https://forum.gcaptain.com/u/shipengr)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2022, 3:08am UTC](https://forum.gcaptain.com/t/navy-announces-punishments-for-bonhomme-richard-fire-secnav-censures-former/63629/3 "2022-07-17T03:08:35Z")
Yikes! That is an appropriately passionate synopsis from Sal. His opinion that it could happen again today is particularly poignant, and he’s likely not wrong. ---
**Author:** ![john](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/forum.gcaptain.com/john/32/5_2.png) [@john](https://forum.gcaptain.com/u/john)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2022, 3:13am UTC](https://forum.gcaptain.com/t/navy-announces-punishments-for-bonhomme-richard-fire-secnav-censures-former/63629/4 "2022-07-17T03:13:37Z")
Yeah I’m not sure how to link to them but @Salvatore_Mercoglian has a series of great videos about the incident. And he helped a lot with these articles too: > **[US Navy Stonewalls Congress In Working Ship Reports](https://gcaptain.com/us-navy-lied-congress-fireboat-report-secretary-del-toro/)** > > The US Navy has used a trail of misinformation to stonewall Congress and divert funding from working ships to naval aviation and expensive/sexy warships like the failed USS Zumwalt. By... > **[Dear Admiral Kitchener: San Diego Urgently Needs A Fireboat](https://gcaptain.com/we-need-navy-fireboats/)** > > It has been well over 200 years since the first fireboat proved her effectiveness, but when one of the US Navy's largest ships caught fire in the Navy's most important port last year, there wasn't a single fireboat available to help. ---
**Author:** ![shipengr](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/forum.gcaptain.com/shipengr/32/485_2.png) [@shipengr](https://forum.gcaptain.com/u/shipengr)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2022, 3:34am UTC](https://forum.gcaptain.com/t/navy-announces-punishments-for-bonhomme-richard-fire-secnav-censures-former/63629/5 "2022-07-17T03:34:26Z")
I guess what concerns me is not the fact that it could easily happen again, but a lack of confidence that the capacity exists to effect the change required to prevent that reoccurrence. Since you spent time on drillships at the same company I did @john, I know you are likely intimately familiar with quick-shares and incident reports, both internal and from industry. They often seem topical and relevant at the time, but lost thereafter. We had a system in place to bring them to surface again at set future dates, but the farther from the actual event date, the lesser the lesson impact. And that was a company with 20-30 ships. So honestly, how can one expect an organization the size of the US Navy to truly learn from this event and create the change necessary to prevent a reoccurrence? Particularly with the USN’s style of shifting officers through commands like a revolving door. How do you retain that training over time, in the locations where it’s relavent? (Not questions I necessarily expect answers to) Maybe I just don’t have the experience to conceptualize successful large organization leadership. I suppose there are plenty of successful, large, low incindent-rate private shipping companies, but they don’t have the un-told layers of hierarchal bullshit of the US military. It blows my mind that an Admiral has to call another Admiral to try to get a Captain to save his ship because he is part of a different command. That is an organizational failure to rival the rest of the failures of that day.