When the USS Bonhomme Richard caught fire at Naval Base San Diego in July 2020, the Navy experienced one of its most expensive peacetime catastrophes in decades. The fire burned for almost five days, engulfing the amphibious assault ship from the inside out and finally sealing its fate: after 22 years of service, the ship would be decommissioned and scrapped.
But the loss transcended steel and hardware—it revealed fundamental weaknesses in safety procedures, maintenance practices, and command control that raised disquieting questions about the overall readiness of the Navy.
The fire broke out on the morning of July 12 in the ship’s Lower V space, amid a $249 million refit to equip the Bonhomme Richard to launch F-35 fighter jets. The vessel was in a weakened state—almost 90% of its fire stations were out of commission, and the working spaces were filled with combustible materials. From the beginning, the response was weak.
Without working radios, sailors used individual phones to relay information. The officer of the deck was reluctant to issue a general alarm, thinking the smoke stemmed from an innocent source.
The initial few minutes, the key to keeping any shipboard fire confined, were lost. When crews eventually attempted to battle the fires, they discovered missing or disabled hoses—issues that could have been eliminated by proper inspections.
As the fire continued to spread, civilian firefighters from the base and the San Diego Fire Department turned up, but their efforts were thwarted by a lack of coordination. Firefighters and ship crews labored side by side but not as part of a unified team, with incompatible communication equipment causing further confusion.
There was no leadership when it was most needed—a “command-and-control vacuum,” the Navy’s investigation labeled it. It wasn’t until Rear Adm. Philip Sobeck of Expeditionary Strike Group 3 took command that there was some coordinated direction, but by then, the fire had already grown beyond containment.
The official report, as covered by Navy Times, depicted a damning scenario: breakdowns in training, maintenance, and leadership at all levels. Drills for the crew had been spotty and underattended. Few sailors had the training necessary to battle fires in a shipyard environment or to work with civilian crews.
Maintenance shortfalls left critical safety systems inoperable or in questionable condition. Regulator bodies, such as the Southwest Regional Maintenance Center, did not inform of risks or enforce long-standing safety policies. Even post-2012 USS Miami fire reforms had been ignored.
The investigators suggested disciplinary action against 36 Navy leaders, from the commanding officers on the ship to top flag officers in charge of regional safety and maintenance.
The report emphasized that the tragedy was not one bad decision but a series of collective failures involving several commands. What, if anything, was ultimately done to them has not been made public by the Navy.
Financially, the cost was devastating. To refurbish the vessel would have been over $3 billion and would have taken seven years. Converting it to another purpose, such as a hospital ship, would have still cost over $1 billion. The Bonhomme Richard was eventually sold for under $4 million and shipped out to Texas for deconstruction.
Its loss left the Navy with nine ships in its amphibious assault fleet, and it slowed the Marine Corps’ schedule to deploy F-35Bs from these vessels. More seriously, the accident highlighted the Navy’s lack of ability to quickly replace or repair an early warship lost beyond combat.
Retired Capt. Jerry Hendrix said the real strategic threat is not only the susceptibility of vessels to attack, but that of the U.S. industrial base to bounce back from them.
The Bonhomme Richard fire is a chilling reminder: when safety breaks down, shoddy maintenance, and lax oversight intersect, even the largest warship can perish at the hands of disaster without the aid of an enemy.
The Navy’s task now is to translate those lessons into tangible reforms—before another ship, and another mission, are destroyed by the same sort of preventable tragedy.