Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Captain Relieved After Carrier Fire

It’s good to see that accountability exists somewhere. 

The U.S. Navy fired the captain and executive officer of the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier George Washington on Wednesday because of a massive fire that damaged the ship in May, Navy officials said.

Both the captain and executive officer were relieved of duty Wednesday after a fire damaged the ship in May.

Capt. David C. Dykhoff and his executive officer, Capt. David M. Dober, were relieved of duty while the ship is in port in San Diego, California, for repairs.

The two were fired because of practices on their ship that Navy investigators believe led to the fire, Navy officials said.

I’m sure that these men served honorably, but accountability stops at the top.

(9) Comments
Posted by Owen at 2314 hrs
Military

  1. I threw up links to both a Navy themed blog (Information Dissemination) and the Navy Times article last night…check them out for more info.

    Posted by Pete Fanning on July 31, 2008 at 0723 hrs


  2. Thanks, Pete. What a relief that no one was killed. Do we know what started it?

    PO1 Michaelsen, my older son, is at sea right now and will be under the Pacific and maybge the Indian for six months or more.  If a fire broke out on his boat, it would be more dire.

    Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on July 31, 2008 at 0948 hrs


  3. Thank you, PO1, for setrving our country and best of luck to you and family.

    Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on July 31, 2008 at 0959 hrs


  4. Is it the usual practice to fire both the CO and the XO in this type of situation? The CO makes sense but the XO kind of surprises me. Is it maybe because they both hold the same rank?

    Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on July 31, 2008 at 1554 hrs


  5. The XO of a carrier (and if I’m not mistaken, most ships) is responsible for day to day ops onboard.  He generally has a pulse on what goes on below decks and is ultimately, along with the CO, equally culpable in the chain of command with what happens on board.

    It happens.  We’ve seen squadron CO’s and XO’s relieved of their commands for various reasons, and other ship CO’s relieved as well, just recently I believe the skipper of the USS Pearl Harbor was relieved for running that ship aground off the coast of Kuwait.

    Posted by Pete Fanning on July 31, 2008 at 1621 hrs


  6. So, what happens to the officers who were relieved of their duties.  are they reassigned, discharged, demoted?  Anyone know?

    Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on July 31, 2008 at 2016 hrs


  7. The Captain and Executive officer were probably held responsible for the poor damage-control work.

    Lack of disciplinary control over crew smoking

    Lack of making sure that the crew stores flammables properly

    Lack of damage control training and maintaining standards

    Two Captains out of their jobs.

    But the smoker seems to have escaped justice.  Naval investigators don’t know how to smell people’s breaths, apparently <joke>.

    Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on July 31, 2008 at 2155 hrs


  8. We’ll probably never know who the actual culprit was the started the fire, BUT, we can hold accountable those directly responsible for allowing the combustibles to accumulate in the compartment where they were NOT supposed to be.  Those officers/LPO’s will most likely be held accountable, we may not even hear about it at all in the press.  We will hear about the XO and CO because in the end, the GW was their ship and the buck stops with them.

    But you never usually hear about the junior officers and enlisted who are punished.

    Posted by Pete Fanning on July 31, 2008 at 2203 hrs


  9. I would not think he would be relieved, but worried instead.

    Posted by Marcus Aurelius on August 01, 2008 at 1613 hrs


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