9 Hurt in 5th Recent Navy Ship Accident

Nine sailors were injured by smoke inhalation and four of them suffered burns in a fire Wednesday aboard the oiler Monongahela in the eastern Atlantic, the fifth incident this week involving Navy vessels.

One civilian specialist on industrial hazards warned that cutbacks in Navy training could lead to more such accidents.

“Congress is always trying to cut training budgets. But, if a pilot can’t practice flying, those on the deck don’t get trained either. . . . It’s a prescription for an accident,” said Karlene Roberts, an industrial psychologist participating in a five-year study of Nimitz-class aircraft carriers and hazardous industrial systems.

However, she said that, overall, the Navy’s safety record “is excellent.” The Navy has 599,000 full-time personnel and about 566 ships--and usually a third of those are at sea for training operations.

“Operating at sea is an arduous life, and the lesson is that, even at peacetime, there are dangers,” said Rear Adm. Brent Baker, the head of the Navy’s information division.

“That’s no consolation to the families who have lost sons or daughters. But those who have been around the Navy a long time realize that’s why we train so hard and emphasize safety. . . . You can’t prepare for war at the pier,” Baker said.

In the latest incident, the Navy reported that the fire aboard the Monongahela, which broke out in one of the ship’s two boilers, had been extinguished, but the vessel was left without power. It was about 500 miles west of Gibraltar.

In the other incidents:

--A jet pilot making his first landing on an aircraft carrier crashed into the Lexington in the Gulf of Mexico on Sunday, killing him and four people on the deck.

--A sailor aboard the aircraft carrier Carl Vinson fell into the Pacific about 620 miles north of Wake Island late Monday and is presumed lost.

--An F/A-18 pilot dropped a 500-pound bomb on the guided missile cruiser Reeves in the Indian Ocean, also on Monday, causing minor injuries to five sailors and blowing a hole in the ship’s bow.

--Three sailors and a reported $4-million worth of non-nuclear missiles were swept by a wave from the aircraft carrier Eisenhower near Cape Hatteras, N.C., on Tuesday, with one sailor still missing and presumed dead.

The accidents direct attention to the Navy at a time when it is already under scrutiny for its controversial report on the April explosion aboard the battleship Iowa, in which 47 sailors died.

Critics have found fault with the Navy’s report, which concluded that Gunner’s Mate Clayton Hartwig was the “most likely” person to have used an explosive device to touch off the fireball in the ship’s 16-inch guns.