Admiral Scores Officers for Lapses in Navy Accidents

The chief of naval operations, in the wake of the Navy’s unprecedented two-day break in operations last month, blasted his subordinates Tuesday for lax adherence to safety procedures and inattention to safety training and operations.

In a message to Navy skippers and other leaders summarizing the findings of fleet commanders, Adm. Carlisle A.H. Trost repeated the Navy’s claim that “no single thread” linked an unusual series of accidents that triggered the first-ever fleet-wide “safety stand-down.”

But in reviewing the details of 10 major Navy accidents in the two months before the Nov. 15 safety break, Trost said that he found several related lapses in officers’ oversight of safety training and operations.

“The level of effective supervision on the scene was often inadequate when accidents occurred,” Trost said.

In a reference which suggests that safety deficiencies found aboard the battleship Iowa may be more widespread than previously believed, Trost singled out “incomplete job indoctrination”--Navy shorthand for lack of job qualifications--as a problem throughout the fleet.

“Supervisors assumed that subordinates had a level of knowledge higher than they actually possessed,” Trost told skippers. “We need to look at each subordinate and make sure they know their job.”

A Navy investigation of the April 19 blast aboard the Iowa, in which 47 sailors died, uncovered “discrepancies” between established safety training procedures and actual practices on the ship. In the turret where the blast occurred, for instance, only nine of 37 sailors handling explosive equipment or devices were qualified to serve in their jobs.

The Iowa tragedy, which the Navy said was probably caused intentionally by one of its sailors, was one of 67 major accidents that occurred this year before Trost and Navy Secretary H. Lawrence Garrett III called for the two-day halt in operations last month.

Since the safety stand-down, there have been five major accidents that have resulted in two deaths, bringing the total this year to 104, said Lt. Frank Thorp.

“We simply must do better,” Trost told Navy leaders. “To do so takes officer, chief petty officer and experienced petty officer attention on every safety-related detail of what we do on the sea, under the sea and in the air.”

Some private naval authorities criticized Trost for neglecting to make the connection between the problems that led to the safety review and those that were evident in the immediate wake of the Iowa explosion.

“Adm. Trost didn’t just close the book on the safety stand-down, he closed his eyes to the problem,” said retired Rear Adm. Gene R. LaRocque, director of the Washington-based Center for Defense Information. “There’s your thread when accidents occurred. In the case of the Iowa, all of those problems were dismissed as unimportant. Now, they suddenly have become important.”

LaRocque called Trost’s conclusions “fatally flawed” because they failed to make officers accountable for the inadequate supervision he cited.

“The chief of naval operations should have said: ‘I will hold every captain, every commanding officer of station, every squadron and flotilla commander personally accountable for the safety of personnel and materiel.’ ” LaRocque said, adding that Trost should have issued the statement long ago.

Trost cited specific concerns raised by fleet commanders in their reports to him at the end of the two-day Navy safety reviews, including complaints that qualified senior leadership is neither sufficiently involved in the planning of major exercises nor on hand to oversee them.

In addition, Trost said, fleet commanders reported that “compressed at-sea schedules preclude proper confidence training for junior personnel.”

LaRocque criticized Trost for failing to propose changes in Navy schedules or planning policies.

“Here’s an opportunity for the chief of naval operations to say, ‘I’m going to use my influence with the Joint Chiefs of Staffs and change the exercise schedule to enhance safety,’ ” LaRocque said. “If something’s wrong with the sea schedules, that’s not something the commanding officer of a ship or the petty officer on a gun mount can do anything about.”