The Virginian-Pilot
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NORFOLK
Less than three months into its operational life, the dock landing ship New York must undergo repairs to replace faulty engine parts, the Navy said.
It’s un known how long the Norfolk-based ship will have to stay pierside, Lt. Cmdr. Herbert Josey, a spokesman for Naval Surface Force Atlantic, said Monday.
In a statement about the repairs, the Navy said inspectors discovered the “premature failure” of bearings on the ship’s main propulsion diesel engines during a week long , at-sea examination that followed the New York’s November commissioning.
Josey said it’s unclear how long the repairs will take and how serious the failures are. The ship has four engines; Josey couldn’t say how many are affected.
Officials said Naval Sea Systems Command is working to determine whether the problems on the Northrop Grumman-built New York could also affect other ships in the San Antonio class. Five are operational and four are under construction. The New York, built in Louisiana, is the newest.
The Navy has discovered numerous problems and has overseen millions of dollars of repairs on the first ship in the class, the San Antonio, which took to the sea three years ago.
The New York contains 7½ tons of steel salvaged from the World Trade Center after the Sept. 11 attacks. Its bearings will be repaired by Northrop Grumman and the engine manufacturer under the manufacturer’s warranty, the Navy said.
Corinne Reilly, (757) 446-2949, corinne.reilly@pilotonline.com
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Wow
I have worked on the LPD-17 and the 19. I am here to tell you, I think that the blame needs to be focused on the way the ships operate the equipment. The same generator engines that are installed on these ships are also installed on commercial vessels, and run for years with nothing more that scheduled maintenance. The Navy has managed to destroy 2 of them so far, and I am sure there are more to follow. The shipyard did do some real shoddy work on the piping systems. The LPD-17 got shut down overseas because the main engine lube oil piping turned into a sprinkler system. The other ships also suffered from the same lack of quality, although that was never made public. The shipyard collects a large bonus for delivering ships on time, or ahead of schedule. The cost of warranty work usually does not come near what the bonus was. Heard that straight from a supervisor at Northrop Grumman. Big money made all around, at our expense.
NAVSEA Mission Statement
"The mission of Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA) is to develop, deliver and maintain ships and systems on time, on cost for the United States Navy."--from their website. Based on all the news in the last couple of years, are they living up to that mission statement or not? If not, why?
If . . .
If the U.S. Navy was building its own ships at naval shipyards, I'd say you'd have a good argument. As it is, this mistake was not picked up by the private shipyard like it should have been. Unless you want to pay out more tax dollars to have MORE U.S. government inspectors going over every single aspect of every ship being built instead of relying on the companies contracted to do the job they are being paid to do in the first place, and thus delaying ship construction even further, you need to be pointing fingers where they should be pointed: at the shipyard that is building the San Antonio Class.
USS New York
So much for all the publicity and fanfare!
For those of you who can't read--
Let me reiterate what a previous blogger just wrote--these engines are NOT the fault of Northrup Grumman/Newport News Shipbuilding. All they did was INSTALL the engines. The engines are vendor items, and were SHIPPED to NGNNS. Find out who the contractor/vendor was for the engines, and criticize them. I find it irritating that people are so quick to attack the shipbuilders, citing waste/fraud/mismanagement/cost overruns/excessive pork/you-name-it, instead of examining what the facts really are. That's unfair to an entire company made up of some very smart, very talented, and very hard-working individuals.
In the Know
As someone who has seen these issues first hand on this class, this is not a vendor issue, This is a builder issue. On a recent Discovery Show, Mega Builders.You can watch the builders DRIVING in the pins for the stern gate on one of these new ships with a 16lbs maul. That is not an accepted practice with most builders or repair yards. This is just one of many things that make me, a tax payer wonder who is doing the QA on the builders.
It makes them look worse
If they were so 'very smart, very talented,' why didn't they thoroughly check over the engines and find the problems? The FACT is the main contractor is responsible for their subcontractors. The FACT is Northrup-Grumman should have figured out the engines were faulty and corrected the error LONG before the ship was turned over to the Navy. Trying to toss the blame off on a subcontractor when it is the primany contractor's responsibility to make certain ALL parts used are up to spec and fully functional only makes the shipyard look worse.
I know...
....what the problem is and what caused the bearings to get jacked up, but I do not know if printing it is such a good idea. No sense telling any enemies exactly what's wrong with it if they are reading this. Anyway, I do not think Northrop Grumman made the engines so how is it thier fault exactly?
How is it their fault?
Northrop Grumman is notorious for leaving dirt and welding slag in their oil piping, resulting in failed engine bearings. Wouldn't be the first time. Quality Control at its finest. Need proof? Just look at the rest of the LPD 17 class.
LPD17
The entire class of ships have been lemons.