USS Gerald R Ford fire - March 2026

[brihard]

With the caveat that I can’t verify this, I came upon an interesting analysis on a leaked video purporting to show damage on America’s newest carrier following an onboard fire reported as starting in the laundry area. It looks like the damage may be more serious than has been officially reported and she may be out for a while for proper assessment and repair. This analysis reads like there was a failure in fire containment and it spread a fair bit.

https://twitter.com/x/status/2038669637907321175

 

[Oldgateboatdriver]

Video means little. It's a fire in a below deck compartment. Unless it was stopped, somehow, at a very early stage (i.e. with fire extinguishers), it would look like that in any events. And if it actually spread to one or more adjacent compartment ... well, tough luck! It happens!

Last I've seen , they didn't lose any crew member as a result, nor did it affect operational availability.

That's life at sea on a warship. Shit happens!

 

[brihard]

Video means little. It's a fire in a below deck compartment. Unless it was stopped, somehow, at a very early stage (i.e. with fire extinguishers), it would look like that in any events. And if it actually spread to one or more adjacent compartment ... well, tough luck! It happens!

Last I've seen , they didn't lose any crew member as a result, nor did it affect operational availability.

That's life at sea on a warship. Shit happens!

Right. The tweet thread gave more information about why the poster opined as he did. I posted just the first one.

 

[Baz]

Video means little. It's a fire in a below deck compartment. Unless it was stopped, somehow, at a very early stage (i.e. with fire extinguishers), it would look like that in any events. And if it actually spread to one or more adjacent compartment ... well, tough luck! It happens!

Last I've seen , they didn't lose any crew member as a result, nor did it affect operational availability.

That's life at sea on a warship. Shit happens!

Except, as I understand it, operational availability was affected, severely. They had to come off station during operations and are now in Croatia for repairs.

 

[dapaterson]

"Shit Happens" is not a thing in most circumstances.

"We ignored issues until shit happened" is a thing.

Unfortunately, a military attitude that ignores problems until shit happens, then blames the CO when shit happens, instead of holding prior COs to account for permitting shit to happen is anathema to the military.

 

[OldSolduer]

"Shit Happens" is not a thing in most circumstances.

"We ignored issues until shit happened" is a thing.

Unfortunately, a military attitude that ignores problems until shit happens, then blames the CO when shit happens, instead of holding prior COs to account for permitting shit to happen is anathema to the military.

Oh I fully agree.

It’s the same in Canada. Ignore the issues…