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An expert in electrical engineering told a Navy court that an electrical short in a forklift or some faulty batteries could have sparked the fire that ultimately led the service to scrap the former USS Bonhomme Richard (LHD-6), countering the Navy’s acceptance from a federal fire investigation that a disgruntled sailor deliberately set it.

Andrew Thoresen, a forensics engineer, said that in a limited, four-hour visit to the ship’s lower vehicle deck one year ago, he found a wire in a forklift’s main conductor feed had a “globule” of melted copper wires.

Such a globule likely was the result of a “localized spot” of arcing activity that would generate high heat by touching the metal framing, ignite nearby flammable materials strewn about the stowage area “and cause the damage we have in this case,” Thoresen testified Wednesday at the Article 32 preliminary hearing for Seaman Apprentice Ryan Mays, accused of hazarding a vessel and aggravated arson in the July 12, 2020 fire aboard Bonhomme Richard at Naval Base San Diego.

“We can opine this is definitely arcing, because copper melts at roughly 2,000 degrees,” he said Wednesday when questioned by defense attorney Gary Barthel. Other copper strands in two feet of wire he visually inspected weren’t melted, and “we know that it is only electrical activity that can cause that” localized pattern.

Shown in court was a photograph Thoresen had taken of the damaged wire, held in his gloved hand, along with images of the forklift and fire-damaged scene in the Lower V. “It’s definitive that it’s arcing,” said Thoresen, who’s investigated more than 3,000 fire scenes over his 20-year career.

“We know definitively it was from electrical heat and not the heat of the fire” that caused the copper to melt, he added in response to a question from Capt. Angela Tang, the hearing officer.

Thoresen also saw scores of “18650” lithium ion batteries in buckets that had been collected by investigators as evidence in the Lower V area considered a crime scene. “They’re a major fire cause that we see all the time,” he said.

But he was unable to do any lab analysis or X-ray the batteries to determine whether any of them had internal cell failure that would spark a fire, he said. None of the batteries were analyzed by federal investigators or taken to the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives lab for further inspection.

“They can’t be eliminated” as a potential ignition source, said Thoresen, a defense consultant.

His contention conflicts with an ATF investigation into the cause and origin of the fire. Just weeks after the fire broke out, and while an ATF national response team was still processing the scene aboard, a preliminary investigation concluded it was arson and not due to any accidental ignition source. The final report wasn’t completed until earlier this year.

The ATF report and a Naval Criminal Investigative Service report prompted the Navy to suspect Mays after one sailor who was standing duty in the area claimed he saw him in the Lower V before the fire was reported. Mays, who had just begun his deck department duty section aboard Bonhomme Richard when the fire broke out, has denied he started the fire.

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WASHINGTON — The initial response to the July 2020 fire that destroyed the multibillion-dollar amphibious assault ship Bonhomme Richard was uncoordinated and hampered by confusion as to which admiral should cobble together Navy and civilian firefighters, according to new information from the then-head of Naval Surface Forces.

The discombobulation in those early hours meant sailors may have missed a small window to contain the fire in a storage area. One admiral who said he lacked authority to issue an order pleaded with the ship’s commanding officer to get back on the ship and fight the fire, when the CO and his crew were waiting on the pier. And when that admiral — now-retired Vice Adm. Rich Brown — found the situation so dire that he called on other another command to intervene, it refused, Brown said in an interview.

Brown, who led Naval Surface Forces and Naval Surface Force Pacific from January 2018 to August 2020, told Defense News in June he set up an ad hoc chain of command to coordinate trying to save the ship that Sunday morning, after seeing lower-level leaders struggle to communicate or to fight the fire aggressively. The move came after the fleet’s operational chain of command declined to step in due to confusion over who had control over the ship.

An investigation into the fire, released in October 2021, outlined several failures leading up to the fire and during the response. But Brown’s comments offer additional details and a new perspective on how the fire response came together and what was left out of the formal investigation.

Brown said he is sharing his story with Defense News now as he faces a secretarial letter of censure. He was named in the investigation as contributing to the loss of the ship, but was cleared by what’s known as a Consolidated Disposition Authority in December. He said he was not interviewed for the investigation into the fire.

Capt. J.D. Dorsey, a spokesman for Secretary of the Navy Carlos Del Toro, told Defense News “the secretary is still in the process of reviewing the command investigation and has not yet made any final decisions on actions beyond what the CDA has imposed.”

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pleaded with the ship’s commanding officer to get back on the ship and fight the fire, when the CO and his crew were waiting on the pier

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Originally posted by 229DAK:

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pleaded with the ship’s commanding officer to get back on the ship and fight the fire, when the CO and his crew were waiting on the pier

YOUR ship is going up in flames and you stand by and do nothing? This is very telling and reflects a very, very bad state of affairs within the Navy. Sad.

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With the Navy’s organization falling apart, he called the Expeditionary Strike Group 3 commander, Rear Adm. Phil Sobeck, around 11 a.m.
“Phil, you can tell me to eff off, because I’m not in your chain of command, but you have to get down to that pier and provide leadership and guidance because they’re all sitting at the end of the pier watching the ship burn,”

Brown said he told Sobeck. “And he goes, ‘Admiral, I’m getting in the car, I’m on my way.’”

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Originally posted by spunk639:
The suspect flunked BUDS, perfect set up to take fall disgruntled and hating life in the Navy, something don’t smell right. Hopefully the sailor has somebody more than a Lt.Jg. For lead counsel.

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Originally posted by Ranger41:
Reminds me of the Iowa 16" gun mount explosion. Navy was convinced a sailor caused it deliberately. Further laboratory investigation indicated it was caused by an over-ram on loading. But I don't think the Navy has changed its mind.

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Further laboratory investigation indicated it was caused by an over-ram on loading.

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NAVAL BASE SAN DIEGO, Calif. — A military judge today acquitted a young sailor accused by the Navy of setting a 2020 fire that ultimately destroyed an amphibious warship as it neared completion of a major modernization and overhaul.

Capt. Derek Butler’s findings – not guilty of arson and of hazarding a vessel – puts an end to a two-year ordeal for Seaman Recruit Ryan Sawyer Mays. As a 19-year-old deck seaman, he was fingered by a shipmate who claimed he saw Mays near where the fire began in the former USS Bonhomme Richard’s (LHD-6) lower vehicle deck.

At hearing the verdict, given briefly by the judge, there was a loud collective gasp in the courtroom and Mays, standing between his attorneys, dropped to his chair and sobbed loudly.

After a minute or so, a crying, red-faced Mays hustled to the galley and tightly hugged his wife. His father came to him and tightly held him.

“I never had a doubt,” he told Mays. “I love you, ” his mother said.

Defense attorneys had argued that there was more than enough reasonable doubt in the Navy’s prosecution to find him not guilty of the charges. They said he’s consistently pressed his innocence and questioned whether it was arson that started the blaze or just an accidental fire sparked by faulty vehicles or lithium-ion batteries that were stored in the area, which sailors and contractors working on the ship had used as a junkyard.

Navy criminal investigators accused Mays of starting the fire because he was angry at dropping from the training course to become a Navy SEAL. During court sessions, prosecutors described him as disgruntled and unhappy about his assignment to a ship stuck at the pier for maintenance.

“Seaman Mays’ life has been put on hold,” Lt. Cmdr. Jordi Torres, the lead defense attorney, argued on Thursday morning during closing statements. The sailor who claimed to have seen Mays in the Lower V “is the only evidence the government has … if there’s even an arsonist to begin with.”

“There was no open flame that they recovered, ” Torres said, adding that “apparently having a lighter makes you an arsonist.” Investigators found a small lighter during a search of Mays’ personal belongings.

The lead prosecutor, Capt. Jason Jones, has argued there was sufficient evidence to convict Mays on both counts. He denied Mays’ attorneys’ contention that investigators and prosecutors were biased in their fervent pursuit of the young sailor.

“There has never been a myopic focus on Seaman Mays,” Jones said. He defended the investigation and prosecution, adding that “we’ve proven it beyond a reasonable doubt.”

In 2020, Mays was held for three months in pre-trial confinement in a San Diego brig, but was released without being charged. Then, in July 2021, the Navy formally charged him but did not order his confinement as the case wound through a preliminary hearing and then went to trial.

Defense attorneys grilled investigators and government experts in fire forensics and engineering over their conclusions and argued the investigation failed to present any specific, strong physical and forensic evidence that Mays was in the deck at the time and had set the fire.

Investigators, Torres said, did not pursue possible links to two other recent fires – a burned mattress aboard amphibious assault ship USS Essex (LHD-2), berthed at Pier 8, the afternoon the fire broke out aboard Bonhomme Richard and, a few weeks earlier, a small fire aboard BHR in a cup in an engineering space.

“We really don’t know what happened there entirely,” Torres argued, “because NCIS didn’t investigate it. ”

Investigators questions Mays for nearly 10 hours one day in early August 2020 before he was confined to the brig. At one point in the investigation, he began to cry. “I didn’t do anything. Let me go,” he said in a video clip played in court Thursday during Torres’ closing arguments.

“This is not a close call ” the attorney told the judge. “The evidence did not support a conviction. Not by a long shot. Seaman Mays is innocent.”

“This court must find him not guilty now,” he added, “and finally let him go.”

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He denied Mays’ attorneys’ contention that investigators and prosecutors were biased in their fervent pursuit of the young sailor.

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Originally posted by 229DAK:

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He denied Mays’ attorneys’ contention that investigators and prosecutors were biased in their fervent pursuit of the young sailor.

Lead defense attorney - O4 (LtCdr).

Lead prosecutor - O6 (Capt).

Hmmmmmm....

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Originally posted by DanH:
I don’t suppose we can fire every officer in the Navy over O-5 and start over? I don’t think they’re even smart enough to fight “white supremacy” like Pedo Peter wants them to.