LCS Montgomery limps back to port only days after its com | Navy Times

TITLE: LCS Montgomery limps back to port only days after its commissioning

The brand new littoral combat ship Montgomery suffered two engineering casualties at sea this week, only three days after its commissioning ceremony.

The Montgomery, an Independence-class trimaran variant that was commissioned Saturday in Mobile, Alabama, is the third LCS to experience engineering problems in as many weeks. The problems forced the crew to lock both the port propeller shafts, complicating their transit and limiting their top speed.


The ship is headed for Naval Station Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, for fuel and then will go to Mayport on its own power to receive “warranty repairs,” Naval Surface Force Pacific said in a Friday statement.


“On Sept. 13, the littoral combat ship USS Montgomery (LCS 8) experienced two unrelated casualties within a 24-hour period while transiting from Mobile, Alabama to her homeport of San Diego, Calif.,” the statement said.




“The first casualty happened when the crew detected a seawater leak in the hydraulic cooling system. Later that day, Montgomery experienced a casualty to one of its gas turbine engines,” the SURFPAC statement continued.




“The built-in redundancy of the ship's propulsion plant allows these ships to operate with multiple engine configurations. However, with the two casualties resulting in the loss of both port shafts, it was determined that the best course of action would be to send the ship to Mayport to conduct both repairs.”