Navy Cruiser Commanding Officer Fired After 4,000-Gallon Fuel Spill

Generally, you are aux steaming (on ship's power) when at a weapon station. My guess is they misaligned something and didn't have a proper watch set up. I dropped 5 gallons in San Diego bay once, and I had all the EPA related groups jumping my crap. Finally found out the piping on the ship was not put in correctly, so we weren't in trouble. The fine went to the shipyard. But 4000 gallons is A LOT of fuel to go over the side.

LT Brad McInnis - Sir, agreed, as a Preventive Medicine Specialist, I get you. If the engineers are doing everything right and shipyard or during construction TQM was not followed, an like the Apollo 13 incident the defect was not known for > 2 yrs then firing at 1st seems smart, but you NEVER apologies for firing when it was unjust. Humm.....................................................................

4,000 gals a lot, but did the CO spill it or was someone NOT doing their job in engineering. It is interesting that many of the fail-safes did not kick in before the 4K mark was even reached. Emergency cutoffs and such.

I also agree that whoever in engineering was responsible for proper alignment did not set proper watch or had some crusty CWO double check things. Most DCA's were former MMCs, etc. that did not tolerate stupid. So, regardless of "criminality" or not, negligence at the point to direct operations, speaks of an LPO/LCPO not taking a double, as my experience tells me most do, in routine or non-routine scenarios.

I think we understand what happened. You know training records are going the reviewed to make sure these kinds of evolutions were trained on and at what frequency, etc. You know the drill.......................

Just and old Chief's thoughts.......................