WASHINGTON – Navy inspectors found serious technical issues across all three U.S. Navy ship classes being built at Ingalls Shipbuilding in Pascagoula, Mississippi in 2018 and 2019, according to an unclassified report sent to Congress earlier this year.
The Navy’s Board of Inspection and Survey, known as INSURV, which conducts acceptance trials for new ships, found that DDG-117, the Paul Ignatius, had the lowest overall score of any of the five previous destroyers built at Ingalls since the program restarted. And issues with the America-class amphibious assault ship Tripoli in 2018 set the service’s acceptance of the new ship back a whole year.
Both Ingalls' parent company Huntington Ingalls Industries and the Navy say all issues discovered on ships during acceptance trials are handled prior to delivery, and that Ingalls' ships have performed well recently. But the issues in 2018 and 2019 raise concerns about a shipyard the Navy depends heavily on as it tries to expand its fleet.
According to the annual unclassified INSURV report sent to Congress in April, the America class LHA, Arleigh Burke class DDG, and the San Antonio-class amphibious transport dock (LPD) all showed issues in multiple areas in recent years.
On the destroyer Ignatius, inspectors found four of what’s known as “starred deficiencies,” which the Navy’s INSURV instruction defines as a deficiency that significantly degrades the ships ability to perform a primary or secondary mission, or impacts the safety of the ship. Starred deficiencies must be corrected before delivery.
Starred deficiencies included shortcoming in aviation systems, intelligence collection systems and command and control systems. Other issues were discovered in the ship’s air intakes, generators, high-pressure air system and steering systems.
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https://www.defensenews.com/naval/2020/10/08/us-navy-inspections-of-ingalls-built-ships-uncovered-significant-problems-report-shows/