Better Equipment Maintenance and Personnel Training Needed To Improve Firefighting Capability on Navy Ships

Gao ID: PSAD-79-6 January 16, 1979

Fires which reduce mission performance and are tragic and costly continue to present a problem for Navy ships, particularly on aircraft carriers.

Effective firefighting is a combination of good equipment and trained personnel, and deficiencies currently exist in both of these areas. Firefighting equipment on aircraft carriers is poorly maintained in many instances and therefore, does not function properly. Two Factors contribute to this: a lack of personnel trained in maintenance and a need for better trained firefighters. Several weaknesses in the fleet's shore-based training program were identified: (1) firefighting schools cannot meet the fleet's training demands, (2) no formal selection procedures exist for fulfilling training slots, and (3) quality of training may be declining.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

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