WASHINGTON – The Navy's inspectors with the Board of Inspection and Survey (INSURV) found technical issues across three ship classes being built at Huntington Ingalls Shipbuilding in Pascagoula, Miss., in 2018 and 2019, according to an unclassified report sent to Congress in April. INSURV, which conducts acceptance trials for new ships, found DDG-117, Paul Ignatius, had the lowest overall score of any of the five previous destroyers built at Ingalls since the restart program. Issues with the America-class amphibious assault ship Tripoli in 2018 set the service’s acceptance of the new ship back a year. Ingalls' parent company, Huntington Ingalls Industries, and the Navy both say issues discovered during acceptance trials are handled prior to delivery, and that HII-Pascagoula ships have performed well recently. But the issues in 2018 and 2019 raise concerns about a shipyard the Navy depends heavily on in trying to reach an expanded fleet of up to 500 ships. The annual unclassified INSURV report indicated that 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 DDG-117, inspectors found four “starred deficiencies” that instructions define a deficiency as significant degrades in the ships ability to perform a primary or secondary mission, or impacts the safety of the ship. 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. (Source: Defense News 10/09/20) https://www.defensenews.com/naval/2020/10/08/us-navy-inspections-of-ingalls-built-ships-uncovered-significant-problems-report-shows/
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