Newport News Shipbuilding on Feb. 19, 2024. HII Photo

USNI News 3rd October 2024: US Congress wants weld answers.

The discovery of low-quality welds on submarines and aircraft carriers under construction at HII’s Newport News Shipbuilding has sparked a congressional investigation by the House Armed Services Committee, following a Thursday report from USNI News.

The call for an investigation follows a report to senior Navy leadership from Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Research, Development, and Acquisition Nickolas Guertin. He wrote to Secretary of the Navy Carlos Del Toro and Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Lisa Franchetti that NNS had found the weld issues and reported them to both the Navy and the Department of Justice because of the “intentional” nature of the welding mistakes, USNI News reported.

A few of our colleagues at other outlets writing off our scoop conflated Guertin’s use of the word “intentional” with “sabotage” (sometimes “Sabotage?” with a question mark), but that proved not to be quite right.

The best information we have as of this report is that workers at Newport News Shipbuilding skipped steps during their work, which could make some welds weaker over time. The motivation of the welders to skip steps is not clear. Shipbuilders across the country are training a green workforce. Was there a training oversight or did workers skip steps to finish faster? The answer is unclear, but HII and eventually the Navy communicated that there was no malice to damage the boats and the aircraft carrier.

The House Armed Services Committee pledged to look into the issue in a Friday statement to the press.

“The safety of our sailors is our top concern, and we need to immediately understand any risks associated with the faulty work,” reads the statement from HASC chair Rep Mike Rogers (R-Ala.), ranking member Rep Adam Smith (D-Wash.) and House Armed Services seapower and projection forces subcommittee leaders Rep. Trent Kelly (R-Miss.) and Rep. Joe Courtney (D-Conn.).
“The Department of Defense needs to immediately provide our committee with answers and a plan for how they will protect U.S. Navy vessels against tampering. Absolute transparency with Congress is essential.”

Earlier that day on LinkedIn, Newport News Shipbuilding president Jennifer Boykin gave a few more details about what the shipyard discovered. “We recently discovered that the quality of certain welds on submarines and aircraft carriers under construction here at NNS does not meet our high-quality standards. Most concerning is that some of the welds in question were made by welders who knowingly violated weld procedures.” she wrote. “We immediately put together a team made up of both internal and independent engineering and quality subject matter experts to determine the root causes, bound the issue and put in place immediate short-term corrective actions as we work through longer-term solutions.”

Now the Navy and NNS have the interminable task of checking potentially hundreds of welds for integrity over single-digit in-service submarines and many more subs and aircraft carriers under construction. In 2009, NNS found a weld inspector had falsified reports and it took the Navy years to reinspect the welds.