Click here: to donate by Credit Card
Or here: to donate by PayPal
Or by mail to: Free Republic, LLC - PO Box 9771 - Fresno, CA 93794
Thank you very much and God bless you.
Posted on 03/08/2026 6:14:49 PM PDT by daniel1212
New documents show the crew on board the United States' newest aircraft carrier are growing increasingly frustrated by design flaws that lead to regular failures in the ship's toilet system.
The USS Gerald R. Ford has been deployed for seven months since it left Norfolk in June.
On board the carrier, the crew is battling a toilet system that the General Accountability Office reported in 2020 was undersized and poorly designed. The system continues to fail during deployment, forcing the crew of 4,600 sailors to live with a system that randomly breaks down during their months at sea.
NPR has obtained documents that include a series of emails that detail the ship's effort to grapple with the breakdowns. Problems with the Vacuum Collection, Holding and Transfer (VCHT) system increased in 2025. The vacuum system was adopted in part from the cruise ship industry. It uses less water, but the system used by USS Ford is more complex. Breakdowns have been reported since the $13 billion carrier first deployed in 2023....
The crew has been reaching out to the A1B Propulsion Plant Planning Yard at Newport News Shipbuilding in Virginia for answers, ..the only shipyard in the world that builds Ford Class aircraft carriers...
The Navy has known the system is undersized and riddled with issues for more than a decade. A similar vacuum system was installed on the last Nimitz-Class carrier USS George HW Bush. In 2013, the carrier experienced similar problems, with toilets going off line...
Without providing details, Carter said the problems with the toilets have gotten better as the deployment continues. The average outage is between half an hour and two hours and the problems have had "no operational impact," he said.
The carrier has called for help outside the ship 42 times since 2023. The rate of calls is increasing, with 32 calls happening in 2025;12 calls were made after the carrier started its recent deployment in June...
"Our sewage system is being mistreated and destroyed by Sailors on a daily basis. My HT's are currently working 19 hours a day right now trying to keep up with the demand," according to the email.
The average age on the USS Ford is similar to a college campus. For many of the sailors, this is their first extended time away from home. At times the emails almost evoke a floating dorm room, revealing that everything from t-shirts to a four-foot piece of rope have been removed from the system. The vacuum pipes are narrow. Brown paper towels and even commercial toilet paper also cause breakdowns. The most common problem is a valve at the back of the toilets that can be knocked loose and cause all of the toilets (which the Navy calls heads) in one of 10 zones to lose suction.
"FYI, if you need to use the head, go now. At 13:30, expect the system to come down for about two hours. We are looking for a vacuum leak in zone 6," reads a March 18 email from the chief engineer on USS Ford...
The most expensive problem is calcium build-ups, which clog narrow pipes, especially in the lower decks of the ship. The 2020 GAO report said the Navy spends $400,000 for an acid flush to restore the system. A document showed the ship has been acid flushed at least 10 times since 2023. The work can only be done in port. A month after USS Ford left Norfolk, the engineering department was struggling to explain the problem to leadership....
"That's just the nature of VCHT. It's a closed system and thousands of components ship-wide that fail daily. With one commode control valve failure, depending on the location brings down the entire zone," according to an Aug. 15, 2025 email from the engineering department.
|
|
Click here: to donate by Credit Card Or here: to donate by PayPal Or by mail to: Free Republic, LLC - PO Box 9771 - Fresno, CA 93794 Thank you very much and God bless you. |
I remember keeping my feet up on the stall door so the shxt , piss and water on the floor wouldn’t slosh over your feet then standing on the seat to hop out to dry floor during a med cruise... Sad but not unusual.
And while brown paper towels and even commercial toilet paper to t-shirts to a four-foot piece of rope were cited, DEI would censor the mention of women flushing sanitary products. As of 2020, women made up 20% of the U.S. Navy, and this percentage is reflected in the crew of the USS Gerald R. Ford. The ship's design includes gender-neutral facilities to accommodate this diversity.
They can just dump it in the ocean?
For years, the toilets in the trains in Europe had signs, “Do not use toilets while in train station.”
My son had to go while the train was in the station and when the train pulled out, there was a pile of toilet paper and crap on the tracks. They were direct dump toilets. A straight pipe that you could see the ground when you flushed.
— Scotty
That’s exactly the first thing I thought of as well!
OK. Good explaination.
“... there are no urinals anywhere on the ship....”
There are Fantails.
But they are not gender neutral.
Note: this was before it sailed to the Middle East
—
Note this problem was known before it was launched ...
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.