The USS Gerald Ford (named after a former President) is having problems. BIG f*cking problems! And honestly, this is not the best time for this. The Gerald Ford is the largest aircraft carrier in the United States. As a matter of fact, it is the biggest carrier in the whole world.
What Happened on the Ship?
It seems like a fire broke out on the warship and raged for 30 hours before it was extinguished. There are rumors abound on how this fire occurred. Was it hit by a missile? Did it start onboard? Reports are conflicting.
Three sailors on the boat had to receive medical treatment, and dozens suffered smoke inhalation from the fire. And for the troops that weren’t injured, things aren’t exactly peachy keen. More than 600 sailors and crew members have lost their beds after the blaze broke out. Hey Donald, if you aren’t aware, many of our bravest have spent days sleeping on floors and tables instead of beds.
An investigation into the cause of the fire is still underway, but the US Navy has said it is not related to combat. Of course they have. But again, we do not know at this point how this happened.
The Ford has been at sea for around 10 months. It started out in the Mediterranean Sea in October. Then it was sent to the Caribbean as part of the mission that took place in Venezuela. Once Nicolas Maduro, the former Venezuelan leader, was captured in January, the vessel was sent to the Middle East as tensions mounted with Iran.
Crew members have reportedly been told they will be in position until May of 2026. This means that those soldiers will have spent around a year at sea, which is twice the length of a normal aircraft carrier deployment.
“Ships get tired too, and they get beat up over the course of long deployments,” said Rear Admiral John F Kirby, a former Pentagon press secretary. You can’t run a ship that long and that hard and expect her and her crew to perform at peak capacity.”
This is the Second Situation on this Ship
This actually marks the second major problem for the US’s aircraft carrier. It is also experiencing difficulties with a service that is an integral part of every sailor’s life — the bathrooms.
The USS Gerald R. Ford, which cost roughly $13 billion to manufacture, is facing consistent plumbing issues with the nearly 650 toilets aboard the vessel.
The complications primarily involve the Ford’s vacuum collection, holding, and transfer system, which transports and disposes of wastewater by sucking fecal matter through pipes using pressure.
They say that the issues have had no effect on operational readiness or mission execution, according to Lt. Cmdr. David Carter, a spokesperson for U.S. Fleet Forces Command.
Carter also said that the maintenance demands have decreased as the deployment has gone on and that system improvements are coming down the pike, as maintenance availabilities arise.
While Carter said the Ford couldn’t see service call logs regarding maintenance requests for outside assistance, reports have shown that the Ford had called for assistance with the lackluster toilets 42 times since 2023, with 32 calls coming in 2025 alone. It was also reported that there were 205 breakdowns with the toilets over a span of four days.
Some have placed the onus on the sailors and said that they were mistreating and destroying the sewage system.
Carter said in an emailed statement that the Ford averaged about one maintenance call per day and that those calls were often the result of “improper materials being introduced to the system.”
The bathroom issues aboard the Ford, meanwhile, are not a new phenomenon. A 2020 Government Accountability Office report pointed out that the sewage pipes woven throughout the ship were too narrow to properly serve the flushes of the 4,000-plus crew members onboard. To unclog the toilets, the Navy has been forced to spend $400,000 per flush of a unique acidic chemical designed to flush out and unburden the strained pipes.
For a $13 billion ship, all of this is unforgivable. It is bad for morale, and it is bad for confidence and bravado. What a cocktail, huh? Nowhere to sleep, poop backed up and winding up who knows where, and being deployed at sea for a year. What a time to be in the Navy. What a nightmare. An absolute nightmare!!!
