this post was submitted on 17 Mar 2026
181 points (99.5% liked)

World News

54790 readers
4983 users here now

A community for discussing events around the World

Rules:

Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.


Lemmy World Partners

News !news@lemmy.world

Politics !politics@lemmy.world

World Politics !globalpolitics@lemmy.world


Recommendations

For Firefox users, there is media bias / propaganda / fact check plugin.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/media-bias-fact-check/

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

NYT reports that one of the US aircraft carriers has to withdraw to port due to a laundry room fire. About 600 sailors lost access to their bunks.

The fire, according to two officials, began in the vent of a dryer in the ship’s laundry facilities and quickly spread. Sailors battled the blaze for more than 30 hours, officials and sailors said.

The Navy did not respond to a request for comment. Central Command said in its statement that the fire caused “no damage to the ship’s propulsion plant, and the aircraft carrier remains fully operational.”

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] perestroika@slrpnk.net 36 points 16 hours ago* (last edited 16 hours ago) (3 children)

Apparently, careless smoking is not a uniquely Eastern European thing. Or perhaps someone decided to frag their ship (just a little bit, not badly).

From the article:

The U.S. military’s Central Command said two sailors received treatment for “non-life-threatening injuries.” People on the ship reported that dozens of service members suffered smoke inhalation.

And in the category of non-life-threatening, but still not ideal, many sailors have not been able to do laundry since the fire.

The ship, along with its 4,500 sailors and fighter pilots, was in the Mediterranean on Oct. 24 when Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered it to steam to the Caribbean to add weight to President Trump’s pressure campaign on Nicolás Maduro, Venezuela’s leader before his seizure.

From the Caribbean, the carrier rushed to the Middle East for the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran, which is now in its third week.

Speaking to sailors on board aircraft carriers is difficult in the best of circumstances. During a war, the ships and military bases involved in operations go “dark,” limiting the ability of service members to communicate with the outside world. The officials and sailors interviewed for this article spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.

The Ford is now entering its 10th month of deployment. It will break the record for longest post-Vietnam War carrier deployment if it is still at sea in mid-April. That record, at 294 days, was set by the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln in 2020.

Crew members on the Ford have been told that their deployment will probably be extended into May, which would put them at an entire year at sea, twice the length of a normal aircraft carrier deployment.

[–] Cethin@lemmy.zip 10 points 11 hours ago

I'd bet on it actually being a dryer fire. The timing though, yeah, it makes me think that maybe it was on purpose. Sure, it happens sometimes. It isn't that strange. However, that's what makes it the perfect target for sabotage.

Most military personnel don't agree with invading random nations. Most joined to have a decent job that takes them out of a bad situation, and they get college paid for. At most, they joined for the idea of "defending the nation" (which is why the DoD was named that, as propoganda, and why I think the DoW is more honest and better).

[–] frongt@lemmy.zip 33 points 15 hours ago (2 children)

The fire, according to two officials, began in the vent of a dryer in the ship’s laundry facilities

Nah, dryer vent fires happen all the time in improperly maintained systems. Especially when you have people like college students or junior enlisted using them. Dryer lint is very flammable. Ask any boy scout.

"Careless smoking" is a cover for an airstrike. This is more akin to the Kuznetsov catching fire. Hopefully there are no cranes around to fall on the Ford.

[–] Ilovethebomb@sh.itjust.works 7 points 14 hours ago

I imagine this would be a large, commercial style dryer too, not a domestic one.

[–] SwingingTheLamp@piefed.zip 6 points 14 hours ago (3 children)

improperly maintained systems

On a US Navy warship? The US military which has procedures and protocols for everything just... compromised mission-readiness by overlooking a simple, well-known, but critical maintenance item? I mean, this could possibly be something that the yard staff was tasked with when the ship comes in after a standard six-month deployment, but if they're overlooking stuff like that, it makes one wonder about the overall preparedness of the Navy.

[–] Cethin@lemmy.zip 8 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

It's a meme that the weakness of the Death Star is a tiny overlooked vent for a reason. The big things are carefully considered. The tiny things, like a dryer vent, are often overlooked.

[–] SwingingTheLamp@piefed.zip 11 points 11 hours ago (2 children)

I found online a Navy manual from the '70s which prescribed laundry operations in excruciating detail, running over a hundred pages. It required cleaning the dryer lint traps every 2 hours, and monthly cleaning of the ducts. The Navy even has ratings specifically for laundry workers, Ship's Serviceman (Laundry).

It just blows mind that this isn't a solved problem, since it was solved 50 years ago!

[–] Ilovethebomb@sh.itjust.works 4 points 6 hours ago

That doesn't mean the procedure was actually followed though.

[–] skulblaka@sh.itjust.works 12 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

Right, that's all good. Now you have to get a couple of low-ranking servicemen to carry out every step of that hundred page manual to the letter on each of their several dozen machines, daily, after they've been deployed for an ongoing 10 months because their superiors are morons, and are further scheduled to become the longest running carrier deployment of all time at over a year of deploy time, because their superiors are morons.

I'd believe that some corners were cut in these servicemen's duty, and it just happened to be one too many corners one too many times. The men are fatigued, they want to get off the ship. It's possible these corners were even cut on purpose with exactly this result in mind in an attempt to get them off the ship.

[–] TehWorld@lemmy.world 2 points 8 hours ago

If by “cutting corners” you mean “actively packing dryer lint into a place where it could conceivably be a mistake” I’d agree.

[–] frongt@lemmy.zip 9 points 12 hours ago

That's the thing about militaries. Like any other organization, it's all still humans.

[–] corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca 1 points 11 hours ago

You can bet they won't now.

[–] givesomefucks@lemmy.world 14 points 15 hours ago

The fire, according to two officials, began in the vent of a dryer in the ship’s laundry facilities and quickly spread. Sailors battled the blaze for more than 30 hours, officials and sailors said.

That's actually pretty likely.

Sailors will smoke anywhere they can, but in a laundry room it's gonna be clogged dryer vents.