Naval Seater Address Ryan Sawyer Metz (center) arrived at the San Diego Naval Base on Monday, December 13, 2021 for the hearing. The Navy will hold a hearing to examine whether there is enough evidence to order an military court trial for a sailor stationed in San Diego, accused of destroying the USS Good Man Richard in the summer of 2020. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull )
On the morning of July 12, 2020, the first orange light of destruction appeared inside the bulky USS Good Man Richard, anchored at the San Diego Naval Base.
The fire was unimpeded, gathering strength and surging upwards, conquering the first floor of the 844-foot ship, then the next floor, and the crew—the ship’s key firepower—flees to the dock. There, the captain and his sailors stood aside because the "Good Man Richard" was burned, a cruel irony to the motto of "I haven't started fighting yet."
It was not until the San Diego Fire Department got on board that someone sprayed water on the fire—nearly two hours after the fire began. By then it was too late. The gas cylinders exploded and shot in the air, and firefighters had no maps or even sailors to guide them through the smoky maze on the ship. A firefighter warned that a cubicle was “about to explode,” forcing firefighters to leave the good man Richard minutes before the explosion, the power of the explosion could be heard 13 miles away and threw debris on a nearby destroyer .
That afternoon, flames that were so hot that they twisted the steel beams danced along the flight deck, engulfing the outer structure of the ship. As the fire raged, it melted the interior of the 300-ton control center on the top of the ship, spraying molten aluminum onto the deck below.
Before nightfall, the good man Richard was a salvage pile. The sailors later saw the foremast with the American flag falling while the ship was at sea.
Four days later, when the fire was officially put out, the U.S. Navy faced disgusting losses from a $1.2 billion warship , not war, or even at sea. But a fire that can be completely prevented occurs when moored in a native U.S. port. Losing the Good Man Richard is an embarrassing and painful public blow to the Navy, which has suffered a recent blow from allegations of sea collisions and poor equipment and training.
The service immediately launched two parallel investigations to investigate what problems and why.
was led by a three-star general and an investigation team was sent to conduct a large-scale and methodical inspection of the fire. Several months passed, and investigators found a series of shocking failures—the damage or loss of fire hose , the trained sailors, the improper storage of dangerous materials—all prepared for the ship a catastrophic fire.
Another investigation by the Navy's Criminal Investigation Bureau focuses on whether anyone is criminally responsible. Several months have passed, and despite insufficient evidence, NCIS investigators appear to be operating in isolation, tracing the arson case despite the curse of the command investigation.
Six weeks after two investigations, the Navy told the command to investigate the surface value of the NCIS and federal fire investigators judged as the cause of the fire. Both surveys ended in 2021.
Command investigation traces the problem back to when the Good Man Richard docked for repairs, while leaders at all levels of the Navy gave up their responsibility for ship safety. Risk increases and no one pays attention. All in all, investigators determined that the actions of 17 sailors and officers directly led to the ship’s wreck, and another 17 (including five admirals) contributed. The long list is a surprising indictment for everyone from sailors to the failed admirals of the job.
However, NCIS's investigation blames a young sailor. The Navy said the real culprit was Ryan Mays, then 20, who was responsible for the billions of dollars in losses. For this reason, he should face life imprisonment .
The Navy continued to hunt down Metz, despite a military judge's suggestion against it, bluntly pointing out the lack of evidence and citing the results of the Navy's own command investigation.
Starting this week, Metz was tried in a military court in San Diego for serious arson and intentional endangerment of ships. A Navy spokesman said the department was unable to comment on the ongoing lawsuit, but noted that the admiral who ordered a military court trial carefully reviewed the recommendation before the decision continued. “Everyone is entitled to a fair trial and the Navy is committed to upholding that principle,” Cmdr. Sean Robertson said.
In court, the Navy tried to stop questioning its motives—even revoking evidence collected by its officers about the dangerous situation aboard the Good Man Richard.
Last month, Prosecutor Captain Jason Jones asked the judge to prohibit Mays' attorney from making conclusions to direct the investigation. Jones said Mays, who now has the lowest rank of E1, should not ask the court to see him as a fallen guy.
Naval is not a problem, Jones said in court that the trial argument should not suggest in any way that “the Navy needs a scapegoat, so we chose E1.”
2020 A group of sailors left the dock after supporting the battle on the amphibious assault ship USS Bonhomme Richard. (U.S. Naval/Mass Communication Expert Second Class Natalie M. Byers)
At Pier 2 at San Diego Naval Base, investigators blocked the charred wreck of the Good Man Richard with yellow police tape.
Within days after the fire was put out, investigators from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, who co-led the criminal investigation with NCIS, walked into the ship's shells to find the cause of igniting the fire.
Because the amphibious assault ship was always in the "yard" when the fire broke out, its flight deck was longer than two football fields, without the helicopters it designed to carry and the F-35 fighter . As one of the eight ships of the Navy, the "Good Man Richard" is like a small aircraft carrier used to transport thousands of Marines into battle. It has been out of service for a year and a half during the $249 million overhaul. On the morning of the fire, the upgrade was almost completed.
According to testimony and report, agents determined that the fire occurred in an area on the ship called "lower V", which usually houses dozens of Marines tanks and other vehicles, but was used as a summary during the overhaul. On the day of the fire, the lower V was already filled with two fueled forklifts, a manned lift, a pallet of hand sanitizer, lithium batteries and other combustible materials, wooden beams, scaffolding, ropes and thick and tall cardboard boxes, some stacked two highs.
For ATF investigators, warships are an unusual scene. They turned to the damage control assistant on the ship, Lieutenant Colonel. Felix Perez, visit. Perez is the officer who is directly responsible for the fire hoses and systems on board, training sailors to fight fires and ensures that the ship complies with fire prevention measures.
Peres guides the agents through the ship and parks at the fire station nearest to the fire source. At the age of three, the hose is lost, cut or unusable. According to an affidavit from NCIS regarding the case, Perez told agents that he or his staff had walked the ship two days before the fire, and that it was almost impossible for them to ignore the fire station.
Perez told agents that these radio stations must have been tampered with.
A few weeks later, in the corner of a building in the Good Man Richard, about 77 naval officers, recruited experts and civilians set up shops for commanding the investigation.
According to people close to the investigation, investigators realized earlier that Perez was not doing his job well and that his conversation with ProPublica was conditional that their name would not be used so that they could freely talk about sensitive issues. The fire station was unable to operate due to widespread neglect – Perez and other leaders failed to recognize the collapse of the ship’s condition.
Command investigators wrote in the report that from the command investigation, the Navy Crime Investigation Department immediately restricted the team's work and prohibited its experts and officials from interviewing anyone on the ship.Supported by naval policy, NCIS’s criminal investigations take precedence over systematic investigations. So the command investigators turned to 26,000 pages of records, downloaded the database and pieced together logs of ship equipment, maintenance and training.
Related people said investigators quickly discovered a shocking list of ways ships are at risk, so much that it became frustrating to categorize wrong decisions day after day. Investigators wrote in the report that for a long time, all thermal sensors, sprinklers and other emergency systems on board were shut down. On the day of the fire, only 29 of the 216 fire stations on board and 15 of the 807 portable fire extinguishers were in normal working condition.
Perez is the ship's main representative in its authorized fire safety committee, which investigators found was temporary and appeared to exist just to abandon safety requirements. Investigators searched the minutes and logs for ways Perez and others considered mitigating every risk arising from abandoning these requirements, but found little. They concluded that Perez, along with his direct superiors and other senior leaders, had given up on their responsibility to resolve fire prevention issues on board. Perez declined to comment on the findings, but said he believes his naval records show he is a good officer.
Investigators also learned that Bonhomme Richard's sailors had been living on a nearby barge , basically a floating dormitory until shortly before the fire. But that week, they started moving back on board while the ship was still in chaos. The supply of the contractor and the vessel was pushed everywhere. The investigation found that this chaos had become normal enough, with sailors at all levels often passing by improperly stored oil barrels, gas cylinders and other flammable items without considering too much danger. For investigators, the condition of the ship is "the ideal environment for fire development and spread."
Just a few days before the fire, Metz angrily texted his department officials, complaining that he had to live among contractors who were doing "fucking dangerous" jobs. A worker welded near his berth while he was sleeping, and Metz said he was burned by a stray spark. In 2015, another warship at a shipyard broke out in a fire, similar to the situation: sailors boarded the ship while the “hot work” was in progress.
Command investigators hung a wall full of ship drawing posters, each poster tracking different potential problems. While NCIS’ early impressions of the case included the theory of destruction, the command investigators clearly saw another image: Bonhomme Richard was once a gunpowder box.
On July 24, 2020, less than a week after the criminal investigation began, the ATF preliminarily ruled that the Bonhomme Richard fire was arson.
Chief ATF Agent Matthew Beals and his investigative team found no physical evidence that anyone deliberately set fire. Beers later testified that he had ruled out unexpected causes such as electrical and mechanical as well as natural causes. Eliminating these causes, coupled with his assessment of how the fire develops and his statements from witnesses, he concluded that it must be arson.
The 921 guide of the National Fire Association, essentially a fire investigation bible, requires investigators to use scientific methods to determine the cause. "You can't decide this is arson without everything else," the association's director Robert Duval told ProPublica. The ATF said it was unable to comment on pending lawsuits. Beers testified that his method follows the manual and that his conclusions are based on various evidence.
In the lower V area that was most charred by the fire, Beals focused on large cardboard boxes, which he later called "the Amazon box of steroids." He speculated based on field tests that someone used a combustion aid to ignite them, but said in court that he could not find any fire data to confirm.
He will testify at a Mays Possible Cause hearing that he believes the fire was caused by someone’s intentional use of an open flame and that it may be the use of the promoter on the box.
NCIS Start interviewing Bonhomme Richard's sailor.Earlier this year, NCIS publicly acknowledged that San Diego's field office had mishandled the high-profile investigation and handling of war crimes by Edward Gallagher, head of SEALs, and Gallagher was found not guilty. The Navy took corrective measures against seven agents. As the NCIS office develops its cases amid the fire, its leadership remains under the dark clouds.
San Diego, CA (August 23, 2018) Aviation sailors’ companion (processing) Level 3 Tiffanie Allenderriley describes the Flight Deck Capacity Workshop for the Surface Naval Association’s West Coast to the West Coast of the Amphibious Assault Shipment USS Bonhomme Richard (LHD 6) during the cruise. This trip provides participants in the 20th Annual West Coast Symposium on the Surface Naval Association, an opportunity to experience naval ships and learn about amphibious operations. Bonhomme Richard is located in its home port of Santiago. (Photo by Jeanette Mullinax, a second-level mass communication expert in the U.S. Navy)
According to an affidavit from NCIS, the highest soldier of the "Good Man Richard" identified Messe as a person who despised the Navy. To discover the arson, the agent had a possible suspect's name.
Mes has just graduated from high school and still has a baby face on his face, which is called a big mouth on the boat. As a 17-year-old senior, he enlisted early on in Kentucky with his mother's permission, enjoying science, swimming and shirtless across the football field before a Friday night game. His naval contract guarantees him the opportunity to participate in the BUD/S, a notorious SEAL training program.
Mes admires the directional friendship, but when the training becomes intense, he is not mature enough to stick with it. He resigned on the fifth day. This left him without a naval career path, and he was in a state of uncertainty for the next few months, waiting for a new mission.
Mes stole a pair of headphones from the base store, naively thinking that it would be "a shortcut to getting out of the army," he told ProPublica. To his surprise, he was only condemned, and the commander encouraged him to embrace his potential and his time in the Navy.
Mess said this rekindled his desire to become a Navy SEAL. The Navy gave the sailor three opportunities. When he was sent to the good man Richard in March 2020, Mays was wholehearted. He could stand on the flight deck and on a clear day to see the SEALs trained on Coronado Beach across from San Diego Bay. That's where he wants to go. Or at least in a special war project, such as explosive disposal.
He partnered with another sailor with similar goals, who tested their physical limits through an all-night exercise. Mess is small but strong, and his ego surfaces in his usual teenage style: social media dressing. On the boat, he won the attention of other sailors when he boasted about his belonging to the elite sailors. Mays is actually a low-level deck sailor, mopping the floor, painting and performing other trivial custody duties on the good man Richard.
records and interviews show that agents are concerned about Metz's dissatisfaction and the fact that he withdraws from SEAL training.
At the same time, the command center investigators found that during the large amount of time the Good Man Richard was in the port, the basic fire fighting principle of survival had withered. Just as every Marine is a rifleman, every sailor is a firefighter. Whatever the sailor’s job is, it is crucial to know how to control and put out a fire. When a ship is at sea, there is nowhere to escape.
Investigation team is divided into smaller groups to check what should have happened during the fire and what actually happened.
Shortly after 8 a.m., the sailors reported for the first time that smoke was found. After that, investigators were stunned by the lack of urgency. Naval policy stipulates that sailors must extinguish the flames with water as soon as possible, but within a maximum of 12 minutes. On the boat that day, more than 10 minutes passed, and no one announced the fire through the megaphone on the boat. They found that slow responses were typical of Bonhomme Richard.During the 14 consecutive exercises before the fire, crew members failed to respond in a timely manner – neither the ship’s leadership nor the higher command took steps to address the lack of proficiency.
Investigators found that the key gap between signs of smoke and alarm sounding was the first of a series of failures at the crew and dock leadership. Investigators learned that once sailors realized that many of the hoses closest to the fire were unusable, they had no one turned to another important strategy for controlling the fire on board: slamming the waterproof door between the heavy steel hatch and the compartment. The sailors revealed that at first no one thought of using the sprinkler on the boat to spread thick white foam to help put out the fire. Even if they had it, they couldn’t easily turn on the system: a maintenance report in April was forged saying the system was working without it.
records show that NCIS has focused on Metz as the command investigation conducted extensive investigation into the causes of the fire. On the morning of the fire, Kenji Velasco, a seaman who had just been on duty with Metz, was standing guard at the top of the ramp leading to the lower V. He told NCIS that he saw someone walking down the ramp shortly before the fire. fire.
According to the testimony, Velasco did not tell anyone about the person for several days—even during the fire, that person could be at risk of being killed. When Velasco sat down with the agents, he told them that someone had walked by behind him, "But I've never seen him before." The day after the interview, the agents returned to Velasco. According to NCIS documents, this time Velasco said he was “quite sure” that this guy was Mess. Velasco told the agent that Mess was arrogant and talked too much.
Then the agents brought Velasco back: How sure is he that he saw Mess? "90%," Velasco told them.
The next month, agents discovered Metz, which surprised him when he was working. ATF’s Beals and an NCIS agent asked Mays for nearly 10 hours in a recording interview. He told them more than 150 times that he did not set the boat on fire.
On the morning of the fire, Metz should have a broom and dustpan in his hand and cleaned the stern. Mays told the agent that he was just hanging out, browsing his cell phone. With the 24-hour duty and nothing to do, he was not in a hurry after the name was called, and, later, he told ProPublica that the overall culture of the ship at the second expansion of the dock was lazy.
In the recording of the interview, Metz, wearing a brown uniform T-shirt, occasionally sways from his forehead, swaying between confrontation and pain.
He asked eight times in two minutes whether he was detained.
"I won't answer your question, Ryan," Beals said.
In an interview, Metz rudely showed his indifference to the Navy fleet and spoke about his desire to be a Navy SEAL. At first, he even sought advice from NCIS agent, former Navy SEAL, Albert Porter. Porter told Mays that he would never be on the training program again: "You won't go back, man. It didn't happen."
Beals urged him to "accept everything you did". Once, he told Mets that they had his video.
"You are a liar," Metz said.
"You are a liar," Beals replied.
All day long, Messe asked to call his mother many times. He tried to come up with anything he could tell the agent to prove that he was innocent. He begged them to take his DNA, search his phone and use GPS to track his whereabouts at that time.
Once, when the agents left him alone, he shouted to the empty room, "I didn't do that. Let me go."
Then he leaned his head against the table and sobbed.
When Mess learned that he was going to the brig near midnight, a sailor who was about to transport him said she heard Mess say "I am guilty. I guess I did it," according to records and testimony.
Agent treats so-called remarks as confessions. Metz said he was sarcastic, expressing his disbelief that he would be arrested for a crime he did not commit.
The Navy ordered Metz into the brig on August 20, 2020.
NCIS interview records show that in the months following the fire, NCIS and ATF agents conducted slow interviews with some sailors who had been on board during the fire. One of the sailors was one of the first people to see the smoke that morning.
About a month after Metz's arrest, witnesses told agents that she saw a sailor sprinting from the lower V zone when she saw "white mist" floating. She recognized the sailor as a seaman recruit Elijah McGovern.
records show that one and a half months later, NCIS and ATF agents asked where McGovern was when the fire broke out. McGovern denied arson. Witnesses testified that he told a series of stories about where he was at the time in several interviews that were later refuted. ProPublica could not be reached for comment.
Beals and NCIS Agent Maya Kamat investigated McGovern for months but eventually set a low standard to clear him. They found vague, distant videos at the exit of a base near Bonhomme Richard that showed someone leaving about 25 minutes after the fire began. Beals and Carmat testified that they could not recognize McGovern's face in the video. But Beals said he could judge that it was McGovern by the man's "gait, walking and general physique." Kamat said she thought these inconspicuous clothes were very good with McGovern’s. Agents believed the video helped to provide McGovern with alibi proof , and they testified at the preliminary hearing. NCIS said it was unable to comment on pending litigation.
The Navy quickly abandoned its experts. After Metz was arrested, someone scrawled on the potty near the boat, "I did it. I caught the boat on fire," including among other things a rough picture of the boat in the flames. The military's handwriting inspector said his handwriting matched McGovern's.
handwriting analysis is controversial, but the government often uses it as trustworthy evidence. Here, however, the graffiti did not specify the sailors who ultimately charged the crime by the Navy, so prosecutors hoped to exclude him from Mays’ military court and argued at a preliminary hearing that it was not strong concluding and irrelevant.
records show that McGovern was expelled from the Navy for misconduct the week after his last interview with investigators.
In 2012, after the U.S. Navy caught fire at a shipyard in Maine and the U.S. Navy’s submarine “Miami” fired, the service adopted a “never repeat” mentality and released a new 129-page fire manual. Command investigators concluded that this was just a paper talk. Three fires at the shipyard after Miami have similar disturbing patterns. Investigators found that some admirals in charge of repairs did not comply with the manual.
According to the command report, NCIS has prevented investigators from interviewing 150 Bonhomme Richard crew members and others until the first week of December, five months after the fire. By the time the investigators could sit down with the leader on the ship, they had pieced together the bad situation of the ship. As officers came in one by one, investigators were surprised to find that they knew very little about the status of their ship.
Bonhomme Richard Captain Gregory Thoroman collapsed several times throughout the interview. As a naval pilot in charge of a large ship, his expertise is a little bit in-depth enough. For example, investigators wrote that Perez did not always tell the captain the safety requirements he gave up, and Soromann did not have enough knowledge to ask.
When a pilot like Solomon is in charge, the Navy's backup system is to require the No. 2 to be a surface war officer. That failed, too: Investigators learned that Captain D. Michael Ray didn’t pay attention, either.
Investigators were surprised to find that despite the ship's recent load of 900,000 gallons of fuel, the leadership on board was unaware of which emergency response systems were working. Investigators found Soroman did not read the fire safety manual. Ray and other major officials on the ship, including Perez, did not understand. Neither Soroman nor Ray responded to a request for comment.
Command Investigators also found that the Admiral, who oversees and maintains the ship, did not notice the rising risks on the Good Man Richard. Other admirals and captains responsible for fire responses did not even ensure basic precautions, such as installing large fire pipes on the docks and distributing ship maps to local fire departments.
Investigators found that even a minor fire, the Navy faces the risk of improper handling. The department also charged Metz a year after the fire broke out, as the Navy's top leadership approved the command's investigation results.
For some, the Navy's behavior reminds it of an ugly history. In 1989, the USS Iowa turret exploded, killing 47 sailors, and the Navy tried to nail it to a dead sailor whom the leader suspected was gay. Only after Congress intervened did the Navy admit that there was no evidence to prove its assertion.
Recently, after a back-to-back collision in the Pacific in 2017, ProPublica revealed how the Navy downplayed systemic responsibility and fired those who issued the alarm.
After a one-day possible cause hearing for Mess in December 2021, the judge said she was not convinced Mess was guilty. Captain Angela Don, a nuclear-trained surface warfare officer who later became a naval lawyer and judge, is known for his rigor.
"Given the status of the evidence submitted to me, I don't think it's possible to convict at trial. Therefore, even if there are possible reasons to support these allegations, I do not recommend forwarding these allegations," Don wrote in her findings.
ProPublica reviewed the conclusions of her 43-page report, which the Navy has concealed from the public, just like almost every other court record in the case. Tang warned that the possible reason was that the threshold was low. In explaining her advice to withdraw the allegations against Metz, she repeatedly mentioned that the fire was arson. Her report also pointed out that defense expert witnesses testified that two other possible causes were found: leaks and explosions of lithium batteries, and arcs of engine wires on forklifts. Experts testified that in view of this evidence, the only reasonable conclusion is “uncertained.”
Dang wrote that there is no evidence that the fire was intentional arson and the ATF's conclusions may be challenged because agents missed the possible cause discovered by the defense within four hours of the scene. Don noted that Velasco was the sole witness of the prosecution and—even if credible—was not enough to keep the case going. She wrote that Velasco's credibility was weakened by the time he reported seeing someone and his statements inconsistent with other witnesses that Velasco said Metz was wearing. Furthermore, she wrote that even if Metz was seen, it was not possible to prove that he set fire or set fire.
She also said investigators had good reason to suspect McGovern, writing that jurors might see Mays’ “I’m guilty” remarks as irony.
Tang also mentioned the Navy's own conclusion that if it were not for a systemic failure, the fire would have been put out long before the ship crashed. The Navy accused Metz of endangering a ship, but Don wrote that if a fire was set, the fire seemed to be to distract the ship, rather than destroying it.
Lieutenant General Stephen T. Kerler, the military commander who has the final say in the prosecution of Metz, ignored Don's advice. In February, the Navy announced that Koelher had decided to bring Metz to military court.
Most of the Navy's cases against Metz depend on what he calls motives. Prosecutors claimed he was a disgruntled sailor who hated the navy so much that he burned the ship for revenge.
Navy believes that Metz was realized that he would never wear the Shanghai SEAL trident and had to move to a new berth on the ship, "sending him to the edge", one of the prosecutors, lieutenant lieutenant. Shannon Gearhart, said at the preliminary hearing.
Mace's civil attorney Gary Barthel argued at a possible cause hearing that Mess's arrogance proved that he was an unlovable brag but not an arsonist.
According to Mays and his attorney, the young sailor is also working to reapply for SEAL training, including supporting his application through his punitive training and seeking advice and taking steps to gain special qualifications, such as search and rescue swimming. His mom Christie Hall told ProPublica that her often stubborn son “is bound and determined to return” in training programs. She said he told her that he had only hit once and then twice.
After two years of hardship, in the mountaintop park overlooking San Diego, Metz sat in a military posture, speaking with a new reflection on self-awareness. He said the Navy said he had a bad attitude and didn't want to be fair on the good man Richard.
"I don't know how I feel about the word 'dissatisfaction' they use now. It really doesn't make much sense to me," he said. "I'm like other sailors in the department, don't like it, you know, clean up the trash. So I don't know if that makes me feel upset."
Mess said he briefly felt relieved when Don advised not to attend the military court. He thought the anxiety that made him vomit almost every morning would finally subside. The Navy then announced that he would still be suing him.
He said that this experience, especially his experience with the brig, has been "heartbreaking". "Part of me died there, I don't know if I can get it back."
The Navy retired after an estimate that the Good Man Richard would cost $3 billion and take at least 5 years to repair. The service said it has made changes to its fire prevention policies, including random security checks and clear chains of command. More than 20 people, including three admirals, were disciplined. The captain, executive officer and supreme soldier on board received punitive letters of condemnation, which is usually the end of his career.
Mes' defense attorney pointed out that on the same day the Bonhomme Richard caught fire, another large deck ship at the San Diego base caught fire. NCIS concluded that the USS Essex fire was arson, but the fire was put out before any damage was caused. In this case, like Metz, a witness recognized someone at the scene shortly before the fire was discovered. But after a year-long investigation, the case was closed without any charges. The chief testified that the suspect "finally was eliminated because nothing more connected him to the fire on the Essex." A defense attorney for Mays pointed out in the preliminary hearing that "the facts in Essex are surprisingly similar." Except that the ship was not burned, so the investigation "was gone like this," Lieutenant Pete Link said.
In the Bonhomme Richard case, the entire ship suffered heavy losses, Link said, "Now we are in court."
