1960 — Dec 19, Fire, USS Constellation (under construction) NY Naval Shipyard, NY– 50

— 50 Cornell, James. The Great International Disaster Book (Third Edition). 1982, p. 334.
— 50 National Fire Protection Association. The 1984 Fire Almanac. 1983, p. 240.
— 50 NFPA. “The Deadliest U.S. Fires and Explosions.” Fire Journal, May/June 1988, p. 50.
— 50 Navysite. USS Constellation (CV 64).
— 50 Ward and Casey. “Aircraft Carrier Constellation Fire.” NFPA Quarterly, 54/4, Apr 1961, p. 283.
— 46 US Dept. Navy. “Casualties: US Navy…Marine Corps Personnel Killed and Injured…”
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Narrative Information

Navysite: “The construction of the carrier was nearly 90% completed and in the hangar bay there was a tank with 502 gallons of fuel inside. A forklift collided with that tank and the fuel ran out and flew into a lower deck where some workers were welding. A fire started and the flames quickly grew up because of all the wooden materials stored in the hangar bay and on the flight deck. Moments later a huge flame and a dark cloud of smoke could be seen above the carrier.

“An example for the density of the smoke was that a standard breathing apparatus can be used for approx. 45 minutes, but aboard the CONSTELLATION they could only be used for 20 minutes. Almost the whole hangar bay was burning. The efforts to extinguish the fire using the existing fire-fighting equipment were not successful and so the Brooklyn fire department was called for assistance. The fire was mainly extinguished with water and 15.000 tons of this water got into the carrier.

”At the time of the accident, a total of 4200 people worked aboard the carrier and so the fire department had not only to extinguish the fire but also to rescue the people. All in all it took twelve hours to extinguish the fire. 50 people were killed and hundreds were injured and the ship was heavily damaged.

”The carrier was scheduled to be commissioned in early 1961 but because of the fire and the resulting damage, the commissioning ceremony had to be postponed to October 27, 1961.” (Navysite. USS Constellation (CV 64).)

USN: “A fire during the building of aircraft carrier USS Constellation (CVA-64) at the New York Naval Shipyard, Brooklyn, killed 46 workers and injured 150. 19 Dec. 1960.” (US Dept. Navy. “Casualties: US Navy…Marine Corps Personnel Killed and Injured…”)

Ward and Casey: “On December 19, 1960, fire broke out on the U. S. S. Constellation, an aircraft carrier nearing completion at the New York Naval Shipyard in Brooklyn During the next 17 hours, 50 shipyard. workers were fatally injured and 336 suffered nonfatal. injuries. Forty fire- then were injured during firefighting and rescue operations. The Navy Depart¬ment, on January 4, released a property damage estimate of $47,942,000….

“A temporary platform of heavy wooden planking was suspended by tubular steel scaffolding 6 feet below the ceiling in the general area of the hangar deck where the fire originated. This arrangement created a 6-foot-deep concealed space, somewhat like that formed by a suspended combustible ceiling….

“During the year preceding this disas¬trous fire there had been 42 fires aboard the carrier, all small and all put out with extinguishers before Navy Yard fire fighters arrived at the scene. The story of the 43d fire was different. Shortly before 10:30 A.M., a forklift truck, in moving a large metal trash bin in the hangar deck, pushed the bin against a 1,800-pound steel plate rest¬ing on a pallet. The force of the blow rammed the plate against a valve in the bottom of a horizontal 1,200-gallon tank, knocking off the valve. The tank had been placed at the forward end of the hangar deck as a temporary diesel fuel supply (similar to kerosene) for auxiliary electric generating equipment. It contained about 500 gallons on December 19.

“Because the vessel was trimmed at the stern, most of the oil escaping from the tank flowed aft through the hangar deck but some of it spilled down a bomb ele¬vator shaft. Sensing the danger, work¬men hurried to get two standpipe hoses in operation to wash away the spilled fuel and to attack the fire if one should break out. The Navy Yard’s fire de¬partment was notified of the situation and word was passed via a public-address system on the hangar deck to stop all smoking and to shut off cutting and welding torches. It is doubtful if this message got to those working at other levels than the hangar deck. In the absence of fire no evacuation order was given.

“The two hoses supplied by the ship’s standpipe system had been brought into position for use when a burst of flame came up to the hangar deck from the bomb elevator shaft and ignited the oil flowing aft on the deck. Confronted suddenly with a large, intense fire, the men with the hoses had no choice but to retreat as did others who first opened the valves on several carbon dioxide ex¬tinguishers and tossed them into the fire. At about this time Navy Yard fire fight¬ers are said to have arrived at the hangar deck with land-connected hose lines.

“Answering an alarm from a box in the Navy Yard at 10:30 A.M. city fire com¬panies arrived shortly after the Navy Yard companies. Upon arrival, first alarm units of the New York Fire De¬partment were informed of the fire’s location by naval authorities and were also told that more than 3,200 workmen were on board ship when the fire broke out. Hundreds were trapped, some on the decks immediately below the hangar deck, others in the three forward decks, and still others in the gallery, deck….

“The spreading, flaming oil had carried the fire to combustible construction materials, and when first alarm units readied the hangar deck they were con-fronted with a tremendous blaze approximately 120 feet wide, 300 feet long, and 50 feet high. The fire was being fanned by 8- to 12-miles-per-hour winds blow¬ing into the hangar deck through the huge aircraft elevator shaft openings on the starboard side…

“Lines were directed overhead and forward in oven like temperatures, with the water from these lines Often being converted to steam immediately upon striking the red hot metal plates of the ship. The attack was complicated by the wooden plank scaffolding that was hung 6 feet below the ceiling of the hangar deck by metal hangers. This scaffold not only provided a concealed space for the fire to spread, but as the fire progressed, sections of the scaffold failed and fell, endangering the lives of the fire fighters….

“Rescues were effected and victims removed in a slow, grueling advance through oven-like passageways which led to a myriad of compartments that were to be used for crews’ quarters, storage, etc.

“As fire raged in the hangar deck and gallery deck it also spread to combus¬tible material on the flight deck, partly because of radiation and conduction of heat from the flight deck plates and partly because of an opening that extended from the hangar deck up through the gallery deck to the flight deck….
“By the time a strong attack could be made on the fires on the flight deck, flames 20 feet high were bursting from the vertical opening and had ignited a wooden shed, containing hundreds of gallons of paint, that had been erected on the flight deck adjacent to the open¬ing. Utility openings in the deck were discharging large volumes of intense heat and dense black irritating smoke and fumes. Breathing was difficult and vision was seriously impaired….

“The men on the flight deck When the fire broke out, or who had managed to reach it before passageways became im¬passable, got off the ship in various ways. Some jumped into the water, others slid down ropes to a barge tied to the port side, others were taken down aerial ladders raised to the flight deck from ladder trucks parked on the pier, and still others were carried to safety by a cargo platform maneuvered by a crane operator….

“Although the fire below the hangar deck level was confined primarily to the bomb elevator shaft, many work¬men were trapped in lower levels since normal routes out were up and through the hangar deck….” (Ward, Asst. Chief J. T., and Lt. J. F. Casey. “Aircraft Carrier Constellation Fire.” Quarterly of the NFPA, Vol. 54, No. 4, April 1961, pp. 283-286.)

Sources

Cornell, James. The Great International Disaster Book (Third Edition). New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1982.

National Fire Protection Association. The 1984 Fire Almanac. Quincy, MA: NFPA, 1983.

National Fire Protection Association. “The Deadliest U.S. Fires and Explosions.” Fire Journal, May/June 1988, pp. 48-54.

Navysite. USS Constellation (CV 64). Accessed 4-4-2009 at: http://navysite.de/cvn/cv64.htm

United States Department of the Navy, Naval Historical Center. See “Casualties: US Navy and Marine Corps Personnel Killed and Injured in Selected Accidents and Other Incidents Not Directly the Result of Enemy Action.” Washington, DC: Washington Navy Yard. Accessed at: http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/NHC/accidents.htm

Ward, Asst. Chief J. T., and Lt. J. F. Casey. “Aircraft Carrier Constellation Fire.” Quarterly of the National Fire Protection Association, Vol. 54, No. 4, April 1961, pp. 283-288.