Although expected to spend another week in the South Coast Exercise Areas on sea training and helicopter trials, HMS Queen Elizabeth unexpectedly returned home to Portsmouth this evening.
A Royal Navy spokesperson said:
“Following a minor issue with an internal system, the ship’s company were required to remove a small volume of water from the ship. An investigation into the cause is underway.
HMS Queen Elizabeth has had a minor issue relating to water from an internal system. At no point was there damage or breach to the hull. The issue was isolated as soon as possible and all water has now been pumped out. The ship, which was due to return to Portsmouth for a planned maintenance period later in the week, is now returning earlier than planned. This is a precautionary measure and the cause of the issue is now under investigation.”
UPDATE:
Forces News reports a high-pressure seawater pipe burst, letting more than 200 tonnes of water into the ship and flooding on several decks. Everyone is safe but the high-pressure burst was apparently enough to buckle a stairwell, bend some bulkheads and split some deck-plates. Reliable naval sources say the ship’s company performed a standard damage-control response to a split pipe. The flood was dramatic but restricted to small compartments and was probably less than 200 tonnes, although they are still analyzing the incident.
There will doubtless be lots of negative comment but it should be remembered that QE is still a new and prototype vessel that has not been declared operational. Each time QE has sailed, greater numbers of personnel and aircraft have been embarked, gradually adding more pressure on internal systems. An aircraft carrier has many miles of pipework for multiple uses which include: fire-fighting (saltwater), fire-fighting (foam), freshwater (for drinking and washing), chilled water (for air conditioning and cooling equipment) and grey water (sewage), plus engine and aviation fuel pipework. There is plenty that can go wrong, but like all the initial problems encountered so far, engineers will overcome them in time.
This leak is unrelated to the minor and fairly routine, stern seal issue that was the cause of hysterical media over-reaction in December 2017 – “HMS Queen Elizabeth is sinking” etc. This issue is also unlikely to prevent the ship from sailing later this year for the Westlant19 deployment when she will carry out further developmental test flying with UK-owned F-35 Jets.
Video: @PortsmouthProud
Incredibly complex system breaks down.Sounds as though its quite minor this time,although who knows what damage might have been done if actual real incredibly complex fighters had been on board.It probably wouldn’t compromise her ability to go to war, but it does expose her immense vulnerablity.
are you for real, did you actually read the article,. its a prototype, there are going to be problems, she is not operational yet, thats the whole point of testing her to find out her weaknesses and remedy them so that when she is made operational, she is fully ready! “who knows what damage might have been done if actual real incredibly complex fighters had been on board” IT WAS IN A SMALL COMPARTMENT, i doubt they would have a F35 stored in there.
Easiest option is to just ignore Grubbie, Michael. He’s just one of our resident pessimistic trolls, if he actually believed what he posts he wouldn’t even be on the site
Grubbie probably works for the penny pinching treasury….maybe Grubbie is Really John Nott….lol
Check out your own comments below to see what happens without critical voices who are prepared to take on the military industrial complex, glamour projects and I’m sorry to say widespread corruption.
Where did you get the “IT WAS IN A SMALL COMPARTMENT “information from?
Article says flooding restricted to several small compartments…. less than 200tons of water. 1ton = ~1 meter cubed. Assume compartment is 2m high then that much water would fill one 10m x 10m compartment or four 5m x 5m compartments.
Now it does
QE is not really a prototype, because that would imply she will be thrown away when testing is finished. Also, though the amount of water has been described as small, I haven’t seen anything describing the size of the affected compartment.
I think the Royal Navy are hurting themselves by their media handling. Their web site and publicity is of a ship commissioned and “has already been accepted to the fleet” yet they then want to downplay and teething problems with “our nation’s flagship”. If they were smarter they would lead with the news article about QE “Undergoing her sea trails” [trials!] and hence manage expectations.
“At no point was there damage or a breach of the hull”,all sorts of clever tricks to throw us off the scent.Stretching the truth beyond breaking point actually seems to have worked judging by the restrained coverage so far.I have the feeling that the papers will be full of stories about sailors who almost died in the morning though.
Stretching the truth….are you still looking for the Wreck of HMS Invincible sunk in 1982 Grubbie? I hear Dr Ballard turned down offers to look lol
Yaaaawn god you get so boring with your repetive chuff pal. Bet you were clapping your hands all excited and frothing and getting a stiffy with this opportunity to let us know you were right all along and the QE is about to sink/ground/ hit by a missile/capsize due to blah blah/rust/smell or otherwise be crap…..delete insert as appropriate pal. Get the wet wipes and sort yourself out buddy.
The QEs problems are to be expected…the UK hadnt built any big carriers since the 1950s. Her defensive armaments might be a bit lackluster (Primarily due to her tiny escort fleet) but its her Aircraft will decide how good she is, I worry a lot more about the F35 than the QE
I’m not hoping it will fail, youre hoping it will work.
Building ships that float is something the UK is good at…..equiping them well enough is a different department and thats were your pessimism should be directed
Yes Grubbie, captain of the mums underware squad.
Thanks for your technical input
“Incredibly Complex System”? Yet again showing your ignorance as well as your desire to rubbish anything Navy. HP Salt water is not incredibly complex and pipework failures happen (in houses as well as ships – ask any insurance company investigator). As the salt water is under high pressure a burst pipe results in a lot of water flooding a compartment in a very short time. Additionally, the ladders are made of aluminium and therefore easy to buckle (several “melted” during the Illustrious gearbox fire). This was a minor incident, one dealt with regularly by the RN. In fact before joining a ship ALL crew members have to undertake Firefighting and Damage Control training at Phoenix (for Pompey rates) and train to stop flooding in water that is often neck high and above.
She is awesome, country should be proud (i certainly am), cant wait to see a photo of her with a full compliment of our F35s, and a astute/type 45 next to her, like a task force.
You are going to have to be an extremely patient man.
that’s right Hernamen!
Another minor issue hopefully, its not like the carrier was listing badly or anything. Its not as disastrous as the Type 42 Destroyer having a 20 year old radar (Type 965) when launched which screwed the RN in 1982, the County Class Destroyers had the same Radar….now thats what I call serious. (Just to clarify the Type 997 Artisan on the Type 23/26 is still very very capable and was added to the 23 very recently)
That radar actually worked!It’s nowhere near the most shameful weapons system of the Falklands war. That trophy probably goes to the tigerfish torpedo.Its actually quite hard to think of many really successful RN procurements,CAMM looks good so far, big production run and a proper plan.
965 was useless as it couldnt track targets flying low over land and was the reason why Sea Dart wasnt as effective as it was aboard HMS Exeter which had the Type 1022. Sea slug was hopeless to begin with, Sea Wolf was only on 3 ships and Sea Cat was the only effective missile within San Carlos Bay as the others were RADAR guided and only a few FIM 92 Stingers were available (SAS). 965 had no moving target indicator and was badly affected by TV signals as it ran in the same band. Type 965 Radar AKE2 screwed HMS Coventry as they couldnt track the inbound threats. HMS Broadswords 967/968 radar could occasionally see them. The Argentines exploited the 965s weaknesses as the UK sold them this set in 1975. Tigerfish “wasnt” used because it was allready known to be crap… same with SeaSlug. That radar system was a major factor in the loss of 2 Destroyers
965 was ineffective. But it was an early warning long range radar.
T42 had 992 which was effective at sea but somewhat ineffective in San carlos or close in to land . It was basically the same radar used as part of the Seawolf radar (967 doppler radar/968 Surface and air search same as 992).
Coventry was screwed when it sailed in front of Broadsword which had a 910 tracker lock and forced the engagement to reset
All the rest, tigerfish, seaslug and to an extent Seacat where carp. The seacat tracker system on T21 (R912) was actually pretty good but let down by an unreliable missile.
Seacat wasnt unreliable….it functionally was great, its issue was it was subsonic with 5000m range and MCLOS guided or RADAR which as we know not great in San Carlos. Type 21 frigs had GWS 24 Seacat (final version). Coventry crossing Broadsword was unfortunate but they were exectuting a manouver (type 64) that hadnt been trained for before and it went wrong. Good tactic on paper but needed to be practiced. SeaCat might not have been a success at killing enemy targets but it did supress the Argentine Air Force when they executed their attacks. Seacat after all was the most numerous weapon in the SAM armoury at the time. I have always wondered how worse it could have been if none of the task force then had Seacat…It definately needed replacing but in my book rushing the Pilots (As they themselves testified to…they were really fearful of Sea Cat) and putting them off counts in suppression factor 😁. If I remember correctly 992 was replaced when the 1022 was installed with the 993? 😉 Stingers would have been the best if we had more than a few for the SAS at the time. Seacat also required a very high skill level.
1022 replaced 966/965 bedstead and double bedstead on T42s.
992 was the cigar shaped radome on T42 and T21. It was fitted to T22 in a different radome that contained 967 and 968 . The below decks 968 was pretty much identical to 992 cabinets.
Seacat on T21 was good. Radar tracking TVA/B guidance…it just needed a better missile. As you said though everyone was putting a lot of stuff up to hit and if not hit at least distract the pilots. I was on a Seawolf ship so if we shot we usually hit…but not when the exocet got chewed up.
On a side note…HMS Yarmouth type 12 frigate with her original GWS 20 Mark 1 Eyeball guided Seacat is credited with shooting down a Skyhawk on May 25 1982 😉 The pilot was rescued by HMS Fearless
Seacat dustbins! I remember them well!
Is it sinkin’ yet?
Ok, so check out services network. 200t tons of water is a trivial amount for a large ship, but buckled structure is not trivial .”Mental health team stood up” is hard to take seriously, but I wasn’t one of the 3 people allegedly at risk of drowning.Significant leak.
A piping failure is suggestive either of a manufacturing defect or a design fault. Presumably we are talking about the Saltwater Service System if the water flow was high enough to distort structure. That means water around equipment where it is not supposed to be. The real issue is not how much water, it is what it damaged.
No worse than the “internal leaks” our government has!
Lol Touche 😁😁😁
As a break from the hysteria over an internal leak, I guess the recent news from the Gulf shows why we have a real navy, and why it hasn’t been downgraded to a bunch of fishery protection vessels, as some *extremely* boring and repetitive posters here are fond of demanding.
Precisely Jon, maratime security across the globe is crucial for an island nation with the world’s 5th largest economy. The posters you’re referring to are clueless.