Thread by @ProPublica

THREAD: This week, we pubbed an investigation revealing that Navy leaders ignored years of warnings.

Then, in 2017, two crashes killed 17 sailors.

Alarms had been sounded up and down the chain of command.

Here are some of the warnings we uncovered:
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2/ 2012: Navy undersecretary Bob Work told senior officials at the Pentagon the Navy’s ships were being pushed too hard. He said they repeatedly rejected one such analysis:

3/ “He would send us back and say, ‘I don't believe the data,’” Work recalled. “We'd come back with more data. He'd say, ‘I still don't believe it.’”

4/ 2013: Three-star Adm. Thomas Copeman spoke out about his concerns about broken ships and untrained sailors. He wrote memos about readiness problems internally.

5/ “It'd be tough to look in a mirror if I'd stayed silent,” Copeman said.

6/ 2016: Internal records show that a sailor on the #USSMcCain warned superiors: “It’s only a matter of time before a major incident occurs.”

An officer on the #USSFitzgerald told ProPublica he warned his bosses that his shipmates might die without changes.

7/ 2016: Janine Davidson, the Navy’s #2 civilian, told Navy Secretary Ray Mabus that ships were in disrepair and to stop plowing money into buying new ships, and take care of the current fleet.

8/ “His priority was shipbuilding. He made it very clear Anybody who had a different opinion was shut down.”

9/ But taking her concerns to the Hill was not an option. The Navy Secretary had barred her from doing so. The chair of the House Armed Services Committee was alarmed to hear that.

10/ “Hearing that leadership at the Pentagon actively worked to withhold info from us is deeply troubling,” Smith said. “Esp when that info could have helped us better fund readiness accounts critical to helping prevent accidents like the ones that cost the lives of 17 sailors.”

11/ 2017: Vice Adm. Joseph Aucoin told us he begged his boss in the months before the crashes to stop pushing destroyers so hard. He pleaded for more sailors, training and repairs to his ships.

“Crickets,” Aucoin said.

After the crashes, the same boss he warned fired him.

12/ These were just *some* of the warnings Navy officials up and down the chain of command heard, and failed to act on.

The 17 deaths in the Pacific were avoidable.

13/ The Navy says that it’s now instituting reforms to avoid such tragedies in the future.

But the fleet’s relentless pace still forces crews to work 100-hour weeks or more. Also…

14/...the @USGAO, Congress’s watchdog, reported in December that the Navy “continues to struggle” with fixing its ships and putting enough sailors on them.

“The men and women of the Navy deserve better,” Aucoin said.

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@USGAO 15/ Read the full story here: propub.li/2BqBfGI

@USGAO 16/ Next up: we’ll be publishing further investigations into the US military from @txtianmiller, @RobertFaturechi and @MegMcCloskey.

(Also, they’ll be doing a @reddit_AMA soon).

Sign up here to be notified when they drop: propub.li/2tb1dcU