Carrier commander ousted over outbreak won’t return
Navy inquiry finds captain did not ‘do enough, soon enough’
WASHINGTON — The two top officers aboard aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt made poor decisions in response to the outbreak of the coronavirus on board the warship, according to the final results of a Navy inquiry released Friday.
As a result of the findings, Capt. Brett Crozier will not be restored to command of the virus-stricken ship, and his boss on board, Rear. Adm. Stuart P. Baker, will have his promotion to two-star admiral put on hold.
There will be no other punitive action taken against Crozier, but not regaining his command will effectively end his three-decade career in the Navy.
The conclusions of the investigation were announced by Kenneth Braithwaite, the Navy secretary, and Adm. Michael Gilday, the chief of naval operations, at a Pentagon news conference.
“They did not do enough, soon enough,” Gilday told reporters, referring to both Crozier and Baker’s initial efforts to combat the illness as the ship pulled into Guam.
“If Captain Crozier was still in command, I would be relieving him,” Gilday said.
The decisions signify a reversal for Gilday. He previously had recommended to his Pentagon superiors that command of the Roosevelt be returned to Crozier, who was relieved in April after he pleaded for more help fighting the coronavirus outbreak aboard his ship in an email that eventually leaked to the media.
The events surrounding Crozier, who has been viewed as a hero by his crew for putting their lives above his career, had seized the attention of the Navy, the military and even a nation struggling with the coronavirus.
At its core, the Pentagon’s understanding of what happened on the Roosevelt and the reach of the infection parallels the world’s growing understanding of the illness, rendering the investigation’s results with a sense of 20/20 hindsight given the lack of knowledge at the beginning of the crisis when crew members first tested positive for the coronavirus.
Gilday was quick to distance Crozier’s initial email pleading for more help from his chain of command — the focus of the Navy’s preliminary inquiry in April — from the final outcome of a second, more wide-reaching investigation.
Gilday said the second inquiry focused on a series of decisions by Crozier and Baker as the Roosevelt pulled into Guam, namely that they failed to enforce social distancing in the tight quarters aboard ship, and waited for hotel rooms on Guam to open up instead of rushing the crew to cramped housing on base. Yet, that could have led to more infections.