Guided by four tugs, the USS Gerald R. Ford arrived back at the Souda Naval Base at a little before 10 am on Monday 23rd March, on an unscheduled visit following the outbreak of fire on 12th March, which took over 30 hours to put out and left 600 sailors without beds and 200 suffering from smoke inhalation.

The fire had started in a drier vent in the ship’s main laundry unit and had rapidly spread through the ventilation system. One result was that sailors were unable to launder their working clothes – a potential hygiene hazard adding to that already caused by multiple malfunctions of the toilet system.

Commenters on the original story published by the New York Times on 16th March, many of them claiming naval experience, were inclined put the cause down to poor maintenance – a result of the aircraft carrier’s overlong deployment – rather than to deliberate sabotage. Failure to clean filters can lead to a build-up of inflammable lint, which once ignited will burn fiercely. However, as with the case of the sewage system, where sailors were said to have put foreign objects including tee-shirts and four-foot lengths of rope down the toilets, there is always the possibility that disgruntled crew members, having been at sea for some nine months, were seeking a means to cut short the ship’s deployment.

If that was the case it may have had the desired result, since according to a new report in Haniotika Nea, the ship will remain at Souda for two weeks to allow initial repairs and investigation into the cause of the fire, after which it will set sail for the US. On 17th March the International Business Times website stated: “The US Navy is investigating whether sailors aboard the USS Gerald R. Ford deliberately started the fire that tore through the aircraft carrier’s main laundry spaces on 12th March — a blaze that took more than 30 hours to extinguish and left over 600 crew members without proper sleeping quarters…. The investigation explicitly includes the possibility of deliberate sabotage by crew members, with one theory suggesting the fire was intentionally set to interrupt the carrier’s lengthy and repeatedly extended mission.”

On 21st March the Haniotika Nea reported that US Navy detectives would be arriving at Souda to conduct a thorough investigation of the fire:

Detectives expected at Souda
Detectives from the US are expected at Souda with the arrival of the Gerald. R. Ford on Monday 23rd March. They will investigate whether members of the aircraft carrier’s crew were responsible for the fire which broke out on 12th March. According to a report in the newspaper Ta Nea, eight US Navy detectives will investigate the extreme possibility that the catastrophic fire on the aircraft carrier Gerald R. Ford may be due to a deliberate action by crew members. The detectives are due to arrive on Monday at the Souda Naval Base, where the ship will remain moored for investigation until Thursday 2nd April.

The investigators will board the ship and start taking statements from officers and crew members who may be connected with the incident. Already preliminary investigations have focussed, apart from the possibility of a technical fault, on the role of 20 crew members who had access to the place where the fire broke out. With many sailors reported to have expressed dissatisfaction with the carrier’s overlong deployment, the possibility of arson cannot be excluded. The 20 crew members in question are responsible for working the laundry machines, with the other sailors giving them their clothes for washing.

As previously announced, the aircraft carrier is accompanied by its escort, the guided missile destroyers USS Mahan, USS Bainbridge and USS Winston S. Churchill.
(Haniotika Nea, 21/03/26)

Update 24th March
A post on the Facebook page of the U.S. Naval Forces Europe-Africa/U.S. Sixth Fleet appears to deny reports that the aircraft carrier will be taken out of service and return to the US, stating:
“The USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN 78) arrived at Naval Support Activity Souda Bay, March 23, 2026, for maintenance and repairs after operating in the Red Sea. The aircraft carrier remains fully mission capable.
“The port call allows for the ship to undergo efficient assessment, repairs, and resupply. Gerald R. Ford Carrier Strike Group continues its overseas deployment.”