The Navy has increased the amount it’s spending to repair one of two Japan-based warships that were badly damaged in collisions at sea last year.
The service announced Monday that it will pay Ingalls Shipbuilding $27,469,298 for “additional collision repairs as well as maintenance and modernization of USS Fitzgerald,” according to a Defense Department statement.
The Yokosuka-based destroyer collided with a Philippine-flagged container ship off the coast of Japan on June 17, 2017. Seven sailors died and more were injured in the crash.
Sailors at the naval base mourned the loss of their brethren in a ceremony marking the anniversary of the collision last month.
On Aug. 21, 2017 10 sailors aboard another Yokosuka-based destroyer, the USS John S. McCain, were killed and others injured in a collision with a Liberian-registered oil tanker off the coast of Singapore.
About $20.6 million of the newly-awarded funds for the Fitzgerald repairs will be paid out of the Navy’s fiscal year 2018 operations and maintenance budget and “other procurement funding,” for fiscal year 2017, according to the Defense Department.
The extra spending involves a modification to an original approximately $29 million-contract awarded in September to Ingalls for the planning and execution of the work and restoration and modernization of the ship. Since then, a series of contract modifications have been issued at different phases of the repairs.
In December, the Navy awarded an additional $63 million for the “initial rip-out phase” of the collision damage. From January to July there were more contract modifications for repairs, maintenance and modernizations worth more than $212 million, according to Defense Department statements.
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