Navy Carrier Ford's High-Tech EMALS Catapult System Breaks During Sea Trials

Flight operations on the Navy's newest aircraft carrier were cut back during recent at-sea trials after the new high-tech system that launches aircraft from the flattop's flight deck went down.

The aircraft carrier Gerald R. Ford's Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System, known as EMALS, broke June 2 during the ship’s biggest carrier air wing embark to date. The Ford’s leaders had just announced the carrier was underway when EMALS went down.

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There were about 1,000 members of Carrier Air Wing 8 aboard the ship as the Ford ran post-delivery test and trials operations in the Atlantic. In a call with reporters the day before the EMALS went down, Capt. J.J. Cummings, the ship's commanding officer, called the air wing embark a historic moment for the Ford.

The air wing qualified more than 50 fleet and student pilots, he said, and launched and trapped hundreds of flights from the flattop while operating at sea.

But the next day, the EMALS went down, according to a Navy news release that was issued late Sunday night. That "curtailed flight operations to some extent."

"But the Strike Group, ship, and air wing team still accomplished significant goals scheduled for the Ford-class aircraft carrier," the release added.

The root cause of the EMALS failure remains under review, said Capt. Danny Hernandez, a Navy spokesman at the Pentagon.

"The fault appeared in the power handling system, during a manual reset of the system," he said. "This section is independent of the high pulsed power section to launch aircraft and is not a safety of flight risk. The Navy is reviewing procedures and any impacts on the system."

Any findings and corrective actions they take will be key to ensuring the Ford is ready to support the warfighter when it enters the fleet, Hernandez added.

The Navy has faced pressure from politicians -- on Capitol Hill and the White House -- on delays in getting several new systems running smoothly, including the EMALS. President Donald Trump once called the system the "crazy electric catapult" and said sailors he spoke to on the Ford complained it wasn't reliable.

"I'm just going to put out an order -- we're going to use steam," Trump said last year, referring to the legacy system used to launch aircraft on older carriers.

The Ford returned to port Sunday, and Hernandez said the crew was supported by a team of experts who developed an "alternative method to launching the air wing off" the ship.

The Ford has completed nearly 3,500 launches and recoveries using the EMALS. Hernandez called that quite an achievement, but added that it's an insufficient number to draw conclusions about the system's reliability.

"As flight operations on [the new carrier] continue, interruptions will be tracked, systematically reviewed and addressed with design and procedural changes aimed at achieving operational requirements for the rest of the Ford class," he said.

James Geurts, assistant Navy secretary for research, development and acquisition, said shipbuilders remain on the Ford, working to resolve problems with new systems. That includes getting all the Ford's 11 weapons elevators up and running. Five are now working.

The Government Accountability Office noted the Navy's struggles to demonstrate reliability of the Ford's key systems, including the EMALS, in a recent report.

"Although the Navy is testing EMALS and [the advanced arresting gear] on the ship with aircraft, the reliability of those systems remains a concern," the report states. "If these systems cannot function safely by the time operational testing begins, [the Ford] will not be able to demonstrate it can rapidly deploy aircraft -- a key requirement for these carriers."

-- Gina Harkins can be reached at gina.harkins@military.com. Follow her on Twitter @ginaaharkins.

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