Shipbuilders,

As I shared earlier today, we are starting the year focused on safety and fire prevention. Shortly after my message went out, a vendor’s food truck caught on fire while inside the North Yard area of the shipyard. While we are still investigating the cause and believe it to be accidental, it is a timely reminder of why safety must be the highest priority for every person who enters our facility.

Safety is everyone’s responsibility, and while we work to prevent accidents from occurring, we must be prepared to respond when they do. That is exactly what happened this morning when four of our fellow shipbuilders took heroic action and extinguished the fire before firefighters were on scene. Their immediate actions, along with NNS and City of Newport News emergency responders, kept the fire contained, and we are hopeful they also minimized injuries of the two food truck employees. We are unable to share anything more specific on injuries at this time due to privacy laws, but I ask you to join me in keeping these individuals in your thoughts and prayers.

While this is a difficult way to start the year, we will learn from this accident and become safer as a result. Out of an abundance of caution, we immediately stopped all food trucks equipped with propane tanks from coming into the shipyard so we can conduct a thorough safety review. We will share more as additional details become available, and I encourage you to discuss this in your Safety Stand-Up meetings this week.

Respectfully,
Jennifer Boykin
President, Newport News Shipbuilding