Millimeters cost millions: UK still to decide who ‘should cough up’ for $31M aircraft carrier repair bill

BELFAST — It was a mechanical error measured in millimeters that caused the UK’s newest and largest aircraft carrier to cease operations and now requires an estimated $31 million fix. As for who’s paying, the Ministry of Defence said it doesn’t know yet.

Responding to a parliamentary question this week, Ben Wallace, UK secretary of defense, said that his department continues “examining the liabilities and who should cough up” for a 33-tonne (36.4-ton) starboard propeller shaft fault which forced the Prince of Wales, the second Royal Navy Queen Elizabeth class aircraft carrier, to break down in August 2022, just one day after departing its home base of Portsmouth, England, for training exercises in the US.

The investigation into the cause of the starboard propellor shaft fault found that there was an installation error. More specifically, Wallace added that based on “initial reports” the shaft was misaligned by as much as 0.8mm to 1mm. “A tiny amount that, of course, can make a huge difference at sea,” he explained.

Construction and delivery of the warship was carried out by the now defunct Aircraft Carrier Alliance comprising of BAE Systems, Babcock and Thales, complicating the liability assessment but also potentially leaving the MoD to shoulder costs of the repair bill.

A spokesperson for BAE told Breaking Defense all former members of the construction alliance would defer questions on the matter to the MOD. The MoD declined to comment on why the repair bill liability decision has not been made yet, nor when a decision is likely to be made.

“The estimated cost of repairs is expected to be approximately £25 million ($31 million), and we have directed an urgent review of the recommendations from [a non-statutory] investigation with former members of the Aircraft Carrier Alliance, and current industrial partners, to ensure that these failures are not repeated,” said a Royal Navy spokesperson in a statement to Breaking Defense. “We remain committed to ensuring HMS Prince of Wales commences her operational programme as planned, in Autumn 2023, including operational flying training and trials.”

Shaft alignments are generally considered to be highly specialized tasks involving heavy metal structures and tolerance analysis, but the misalignment error serves as another serious blow to the Royal Navy and wider strategic maritime ambitions to pivot toward an “Indo Pacific tilt” laid out in the UK’s 2021 Integrated Review of defense policy.

The severity of Prince of Wales problems, past and present, were also highlighted in parliament by John Healey, shadow defense secretary. He said that since the ship entered service in December 2019, it had spent 411 days in dock for repairs, compared to 267 days at sea. Those figures amount to the carrier being side lined for just less than a third of its service life. A previous US deployment was also scrapped after the 65,000-ton vessel was forced to undergo a six month repair, at cost of £3.3 million ($4.07 million) because of an internal engine room flood.

The ship, which can host 36 F-35B fifth generation fighter jets, remains in dry dock at Rosyth dockyard, Scotland.