One of the most formidable weapons in the Navy is its largest aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald R. Ford. Reports are that it’s already within striking distance of Iran, if need be. At a cost of about $13 billion, you’d expect it to have everything needed to wage war in the 21st century, and it does. Except that it has one problem – its toilets are broken.
I’ll avoid all the awful puns that come to mind, like how the U.S. fleet could be backed up in the Persian Gulf, or what a crappy situation this may be. But it’s true.
The most recent reports are that for a ship that houses a crew of over 4,000, there are only 650 toilets on board. Of those, more and more of them are just not working.
According to a recent article in Navy Times, “The complications primarily involve the Ford’s vacuum collection, holding and transfer system, or VCHT, which transports and disposes wastewater by sucking fecal matter through pipes using pressure.”
BREAKING: 🇺🇸
— OpenList (@OLbrief) February 23, 2026
USS Gerald R. Ford Suffers Major Sewage Problems
The Navy's largest carrier has many of its 650 toilets clogged and out of service due to ongoing vacuum system failures during deployment. pic.twitter.com/ZbpjTr0w0r
What this means is that the mechanics that ensure an automatic flow of sewage into the sewage treatment system are breaking.
Reports are that the three big issues are: Ship designers simply didn’t plan on enough commodes for the size of the crew on the ship. This means 45-minute waits on a good day. The second issue is that the way the plumbing system is designed, if one valve for one toilet breaks down in that hinky vacuum collection system, all the toilets in that department stop working. The third problem is that most of the critical repair operations to the system can only be done when the ship is at port.
As more sailors rely on fewer toilets, this is expected to stress the system and cause even more shutdowns.
In January, NPR published a report that revealed that the Ford had needed repairs with its plumbing system 42 times since 2023. Thirty-two of those calls came in 2025, so it seems to be getting worse.
NPR says it received emails that revealed there were 205 toilet breakdowns in a period of four days. Normally, since the source here is NPR, I’d be a little skeptical, and I am – a little – but the way defense procurement has worked for decades, nothing should come as a surprise.
⚡️🇺🇸BREAKING:
— Suppressed News. (@SuppressedNws1) February 23, 2026
Planned U.S. strike on Iran faces a major problem: TOILET FAILURES on USS Gerald R. Ford.
NPR and WSJ report too few working toilets for 4,600 sailors, 45-minute lines, and vacuum system that can’t be fixed without returning to dockyards.pic.twitter.com/2eYGSeRCTW
The Ford was launched in October 2013, and so if you want, you could blame the Obama administration. That’s always fun and appropriate, even here. But when it comes to the many years it takes, and all the people and companies involved in building a single aircraft carrier, there is probably enough blame to go around.
The Navy Times revealed that a 2020 Government Accountability Office report “pointed out that the sewage pipes woven throughout the [Ford] were too narrow to properly serve the flushes of the 4,000-plus crew members onboard... To unclog the toilets, the Navy has been forced to spend $400,000 per flush of a unique acidic chemical designed to flush out and unburden the strained pipes.”
So as reports spread of problems in the bowels of our largest aircraft carrier, the mullahs in Iran may be breathing easier for now… or maybe not.
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