The US Navy has decided to scrap the amphibious assault ship Bonhomme Richard, which burned for more than four days this summer in San Diego. The cost and time required to rebuild the gutted ship would be simply too great to justify. 

Rear Adm. Eric Ver Hage, commander of the Navy Regional Maintenance Center, told reporters Monday that the extensive damage to the flattop’s flight deck, island, mast and lower levels from the July 12 inferno would have required about 60 percent of the ship to be replaced.

To rebuild and repair the 22-year-old amphibious ship would have cost between $2.5 billion and $3.2 billion, and would have taken five to seven years. To turn the stricken amphib into a hospital ship would have cost more than $1 billion and taken the same amount of time. By contrast, decommissioning the ship will cost roughly $30 million and will be implemented over the next nine to 12 months, Ver Hage said.

Navy Times reports that the ignominious loss of one of the Navy’s mightiest symbols of sea power came after Bonhomme Richard had already been in the shipyard for 18 months, undergoing $250 million worth of upgrades to accommodate the F-35B joint strike fighter.

“It was a pretty substantial investment,” Ver Hage said of those upgrades. “Clearly a loss.”

The Navy is conducting four separate investigations into the fire, including a criminal probe into whether the inferno was caused by arson.

The video below provides a glimpse of the charred wreckage of the ship.

Go inside charred interior of Navy ship that burned for four days

Thanks to Irwin Bryan for contributing to this post.