Product Description
General Electric allegedly supplied a substantial share of U.S. Navy main-propulsion turbines through World War II and the postwar fleet — installed on aircraft carriers, cruisers, destroyers, destroyer escorts, and auxiliary vessels. Plaintiffs alleged in publicly filed U.S. asbestos personal-injury and wrongful-death litigation that GE Navy propulsion turbine casings, cross-under piping, steam chests, and gland connections were lagged with asbestos block insulation, asbestos blanket, and asbestos-loaded finishing cement designed to contain the extreme surface temperatures generated by superheated Navy steam.
GE main-propulsion turbines drove reduction gears turning the ship’s shafts; every high-pressure and low-pressure casing on the unit was fully lagged. Any casing opening for rotor inspection, blade repair, diaphragm renewal, or gland reseat allegedly required insulators to strip the lagging back, exposing raw asbestos surfaces to the working environment, and then re-apply new asbestos block, blanket, and finishing cement to restore the thermal envelope.
Workers Exposed
- Machinist’s mates (MM) standing propulsion watches and performing shipboard turbine maintenance in immediate proximity to lagged casings.
- Boiler tenders (BT) working the paired boilers, forced-draft blowers, and main-steam supply valves in the same machinery spaces.
- Hull technicians (HT) cutting adjacent structure during battle-damage repair or major availability work.
- Shipyard insulators (HFIAW) stripping and re-lagging GE turbine casings during Navy-yard and private-yard overhauls, conversions, and inactivations.
- Pipefitters (UA) breaking main-steam, auxiliary steam, and exhaust lines at turbine flange connections.
- Machinists and millwrights performing casing openings, rotor lifts, and diaphragm renewals.
Every rating standing watch in the propulsion space during or after lagging disturbance was allegedly exposed to airborne fibers released into the machinery-space ventilation loop.