Submarine hits mountain!

[killagee 0]

Officials: U.S. submarine hit undersea mountain

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The U.S. Navy submarine accident that killed one sailor and injured 24 others occurred when the vessel -- traveling at high speed -- hit an undersea mountain head-on, Pentagon officials said Monday.

Saturday's accident caused part of the sonar dome, which is part of the submarine's nose, to flood, officials said.

The commander of the USS San Francisco, Kevin Mooney, has not been relieved of duty while the investigation of the accident continues.

Mooney could be relieved of duty if officials determine there is enough evidence that the accident could have been averted.

The investigation will look at the sub's speed, its location and whether the undersea formation was on navigational charts, officials said.

The submarine was traveling in excess of 33 knots -- about 35 mph --when its nose hit the undersea formation head-on, officials said.

The nuclear submarine docked Monday at a U.S. naval base in Guam, a spokesman with the U.S. Pacific Fleet said.

The San Francisco was escorted to port by U.S. Navy and Coast Guard vessels, according to Lt. j.g. Adam Clampitt. The submarine suffered "some external damage," he said.

"The injured sailors are being treated at a U.S. military medical facility on Guam and will be transferred to other facilities -- possibly Pearl Harbor in Hawaii or Okinawa in Japan -- as necessary," Clampitt said.

According to a military statement, the injuries included "broken bones, lacerations, bruises and a back injury."

The accident occurred about 350 miles (560 kilometers) south of Guam, the U.S. Navy said. There were 137 crew on board at the time of the accident.

Machinist Mate 2nd Class Joseph Allen Ashley, 24, of Akron, Ohio, died Sunday from injuries suffered in the accident, Clampitt said. "The Navy continues to offer its sincerest condolences and prayers to the family and friends of Petty Officer Ashley," he said.

Navy sources said the submarine was en route to Brisbane, Australia, for a port visit at the time of the accident. There was no damage to the sub's nuclear reactor, according to Clampitt.

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[Billabong81 0]

Wow, that is odd. Shouldn't sonar or something have detected that they were heading straight into a solid object ? I am no submarine expert, so I could be wrong.

[blackdog~ 0]

Looks like someone will be losing his job..

[Billabong81 0]

Looks like someone will be losing his job..

Not yet. It says in the article he hasn't lost his job, but he will if there is sufficient evidence to show the accident could have been avoided. Most likely he will lose his job though .

[Grizzlie 0]

If u have red "Hunting for Red October" u should remember that submarine commanders does not like to use active sonars.

On this deepth GPS is unusable, so u cans have only inertial navigation aids, which r not as good as GPS.

No maps, no windows...

I think it is one of two: navigation error (possible but ...) or noone knew about this mountain till they found it ;)

[Albert Schweitzer 10]

from now on "seatbelts compulsory"

[Leveler 0]

Full speed? Are submarines that tough?

[skynet 0]

ur new submarine sir...now with bullbar and airbags as standard...(marvellous)

they need to be that tough in order to handle the pressure of deep sea diving....

[DracoPaladore 0]

It's got a dent and floods? Sounds like a perfect candidate for the Canadian Navy! Just give it to us at the price of a new one/

[havocsquad 0]

If he was going at +30 knots, the sub commander should have been staying in safe underwater sea routes.  If he wanted to just cut corners to get there faster and took a risk, well I hope he likes commanding a desk or scraping baracles off of ship's hulls because that's all his navy career will add up to.   If he was going less than 20 knots, he could have kept his High Frequency short range sonar (too weak of sonar to intercept) for close sonar contacts. (Used to detect mines and objects close to the front of the submarine.)

It all depends on the facts and the investigation's conclusion, until then it is useless to speculate.

[llauma 0]

It would be strange if the commander would loose the job for this considering another navy captain was awarded with a medal after shooting down a Iranian civilian passanger plane over Iranian territory. Or maybe it wouldn't

[red oct 2]

Full speed? Are submarines that tough?

they sure are. their hauls are about six inches thick.

[theavonlady 2]

It would be strange if the commander would loose the job for this considering another navy captain was awarded with a medal after shooting down a Iranian civilian passanger plane over Iranian territory. Or maybe it wouldn't

The mountain is still there.

No medal.

[bonko the sane 2]

good to have you back on these forums Avon, we can always count on you to tell it like it is

[hardrock 1]

good to have you back on these forums Avon, we can always count on you to tell it like it is

was she ever gone?

It's a very strange thing with the submarine. I wonder how such a thing can happen when it didn't happen very often earlier. Or did it?

[theavonlady 2]

good to have you back on these forums Avon, we can always count on you to tell it like it is

was she ever gone?

Was AWOL for most of 2 weeks and I've been dabbling lately with VBS1.

Quote[/b] ]It's a very strange thing with the submarine. I wonder how such a thing can happen when it didn't happen very often earlier. Or did it?

There was one off of Greece last year, I think. The US sub scraped bottom. No major damage or injuries but I think the sub's commander is now on bathtub duty.

And then there was that sub off of Hawaii that came up fast and plowed right into a Japanese touring ship a few years ago.

[red oct 2]

And then there was that sub off of Hawaii that came up fast and plowed right into a Japanese touring ship a few years ago.

wasn't it a fishing boat w/ colledge students

[NavyEEL 0]

good to have you back on these forums Avon, we can always count on you to tell it like it is

was she ever gone?

Was AWOL for most of 2 weeks and I've been dabbling lately with VBS1.

Quote[/b] ]It's a very strange thing with the submarine. I wonder how such a thing can happen when it didn't happen very often earlier. Or did it?

There was one off of Greece last year, I think. The US sub scraped bottom. No major damage or injuries but I think the sub's commander is now on bathtub duty.

And then there was that sub off of Hawaii that came up fast and plowed right into a Japanese touring ship a few years ago.

of all the space in the world's oceans... (and there is a LOT of space), you would think they could avoid hitting mountains, the bottom of the ocean, or even worse a japanese fishing boat.

[Albert Schweitzer 10]

yeah but you know those japanese tourists are everywhere. You can even tell them it is exciting to take pictures of the open wide sea.

[ralphwiggum 6]

And then there was that sub off of Hawaii that came up fast and plowed right into a Japanese touring ship a few years ago.

wasn't it a fishing boat w/ colledge students

yes. they were from a fishing school.

[theavonlady 2]

And then there was that sub off of Hawaii that came up fast and plowed right into a Japanese touring ship a few years ago.

wasn't it a fishing boat w/ colledge students

yes. they were from a fishing school.

Must've snagged the sub and reeled it in too fast!

[barcode6 0]

Sub crashes and other incidents are not uncommon...  The U.S.S. Memphis in particular has had some bad luck:

Memphis runs aground off Florida

And in unconfirmed reports (ie from the tinfoil hat brigade)  it has been linked to the Kursk disaster:

Memphis arrives in Norwegian port with damage following Kursk incident

I've always wondered why this doesn't happen more often, it's not like you can look out a window and see where you are going...

[theavonlady 2]

Pravda does an SF=Kursk take:

Quote[/b] ]Accident aboard the U.S. sub bears stunning resemblance to the "Kursk" tragedy

01/10/2005 19:24

Undoubtedly, American side will never reveal the details of the accident, just as we have never heard the Complete list of details concerning the Russian Kursk.

Reports concerning an accident with the US nuclear submarine USS San Francisco (SSN 771) were emerging on the world wide web at an incredible pace. The US nuclear sub USS San Francisco ran aground on Jan 8th 563 km south of the island of Guam in the Pacific. The submarine with 137 crewmen on board was on its way to the homeport in Guam. 23 crewmen got injured as a result of the collision. One of them was deadly injured. Overall, many of such reports still contain a hint of mystery. Let's try to examine the matter in details.

So far, there's been no report regarding possible damage to the reactor itself. According to American officials, the reactor has not been damaged and there is no danger of a radiation leak. The investigation is under way. According to the information obtained by "Pravda.Ru", the multipurpose nuclear submarine San Francisco was constructed by the "Newport News Shipbuilding" company in Newsport News, VA. It has officially joined the US fleet on April 24th, 1981. "San Francisco" is one of American multipurpose submarines. Depending on the equipment, these subs could be used to defeat ground targets (by means of "Hughes Tomahawk" missiles as well as ships (by means of "Harpoon" missiles).

Such submarines also get equipped with self-navigating torpedoes Mk 48 and ADCAP to fight underwater targets. Nine of such subs were used during Gulf war in 1991. It was back then that while being positioned in eastern part of the Mediterranean sea two of the vessels hit the targets in Iraq. By 1991, three quarter of "San Francisco"-type vessels were supplied with winged missiles "Tomahawk", meaning that they were initially intended to be used to fight ground targets. A total of 133 crewmen on board, displacement tonnage-6082, length-110,3 meters; single nuclear reactor; above-water speed: 20 knots, underwater speed: 32 knots.

It is also noteworthy to mention that the catastrophe (running aground could in fact be considered as a catastrophe!) occurred approximately (plus or minus a thousand mile, which isn"' so much on the grand ocean's scale) in the region of the most recent underwater earthquake (which led to destructive tsunami in South-East Asia. Was the submarine's positioning in that particular area purely accidental? Time will show.

The following fact is also quite noteworthy: such incidents tend to occur more often in the US Navy than they do in Russian. Information agency "Russky Sever" (Russian North) assisted PRAVDA.RU in contacting several naval experts in regards to the matter. According to the experts, first of all, our nuclear submarines tend to put out to sea more rarely. And secondly, training specifics of American crewmen could also be the reason. American submarine crewmen are taught that their main targets are coming from "above". In other words, they are being convinced that the main danger is crashing into the above-water objects. As for Russians, they on the contrary are taught to avoid running aground instead of watching out for the danger from "above". Obviously, this is a mere opinion; it can either be trusted or completely disregarded. However, statistics speaks for itself: American subs tend to run aground more often, whereas Russian subs tend to crash into above water objects.

However, there remains one more unanswered question: why did "San Francisco" suddenly hit the bottom with such force that so many people got injured? Did something take place aboard the vessel prior to the sub running aground? It is a known fact that submarines do not tend to malfunction all of a sudden. Automated system of submergence and emergence executes operations smoothly.

It seems that the accident resembles the Kursk tragedy (at least judging by the visible signs). At first, an incident aboard takes place, then the vessel hits the bottom, thus leaving numerous crewmen injured. This time, Americans got quite lucky. Only one man died. Undoubtedly, American side will never reveal the details of the accident, just as we have never heard the Complete list of details concerning the Russian Kursk.

Andrey Mikhailov

Read the original in Russian: http://www.pravda.ru/world/2005/5/16/43/18812_APL.html (Translated by: Anna Ossipova)

[shinRaiden 0]

Quote[/b] ]

And secondly, training specifics of American crewmen could also be the reason. American submarine crewmen are taught that their main targets are coming from "above". In other words, they are being convinced that the main danger is crashing into the above-water objects. As for Russians, they on the contrary are taught to avoid running aground instead of watching out for the danger from "above". Obviously, this is a mere opinion; it can either be trusted or completely disregarded. However, statistics speaks for itself: American subs tend to run aground more often, whereas Russian subs tend to crash into above water objects.

Very interesting observation. I was in Japan when the Fishing-School-Tour boat got hit, that was huge news there. Given the delicate US-Japanese military relationships, I expect that a lot of naval command, especially in the Pacific Fleet got bawled out over the political repercussions.

The book "The hunt for the Red October" has a lot of interesting stuff that didn't make it into the movie. Stuff Soviets preferring to skulk around on the bottom and race through canyons to compensate for American eyess-in-the-sky. The Alfa particularly was designed to go significantly deeper than other sub's, but there was plenty of incomplete engineering on that line to make it totally reliable - at least according to assumed Western standards.

Other preliminary reports from this incident suggest that according to their map there was no such known seamount in the area that they were cruising in. Whether they were at normal cruising speed or not I don't know, but 30+ knots strikes me as a little fast, even if they were chasing whales for Marine Biologists.

It would be interesting to know if the global tectonic deformations and polar rotation deviations as well as any other activity were partly responsible for this accident. I suppose they got a GPS fix of where they wrecked following the crash, and I'm curious to know - though I doubt it would ever be released - what if any the difference was from their projected assumed position.

[Necromancer- 0]

yeah but you know those japanese tourists are everywhere. You can even tell them it is exciting to take pictures of the open wide sea.  

I must admit that taking pictures of an US submarine, crashing into the hull of the ferry where you stand on the deck, is exciting.