Posted on 09/23/2008 1:50:03 PM PDT by esryle
This has all the markings of a screwed up command climate, anal retentively searching out dust bunnies while unconcerned about really important issues. First, that someone could fall through a deck plate over the hydraulic rams is dreadful enough. Left-right confusions are so common, that if it was necessary to move the rudder their should have been a ten khaki watch on both ends of this operation to make sure that they moved the rudder right rather than left, and only incrementally as well.
It is terribly tragic that this happened. But steps one and two in this tragedy are not accidents. They are gross negligence and firings need to happen before this kills more folks or sinks the whole boat. Not only are the unsafe, but they cannot even operate basic machinery.
You wouldn’t tag out the rudder ram while underway. Not knowing what shaft alley on an Ohio looks like, there is generally a sheet of CRES in the around the part of the arm that is reachable. The local rudder angle indicator is mounted to the piston, so for that and other reasons you can’t cover the whole thing up. This is a case of someone being where they ought not have been.
Rest assured though, several heads will roll because someone made a bad decision.
I guess you never went through an ORSE. :) Pulling up deck plates and diving bilges is SOP.
Some places you don’t mess with.
Looks like you’re right about being (or falling) where he shouldn’t have been (esryle in #11). Ugly business.
PS. Any officer without about 2 weeks shipboard experience knows the “your other right” problem so well, that there should have been a lot of care on that point.
oh, dear God! how awful.......may he RIP and may God console his loved ones.
Since the ram piston moves fore-and-aft, whoever asked for the rudder movement would have known on which side of the ship the piston attaches to the yoke of the rudder.
With the benefit of hindsight, the right thing to do would have been to take local control of the rudder so that the ram could be moved in smaller increments by someone who was in face to face communication with the man in charge at the scene.
It was in Kings Bay 5 years ago (when we were there)
oh Lord...
Tagout Ping
According to Wikipedia, Big Red is home-ported in Bangor now. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Nebraska_(SSBN-739)
The submarine was operating at see. I don't think they would tag out their rudder ...
That’s what I was thinking. Makes me wonder how the Nebraska did on her last ORSE?
We always used the 'two-man' rule ... two men, each holding one foot of the 'diver'.
Pulled off patrol.
The helmsman, chief, and diving officer will face this error for many years: but was the rudder order from the OOD and the scene wrong as well? It takes time to move the rudder - particularly if someone is known to be trapped in the ram, so the ram could have been stopped before going the wrong way too far.
Local rudder control only? Where the operator could verify the direction the ram was moving BEFORE it moved so far as to crush the trapped crewman?
A “human” red tag (”Do not move the rudder to the right”) might have been the only way to protect him, but then you still have to enforce that “human red tag.”
After all, at sea, you CANNOT tag out the rudder.
Whenever something like this happens, we get a predictable flow of simplistic assessments, and accusations. I'd bet that there can't be but a handful of freepers that are qualified to discuss this accident.
Looks like that blog post has since changed....
Probably true, not knowing the story, its easy to make assumption. But its never good to loose a shipmate no matter how it happens. God rest his soul.
See my #28.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.