Posted on 12/25/2008 3:51:29 PM PST by naturalman1975
BUT for a few desperate seconds, it would have been our worst military disaster since the Voyager.
The flood aboard the HMAS Dechaineux on February 12, 2003, was the catalyst for the series of submarine safety reforms revealed in The Australian today.
The incident remains seared in the minds of the submarine's 55 crew who came within 20 seconds of death.
"It changed my life," Able Seaman Geordie Bunting said later. "It is the closest I would like to come to death.
"I don't think there was anybody on our boat who wasn't shit-scared that day. Another five seconds and we would have been in big trouble ... another 10 and you have got to question whether we could have surfaced."
The accident happened off the coast of Perth when the Dechaineux had dived to its deepest depth in order to test its systems under full pressure.
Seaman Bunting was standing alone in the small lower motor room when he head a deafening noise.
"There was a loud bang ... then the water flooded in and I got tossed around like a washing machine. It was coming in so fast I thought it was all over."
A flexible seawater hose had broken, causing some 12,000 litres of water to flood in within seconds, filling up the room. The words "flooding, flooding, flooding in the motor room," echoed through the intercom as crewmates fished a near-unconscious Seaman Bunting out of the flooded motor room by his lapels.
In the control room, the officers instantly shut all of the submarine's external valves en masse, hoping it would stem the flood.
(Excerpt) Read more at theaustralian.news.com.au ...
Someone ought to give the procrastinator a medal.
You’d think there would be a way to hydrotest these systems before you put them on line.
They are tested extensively, but sometimes you still don’t find problems until you test the whole system working together under real conditions.
You’d think there would be a way to hydrotest these systems before you put them on line.
They do. But it broke. Kinda like checking the air in your tires. You can’t stop a nail if it wants to puncture your tire.
If it was worked on, it was hydro’d to over test depth. You still have to do a deep dive after most work anyways but you hydro in port.
I just know that when we were starting up a new power plant, coal or nuke, this kind of surprise would have never happened by the time we started the plants up. Similar type systems, similar pressures.
In The Terrible Hours, Maas reconstructs the harrowing 39 hours between the disappearance of the submarine Squalus during a test dive off the New England coast and the eventual rescue of 33 crew members trapped in the vessel 250 feet beneath the sea.
Do you have car insurance? If you do. Why?
That what happens when you give your boat a french name.
They had that story on “The History Channel” a few days ago. I can’t begin to describe how awful that time must have been for the survivors. Also the Russian Kursk in which they all died but some survived for awhile.
I know it’s a joke, but...
*****
Emile Frank Verlaine Dechaineux DSC (3 October 1902 - 21 October 1944) was an Australian mariner who achieved the rank of Captain in the Royal Australian Navy during World War II. He was killed by a Japanese aircraft in what is believed to be the first ever kamikaze attack, in the lead-up to the Battle of Leyte Gulf.
Dechaineux was born in Launceston, Tasmania. He entered the Royal Australian Naval College, Jervis Bay at the age of 14, graduated three years later, and was promoted to Midshipman in 1920. In the first half of the 20th century, the RAN worked very closely with the British Royal Navy (RN), frequently exchanging personnel. Dechaineux spent much of the 1920s training with the RN as a torpedo officer and naval air observer.
In September 1932 Dechaineux achieved the rank of Lieutenant Commander. In 1935 he was appointed Squadron Torpedo Officer, on board HMAS Canberra. The following year he married Mary Harbottle. In 1937, Dechaineux returned to the UK to attend the Royal Naval College and in June he was promoted to Commander.
At the outbreak of World War II, Dechaineux was attached to the RN Tactical and Minesweeping divisions until April 1940. Then, as the commander of the destroyer HMS Vivacious, he made five trips to assist in the evacuation of Dunkirk. Dechaineux was then given command of HMS Eglinton, which patrolled in the North Sea. In 1941, he was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross.
Dechaineux returned to Australia later in 1941, as Director of Operations at the Navy Office in Melbourne. In June 1943, following the outbreak of war with Japan, he was given command of the tactical (destroyer) component of RAN-US Navy Task Force 74. From his immediate command, HMAS Warramunga, Dechaineux commanded operations in waters around Australia and New Guinea, including support for amphibious landings, such as those in the Admiralty Islands. He was promoted to Captain on 31 December 1943.
On 9 March 1944, Dechaineux was given command of the heavy cruiser HMAS Australia, the flagship of both the RAN and Task Force 74, under the overall force commander Commodore John Collins. The Australia supported Allied landings at Hollandia in Dutch New Guinea and on the islands of Biak, Noemfoor and Morotai.
On 21 October 1944, HMAS Australia was supporting the landings in Leyte Gulf. Off Leyte Island, gunners from HMAS Australia and HMAS Shropshire fired at and hit a Japanese aircraft. Initially, the plane flew away from the ships, but it subsequently turned and dived into Australia. The plane struck the superstructure of the Australia above the bridge. Although the 200 kg (440 pound) bomb carried by the plane failed to explode, burning fuel and debris were spewed over a large area. Dechaineux was disembowelled by shrapnel and died a few hours later. He was buried at sea that night. Another 30 crew members died as a result of the attack; among the wounded was Commodore Collins.
The US government posthumously appointed Dechaineux an Officer of the Legion of Merit.
In 1990 the Australian government announced that a new Collins class submarine would be named HMAS Dechaineux in his memory. It was launched in 2002 in the presence of Dechaineux’s widow, Mary Purbrick, and his son, former RAN Commodore Peter Dechaineux.
*****
It’s a name with a huge tradition in the Royal Australian Navy.
Move to stop submarine disasters with Navy safety reforms
...moves, which include revamped command procedures and hi-tech sensors, valves and emergency buttons, are aimed at stemming an on-board flood within seconds, before it overwhelms the crew.
..."Following the HMAS Dechaineux flooding incident, investigations have focused on shortening the reaction time to a flood and improving resistance to flooding,"
"These improvements include revised emergency procedures, the fitting of additional sensors to warn of potential flooding, the development of a system that can simultaneously shut all critical hull valves, and replacing the original flexible hoses.
...The alarm was passed on to the control room via shouts of "flooding" over the intercom and then the captain's order was given to shut all the hull's external valves.
Naval investigators concluded this procedure was too cumbersome and could prove fatal in another major flood, where seconds could make the difference between life and death.
New sensors are being installed for early flood detection, while flood-alert push-buttons are being placed in bilge areas so crew do not have to run to broadcast stations.
When a flood is detected, a new automated system can instantly and automatically shut all external valves.
New rules have also been introduced to allow console operators in the control room to enact emergency procedures instantly in case of a flood without waiting for the captain's orders.
Despite these safety improvements, the navy will have to wait 18 months until it gets flexible hoses to replace the type that failed on the Dechaineux.
The hoses were ordered early last year but are still being put through laboratory tests by their manufacturer, Oil State Industries in Texas.
If the new hoses prove successful, the navy is expected to revisit the limitations of diving depth it imposed on the fleet after the Dechaineux incident. The submarines' deep diving depth is classified.
Sounds French to me, but thanks for the background.
Never realized that the U.S. Navy moved all these enemy combatants over to Japan.
Would make a great FR Foxhole.
The name is French without a doubt, but the sailor was Australian. Like most English-speaking countries, Australia is a nation of immigrants and their descendants. Dechaineux brought great honor to that name, as the story shows.
At that point, the Imperial Japanese Navy didn't have the ships to do it. The war was over, the Chinese had been the victims of enormous war crimes, and they wanted the Japanese gone. It had the potential to become a very ugly situation, and it needed to be resolved.
A brave sailor. Thank you.
Hats Off....and Thanks!
I don’t see the relevance, but I’ll bite. Yes I have insurance, but only that which is required by the State of North Carolina. Come to think of it, all the hydrotesting I’ve done was required by ASME standards (therefore, by our insurance carriers).
FYI, the hydrotests I’ve done are at pressures equivalent to about a 6000 ft dive.
i’m with you- it kinda freaks me out to hear that they took her down to ‘see what happens’
“They are tested extensively...”
In the 60’s & 70’s I worked for a company that made “Sound Attenuation” hose for the US Navy’s nuclear submarines. General Dynamics was the customer - hose was covered by MIL-Specs) I was in the Tech Dept. Very critical operation, and rigorous testing on each piece we made. Very high burst presure (we had to run a burst at specified intervals). Never had an in-service failure. These hoses were what made our submarines very silent runners - our subs far exceeded the Russian capabilities in this area. All water in/out of the sub was conduited through these hoses, including cooling water for the reactors.
It's my understanding that, on nuclear boats, even when all ballast tanks are blown they still need engine power to get to the surface. I think that what killed the Thresher - lost power and went below crush depth. In the old fleet boats (WWII) I was on, if you blew the tanks, even with a flooded compartment, you went UP.
What contributed to the events that killed Thresher was the screen on her vent tube iced over preventing the ballast tank from being vented. Rickover created the SUBSAFE program to detect and prevent such engineering flaws.
Time to watch Das Boot again.
What? are they making the decks out of adobe blocks?
Thanks for your good work.
I once got to tour the plant that made the special electronics package for every U.S. nuclear submarine built, through the Ohio class. Very interesting.
On a side note, the manufacturing inside the building was far superior to the building itself. The building was put up in 1954. The exterior walls were tilt-up concrete slabs.
By the mid ‘80’s, the walls had begun tilting outwards. The building engineers stopped that by tying the slabs together with steel cables, and ratcheting in enough tension to bring the walls back to vertical. Of course, the obvious happened. The slabs began to tilt inwards. The engineers then anchored the walls to the ground outside with huge chains to stop the inwards tilt.
That must have worked, because the building survived the Loma Prieta earthquake in 1989 without damage.
The whole thing is moot, now. The company sold the building and 50 acres to a housing developer for many millions. The developer promptly built million dollar houses.
A portion of that building remains, though. The basement was built as a bomb shelter. 1954 and all, you know. The demolition crew could not demolish the basement walls by conventional means, and would have had to use explosives. This was in the middle of a residential area, and an elementary school was just across the street. I don’t think so.
They ended up by moving the plat around, to accommodate the walls remaining just under the surface.
All the proto-testing in the world still won't assure that all production units are ok. Things fail; sometimes they fail in a big way.
ping
“Flooding in the motor room.”
heh. I believe we would say it was flooding in the engine room.
Wow... very scary. Fire and flooding... both very bad. Mere seconds always make the difference between a scary sea story and total disaster.
I had the singularly unique experience once of making the pipe over the 1MC: “Now Fire Fire Fire! Class bravo fire is reported in the engine room! This is not a drill!” and it scared the crap out of all of us. This was only a 210ft ship. Any fire is pretty big, and the engine room was pretty close to everything.
A fuel line had broken and sprayed No.2 diesel liberally around the space and a hot engine touched it off. Kafloomph. A quick-thinking (or non-thinking, really) machinist’s mate (coincidentally my roommate in off-base housing) instantly grabbed the twin-agent hoses and waded into the fire without even taking time to suit up. His quick action pretty much saved not only the ship, but the other engine as well. As it was the damage was only such that they could fairly quickly get the good engine back online, and the other one after some new hoses... and we could continue the patrol.
But even another minute or so would’ve changed the damage by a whole order of magnitude, at least. Seconds count. The very few first seconds made the difference between something to talk about at chow that night, or a night in liferafts. He got a nice commendation for it. I’m pretty sure I bought him a beer. :-)
Typically hoses have a burst rating of 4x working pressure.
Were these rated the same way?
Perhaps that is true on the newer boats but it is not true on the older SSNs & SSBNs I sailed on.
Good work.
Wow!
pinger
I knew a guy who was a cook on the USS Chopper. It was a diesel boat with a test depth of 400 feet.
They had a stern planes jam and that took it to over 1,000 feet down. They emergency blew and made it back tot he surface at an 80 degree up angle. They broached the surface and then resubmerged down to about 250 feet and then syurfaced again.
In GTMO there is a bar on a pier and above the bar inside there is a wooden plaque with all their signatureson it under the logo “The 1,000 Foot Club”
These safety reforms sounds just like they’re adopting the Navy’s “SUBSAFE” program which came about after the loss of the USS Thresher in 1963.
From 1915 to 1963 the U.S. Navy lost 16 submarines to non-combat accidents.
From the beginning of SUBSAFE to present day, not one SUBSAFE certified submarine has been lost.
CAPT Dechaineux on the bridge of HMAS Australia.
Thanks for the ping!
OK, thanks for the updates. I don’t remember where I got that info from - perhaps scuttlebutt.
“Typically hoses have a burst rating of 4x working pressure...”
I now do not remember the safety factor, though it was much higher than 4X WP. It is specified in the Mil-Spec, but I no longer remember the number...
Rather ordinary hoses would have a 4X WP safety factor.
Experimentally I made a braided hose in such a way that the yarns were locked so that they could not work together as they are supposed to do - the hose burst at a fraction of rated pressure. So much for that mfg idea...
As the father of a glow-worm bubblehead, all I can do is read it and shudder at the thought.
Perhaps that is true on the newer boats but it is not true on the older SSNs & SSBNs I sailed on.
Not true for any manned submarine in the USN or other navies. They all have XX% (I can't recall the minimum required) reserve buoyancy with ballast tanks empty (completely blown).
There are several factors which can make achieving that positive buoyancy dicey:
a.) if you're leaking into the people tube (interior of the boat), every ton of seawater taken in = a ton of reserve buoyancy lost;
b.) when you blow ballast tanks at test depth, you're not instantly ridding yourself of all the seawater in the ballast tanks ... you're simply putting a bubble of high-pressure air in the tanks to make a change from the normal submerged neutral buoyancy to a positive buoyancy. As the boat begins to rise the bubble expands, pushing more seawater out of the ballast tanks, giving even more positive buoyancy and so on ... until you finally reach then surface and the ballast tanks are finally empty.
However keep in mind factor 'a' above ... enough water in the people tube and you lose positive buoyancy, and you kiss your ass goodbye. WW II fleet boats were designed with enough positive reserve buoyancy to be able to survive 1 completely flooded compartment, but modern boats have fewer compartments - though I can't speak for RAN Collins class boats, US nukes can't survive a fully flooded compartment. ;
c.) Your rate of rise towards the surface CAN be enhanced by increasing speed and putting 'Rise' on the control planes.
As an aside, the Thresher NEARLY made it to the surface (within a couple hundred feet!) before they lost speed and became negatively buoyant and began back down to 10,000 feet, imploding and breaking up on the way down ... God rest your souls, my brothers of the 'Phins!
- A Cold War submarine vet (SSN-588, SSBN-629B, SSN-669 plank-owner)
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