Posted on 01/08/2005 3:19:47 AM PST by Jet Jaguar
HONOLULU (AP) - A nuclear submarine ran aground about 350 miles south of Guam, injuring several sailors, one of them critically, the Navy said.
There were no reports of damage to the USS San Francisco's reactor plant, which was operating normally, the Navy said.
Jon Yoshishige, a spokesman for the U.S. Pacific Fleet based at Pearl Harbor, said the Friday afternoon incident is under investigation and the 360-foot submarine was headed back to its home port in Guam.
Details on the sailors' injuries were not immediately available. The sub has a crew of 137, officials said.
Military and Coast Guard aircraft from Guam were en route to monitor the submarine and assist if needed, the Navy said.
Guam is a U.S. territory about 3,700 miles southwest of Hawaii.
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On the Net:
U.S. Pacific Fleet: http://www.cpf.navy.mil
AP-ES-01-08-05 0343EST
You can say that again. I was east coast & holy loch -Charleston was a mofo I am glad I only had to endure once!
Kinda like what would happen if a (now retired) MK 45 torpedo were to instantaeously convert a cubic mile of seawater into steam.
Submarines once, Submarines twice, holy jumpin' Jesu.....
We had SINS on my first boat. One time, I was helping replace that Selectric (no proportional fonts) that prints out the SINS info. The Nav ET didn't get the D-cable JUST RIGHT and tumbled all four gyros.
Since you know where the SINS binnacle was, that was where they put the IMU mount for the ESGN. The IMU was field replaceable - just lower the bad one and hoist up the replacement. The ET's where putting up the new one when it...uh...slipped. It bounced twice on the ladder, off the bulkhead at the bottom, into the Wierdroom passage and into the NAV's stateroom.
Yeah, from '91-93. She decommed in '94 or '95.
No problemo.
ESG's are incredible, but the RLG is an order of magnitude cooler....ETCS/SS USN-Ret.
The Nav ET's on Atlanta used to talk about Ring Laser like the rest of the crew talked about women.
I hated all of the East Coast maneuvering watches (except maybe Port Canaveral) but the absolute worst was pulling into Halifax harbor for a MediVac during a Winter Storm. 18 Hours on the Surface, each way. Ugh!
Good thing they don't let queers on submarines, eh?
BTW, RLG works because light has mass. My high school physics teacher is doubtless soiling himself.
It's 11 hours in good weather. :)
But it's a GREAT liberty port.
BTDT. On the bridge, taking green water in January.
The Mk 45 was the absolute stupidest thing they ever put on a Boomer. If it didn't sink you, it would at least scramble SINS, thus preventing Missile Launch.
Oh, you saw it from the streets, I saw it through a periscope.
Dear god, I was having flashbacks......
;-)
I toured Bermuda once like that. Looks like a nice place.
I was on Billfish in Charleston 90 - 92. We probably passed each other on the pier.
His answer, and the other "cooling water" answers that also addressed this question, greatly simplified things.
Yes, mud (ingested from the bottom) "could" be a problem ... IF (and only IF) the sub literally sat on the bottom for a long time.
It didn't.
It collided (abruptly and roughly) once, then recovered power and propulsion -> It's underway now. Obviously, it did NOT damage seawater systems or ingest enough mud (by hitting a coral reef on or over an underwater volcanic (granite/igneous rock) mountain.
Further, as I pointed out earlier, the possibility of mud causing damage to the reactor by clogging seawater systems can't happen if you are not running the main engines at high power. And, if you are running the main engines at high power, you are NOT stuck on the bottom.
The reactor systems are classified, and I won't go into technical details about they (and the other electronics onboard) are cooled. The auxiliary seawater systems, ship air conditioning systems, reactor aux systems, and engineroom freshwater systems do not need to be shut down by mud clogging parts of the main engine seawater systems.
Mud clogging has happened before, and can be cleaned at sea if need be. Power systems can continue, if need be, operated at lower power levels as well even after partial (or comlete) clogging occurs.
Please under our caution, we (former nukes) aren't going to go into classified operations of cross-connecting engineroom systems; but don't try to address technical areas you may not be familiar with under emergency or accident conditions.
BS, Nuclear Engineering 101, 201, 204, 302, 303, 401, 404, 410, 454..... Nuclear Power School, S1W prototype, S1W (Nautilus), S5W, S6G, 575 (nuke EDO, nuclear repair superintendent)
676, right? Yeah, I remember when that boat changed homeports to Charleston. I knew somebody from the radio shack, but the name escapes me.
Nice creds. No S8G?
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