Posted on 05/18/2005 5:59:47 AM PDT by OESY
APRA HARBOR, Guam, May 16 - Blood was everywhere. Sailors lay sprawled across the floor, several of them unconscious, others simply dazed. Even the captain was asking, "What just happened?" All anyone knew for sure was that the nuclear-powered attack submarine had slammed head-on into something solid and very large, and that it had to get to the surface fast.
In the control room, a senior enlisted man shoved the "chicken switches," blowing high-pressure air through the ballast tanks to force the vessel upward. Usually, the submarine would respond at once. But as the captain, Cmdr. Kevin G. Mooney, and top officers stared at the depth gauge, the needle refused to budge.
Moments before, they had been slipping quiet and fast through the Pacific. Now, they were stuck, more than 500 feet down.
Ten seconds passed. Then 20, 30.
"I thought I was going to die," Commander Mooney recalled.
It would be close to a minute, but an excruciatingly long minute, before the submarine's mangled nose began to rise, before the entire control room exhaled in relief, before the diving officer, Chief Petty Officer Danny R. Hager, began to read out a succession of shallower depths.
"I don't know how long it was," Chief Hager said, "but it seemed like forever."
Last week, Navy investigators reported that a series of mistakes at sea and onshore caused the 6,900-ton submarine, the San Francisco, to run into an undersea mountain not on its navigational charts. One crewman was killed, 98 others were injured, and the captain and three other officers were relieved of their duties as a result of the Jan. 8 crash, one of the worst on an American submarine since the 1960's....
[mandatory excerpts now in effect]
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
And then there was the Russian Kursk...
Ah, gotcha. The only reason I questioned why they were being blamed is because the article never provided that info. Thanks.
Do you have any idea how many rabbits there are in this world?
I really think it sucks that the Capt & others had their whole NAVY careers screwed up over this. They sound like the kind of people we need on our side. Procedure is procedure, though.
LOL!
Well, I think I'm now AYB-programmed: When I read "What just happened?," "Someone set us up the bomb" immediately came into my thoughts.
The Navy sucks for careers. On one hand they demand the captain to run a course and make time, and on the other, they give him unreliable charts. Other than a constant sonar running, how the Hell are captains to know what is ahead of them if the Navy can't update the charts reliably?? Subs are a team effort of the whole Navy, but only the captain's ass hangs in the wind.
Hard to believe it could ever be "good as new" after all that damage. If it's like my car, it'll always pull to the left.
You must be driving a Yugo...
ping for your list, Doohickey
I suspect that that would be the nose of the USS Honolulu (SSN-718), transplanted to SSN-711. Doubt that pic is in Guam, either - isn't the refit / rebuild happening at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard?
Hard to believe it could ever be "good as new" after all that damage.
Note to self: Check the date of the article...!!! ;>)
Hey, no problemo, R4F! I wish I had a dollar for everytime I didn't check the date of some thread that got me revved up. :-)
You are forgiven. :)
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