Lots of photos at the link. I have to admit I hadn't kept track of this. I just assumed that four-plus years after the accident she had already been repaired and was back in service.
Posted on 04/09/2009 9:51:47 AM PDT by GATOR NAVY
Lots of photos at the link. I have to admit I hadn't kept track of this. I just assumed that four-plus years after the accident she had already been repaired and was back in service.
Looks like something has been gnawing on it.
full speed into an undersea mountain?....Does the captain have a desk job now?
The main reason for the delay was that they had to wait for a new bow section, which came from the donor boat USS Honolulu. For a time it was not certain the idea would work. There were concerns that the hull may have been deformed; additionally it had never been done before. Ultimately a little ingenuity and a lot of money (don't know the number) made it work.
Makes sense.
I came thru Bremerton this past summer on the Seattle ferry and didn’t see her. I guess they had her concealed pretty good.
Ah...bent chassis. Still, insurance co. wouldn’t total it.
500 feet deep. The collision was so serious that the vessel was almost lost - accounts detail a desperate struggle for positive buoyancy to surface after the forward ballast tanks were ruptured. Twenty-three crewmen were injured, and Machinist’s Mate Second Class Joseph Allen Ashley, 24, of Akron, Ohio, died on 9 January from head injuries
Commander J. Allen Marshall
She's got a diamond in the frame and dog tracks down the road now.
“full speed into an undersea mountain?....Does the captain have a desk job now?”
It was not the captain’s fault. The dang mountain wasn’t mapped. No one knew it was there until the sub hit it.
Unfortunately, the captain was made to take the blame and was either reassigned or retired. I don’t remember which.
I thought the captain behaved like a hero under the circumstances.
Based on that picture, how in the heck is that boat not resting on the bottom of the ocean????
IIRC, this was an emerging volcano, not charted.
How could this happen? Human error...or mechanical?
IIRC, The CO was of course relieved and got a Letter of Reprimand at Admiral’s Mast. He has probably retired in the four years since but you never know.
From Wikipedia
Commander Kevin Mooney, San Francisco’s commanding officer, was reassigned to a shore unit in Guam during the incident investigation. As the investigation concluded, the Navy found that, despite Mooney's otherwise remarkably good record, "several critical navigational and voyage planning procedures" were not being implemented aboard San Francisco. Consequently, the Navy relieved Mooney of command, and issued him a nonjudicial letter of reprimand. (He was not charged with a crime and was not court-martialed). Six crew members were also found guilty at their own nonjudicial punishment hearings ("Captain's Mast") of hazarding a vessel and dereliction of duty, and were reduced in rank and given punitive letters of reprimand. For their actions in the crisis, twenty other officers and men received awards, including letters of commendation, the Navy and Marine Corps Achievement Medal, the Navy and Marine Corps Commendation Medal, and the Meritorious Service Medal.
Because we have the best trained, bravest and most skilled sailors the world has ever known.
Don’t they have forward looking radar?
Also from Wikipedia
The seamount that the San Francisco struck did not appear on the chart in use at the time of the accident, but other charts available for use indicated an area of 'discolored water', an indication of the presence of a seamount. The Navy determined that information regarding the mount should have been transferred to the charts in use — particularly given the relatively uncharted nature of the ocean area that was being transited — and that the failure to do so represented a breach of proper procedures.
I spent a couple of years on pre-com crew for one of the 688’s at Electric Boat. It was when the tridents were going to sea for the first time.
Give them enough money, and those guys at the shipyards can get anything built or repaired. They put some amazing effort into putting them together and fixing the things they put together wrong. Or fixing those incidents where a certain captain or crew perform a really bone-headed maneuver.
Remember: The submarine exists to protect the reactor. At least that’s what I, as a nuc, thought!
That must have been one scary ass ride. I’m not sure I could do sub duty. Too bad the skipper took the fall for a new landmark.
Sonar. Yes and no. Passive sonar won’t detect a static object. Active sonar betrays the subs position, and is therefore seldom used. And on top of that, sonar performance degrades at speed.
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