Posted on 04/09/2009 9:51:47 AM PDT by GATOR NAVY
BREMERTON —
The USS San Francisco wrapped up its 3 1/2-year stay in Puget Sound on Tuesday morning.
The Los Angeles-class submarine, which arrived at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard in September 2005 after sustaining damage in a crash with an undersea mountain, ferried out of Puget Sound waters with a tug escort for the last time. The crew of roughly 140 is taking the vessel, with its transplanted bow, to its new homeport in San Diego. The vessel was formerly homeported in Guam.
The submarine stalled not far from the Bremerton ferry terminal on its way out of Sinclair Inlet at about 8:45 a.m., giving onlookers a good view. But Navy personnel said the submarine was conducting planned tests of some systems on board while in the harbor.
The tests were completed and the submarine continued on its way, according to Lt. Kyle Raines, a Navy spokesman.
The submarine arrived at Naval Base Kitsap in September 2005 and entered the shipyard in October 2006 for repairs on its damaged nose. Shipyard workers replaced the damaged portion with the nose from the USS Honolulu, which was decommissioned and recycled at PSNS in late 2007. The cost of transplanting the bow was $134 million.
The fast-attack submarine smashed full speed into the mountain near Guam on Jan. 8, 2005, killing one sailor and injuring 97 of its 137 crew members.
This story has been corrected since it was originally posted. The date the boat entered PSNS in October 2006.
I am just a couple miles from Naval Base Kitsap I guess they call it that know rather than “Trident Base” I remember when this accident happened telling a friend of mine who is civilian and in charge of large shop that the Captain or whoever was on watch should be in trouble but he said no way. I guess they just haul ass anywhere they want and damn the undersea mounts. I didn’t realize the sub was here the whole time but glad to see it’s back in service.
The sub will be going from the East coast to the West coast.
I wonder if it will be coming through the Panama Canal? If it is, it will not be advertised.
But I sure would like to see it.
Actually, looking at your cut away drawing, it doesn’t even look as if it really penetrated much past the first ballast tank. You can see the torpedo shudder doors in the picture.
Your cut away is of a 688I class (vertical launch tubes, retractable bow planes, D2W reactor core) while the San Fran was a flight 1 boat (no vertical launch tubes, D1G core). FYI, the reactor compartment and engine room in the cut away are not that accurate.
The cut away might be a little off in terms of where the shudder doors are, but I don’t know. I can’t really tell where the GRP dome for the sonar sphere ends, as that would be the begining of the first ballast tank. It’s been a while since I last looked at official navy manuals...
FYI — they build ‘em good in Newport News.
Memory failed; should have looked it up first. The VLS tubes were first installed on the SSN 719 (USS Providence), NOT the SSN 718 (USS Honolulu).
Eh, a little Bondo, a little hunnert-mile-an-hour tape, it’ll buff right out.
Amazing. It’s scary how close the San Francisco came to joining the Scorpion and the Thresher “eternally on patrol.”
}:-)4
“It was not the captain’s fault. The dang mountain wasn’t mapped. No one knew it was there until the sub hit it.”
But they mapped the Ocean floor already? Is it possible the mountain rose up from the floor since the mapping?
I can’t answer you question because I don’t know.
There are a couple of ex navy folks on this thread that can help.
Thank you for asking though.
I checked it out - it was marked on some maps as “discolored water”. they should have carried that data over which is what some of the reprimands were about
This is one of the responsibilities of command. The navigation team failed, and the CO, or XO should have caught it.
Sub ping!
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