Posted on 02/11/2020 6:16:15 PM PST by bkopto
A U.S. District Court judge ordered the Navy to start releasing unclassified documents related to the sinking of USS Thresher (SSN-593), 57 years after 129 officers, sailors and shipbuilders died in the nation’s worst nuclear submarine disaster.
Retired Navy Capt. James Bryant, a former Thresher-class submarine commander, sued the Navy in July to force the release of unclassified investigation documents detailing Thresher‘s operation during its final dive. The Navy previously rebuffed Bryant’s request for records under the Freedom of Information Act.
During a Monday court hearing, Judge Trevor McFadden ordered the Navy to start releasing the requested material. Bryant, while pleased with McFadden’s ruling, shelved his excitement until he sees what the Navy starts releasing and whether the documents are heavily redacted.
In his retirement, Bryant has taken to investigating the cause of Thresher’s sinking because, even six decades later, he thinks there are valuable lessons to be learned. Thresher never resurfaced after conducting a test dive on the morning of April 10, 1963. Mechanical failures or even Soviet interferences have been cited as possible reasons for the sinking.
However, the Navy has kept a close hold on roughly 3,600 Thresher-related documents while saying a classification review occurs. The requested documents – more than 50 years old – should be unclassified and releasable by now under federal declassification rules, Bryant’s attorney, Robert Eatinger, said during Monday’s hearing.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.usni.org ...
Going to test depth is a MAJOR clue.
I've read numerous accounts of this accident, including a acoustic analysis. There were voltage irregularities in the main bus, which led to the reactor scram. The crew tried to re-start the reactor twice, to no avail. At that point, they tried the emergency blow, all the while sinking past her test depth.
Had the reactor not scammed, there would've been no need to surface, so I think it's fair to say that the reactor scram contributed to the accident.
651 had a bad day too
I know a guy that was on 652, he never rode again and was forever named “Wimpy”
I know a guy that was on 651, he never rode again and was forever named “Wimpy”
What was that?
712 for me
Funny when disasters hit you always hear of the what ifs..
I went to New London in May 62 as RM2 and ‘flunked’ the free ascent test, basically blowing up my sinuses.
It happened on the way down and I was first in line to step into the ‘tank’ and the instructors(2) wouldn’t let me go.
I washed out and it may have turned out to be the ‘luckiest’ moment of my young life as, when at the Pentagon I ‘copied’ the message about the accident and recognized a few names as classmates - not close, just in same class.
The thing is that is the type of boat I requested so my ‘incident in the tank’ worked out well.
RIP USS Thresher (SSN-591) and all those committed to the deep. There but for the Grace of God....etc...etc
Brainfart, it was Queenfish.
thankfully the tank was OOS when I was in New London
My Dad spent some time on the Thresher but decided submarine duty was not for him. He always remembered those lost.
Wow. Glad you guys survived!
The theory I was told in sub school was immediate response to a reactor scram was closing the main steam stops. A seawater line located under the scram breakers failed at the Thresher’s test depth and sprayed seawater up into the reactor scram breakers causing them to trip, scraming the reactor. No steam for the main engines, major flooding, and a failure of the emergency blow valves. A slip below crush depth and goodbye. USS Scorpion was a totally different issue. Hot running skipper and Russians near the Azores. Fast Attack boats like to get close. Rumor was to close. MM1(SS). USS 640 Gold.
As I had said, I was first in line, 10 students and 2 instructors in the downward elevator.
The 100’ free ascent tank was 105’ and - in essence - safer than crossing the street, with frogmen and swimmers to assist.
I seem to remember part of the instructions were to grab your crotch and nose when starting the ascent (think there was also a line) and I believe the only good ‘holding’ yourself was to keep one from flailing arms????
Anyway, 2 others opted out and on the way back up the instructors were ragging about never seen 3 ‘CSs’ back out before, I took a half-hearted swing at one of them and they told me when we got back ‘up’ that little scene was meant for the other two, I was definitely ‘finished’, well, I was ‘older’ at least 23— so may have had something to do with it.
Quite an experience...getting decompressed on the way up had the sensation of skin being ‘peeled’ off while the water receded...
The Thresher is down, now pass the word.
From 593, we haven’t heard. Came the radio call from the Starlight far away, 200 miles east of Narragansett Bay.
Oh, remember the Thresher. O-o....
Lyrics by Matthew F Taylor
My Dad worked as an engineer for the Depart of the Navy in D.C. When the Thresher went down, before it hit the news, he came home from work early, about the time I was getting home from school, packed a bag and disappeared for several weeks. When he got home he said he couldn’t talk about it. But I remember he was working on extremely high pressure vessels for testing equipment.
651 WAS Queenfish. Our sister ship.
They are all razor blades now.
I know someone I trust who says the Scorpion was taken out by a Russian sub. He said the Scorpion got it back, and both are lying on the ocean floor about a mile apart from each other.
Spoke last Sunday with a Navy sub vet who served in the late 1970s on a Thresher-class sub. According to him, it was well-known by the sailors that the ballast blow pipes had a design flaw that could lead to them freezing up if there was some kind of leak (wish I had known I’d be joining this discussion, I would have taken notes! *LOL). Once that happened, you couldn’t blow ballast and would sink like a stone. He went in the Navy for the GI Bill. Spent 4 years in that sub. That takes some guts and nerves - as well as devotion to duty.
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