This isn’t exactly news, since this sub crash occurred some months ago, but it still baffles me. I really thought that for a modern multi-bazillion dollar attack sub like the one pictured (the USS San Francisco), it would be virtually impossible to just run into a mountain.
THIS BBC STORY reports that human error was the cause of the crash, because the crew failed to adequately examine their navigation charts.
But, charts aside, aren’t these things crammed with high-tech what-cha-ma-hoozits designed to prevent this sort of thing?
Didn’t they have sonar? Proximaty indicators? A mass pointer?
This makes me wonder, do you think maybe these guys, you know, like to hot-dog it once in a while? Could they have been zipping around down there playing a taxpayer-funded game of chicken? We may never know.
Oh, extra rations will be given to those who properly I.D. the two cultural references in the above post. Hint: one is from a movie, the other from a book.
It’s like backing out of your parkign stall without looking. Crunch!
The trick is to drive blind, using just passive measures to isolate your position. If active measures are used, then EVERYBODY will know where you are.
“This ain’t like dustin’ crops, boy.”
Would one of those references be to the “I’ll fly the alps in a plane with no windows” scene from “The Hunt for Red October”?
I’ve talked with some well-placed Navy friends who indicated that the San Francisco was on an authorized high-speed run, as in, the course and speed were cleared all the way up the chain of command to the admiralty. When running that fast, they’re blind, in that the sonar is unable to “see,” so they depend totally on accurate charts and a gnat’s-ass-tight navigation system.
Word is that they are lucky to have made it to the surface, let alone all the way back to Guam. Had they sunk, no one would have even started a search for them until they failed to show up at their intended port call in Australia some five days later.
The problem wasn’t even on their side. The Navy hadn’t updated their charts despite knowing that a mountain should be there.
Quote: “Oh, extra rations will be given to those who properly I.D. the two cultural references in the above post. Hint: one is from a movie, the other from a book.”
If I’m not mistaken, the title of the post is from the movie “Planes, Trains, and Automobiles”, spoken by John Candy in reference to their badly damaged rental car.
An extra bag of trail mix goes to Paul H.!
“Planes, Trains and Automobiles” is one of our family’s all time favorite films, with the exception of some totally unnecessary obscene language in one scene.
That “mute” button comes in handy at times.
The other cultural reference is from a work of science fiction, but not Star Wars.
0.o
A multi-billion dollar sub that crashes into a wall without warning any of its crew and is incapable to stop itself. Nice. How much did we pay for this again?
It was actually a mountain, Kosh. Big difference.
Glenn-
Your post, if accurate, would reinforce my suspicion that they were not on any routine patrol down there, but may have been “pushing the envelope” a bit.
It has to be done, though. You can’t really find out what a machine like that is capable of without knowing what it is incapable of.
I’m a former submariner, my last duty station was at SubPac in Hawaii, before that I was on a 688 out of HI, and as OOD I’ve done a couple high speed deep runs in the exact same area of the ocean where they hit this mountain. I got the dirt from a friend still at SubPac. The navigation team was tagged with responsibility for this because it’s a billion dollar machine–somebody has to be at fault. But the official paper navigation charts did NOT have a seamount in that location. There was a tiny ‘discolored area’, very small, about 5-7 nm from where they actually ran aground. Ironically, the unofficial electronic charts (not allowed to navigate off them) did have a small seamount about 2-3 nm away, but even that seamount was supposedly not as high as they hit it at.
The two basic problems are that 1. this is a huge open area of the ocean, so the chart you’re working off of covers a huge area, probably 400x400nm. 2. The water depth averages 5-6 THOUSAND fathoms. That’s 30-36000 feet, or 6-7 miles. Since fathometers shoot a sound signal to the bottom and back up, you often don’t get a return so far away because by the time the echo comes back, it’s very weak and you’ve driven past it. The problem is compounded going fast, but that’s how submarines have to travel to meet deployment committments. The Navy leadership buckled like aluminum foil on this one and did the easy thing, nailing the officers. It’s possible they had other leadership problems, the San Fran wasn’t exactly a golden boy of the fleet. But this could have easily happened to me. There but for the grace of God…
BTW, Glenn, you’re partly right, but the Navy actually doesn’t do the charts–it’s NIMA(National Imaging and Mapping Agency), which is actually part of the DOD Intelligence oraganization, that makes the charts. The Navy didn’t know the mountain is there. In fact, the fact that no one at NIMA will be held accountable for this makes me very frustrated–maybe this should be put back under the Navy, so we can hold the correct person accoutnable.
As for the fact that they hit the mountain several mile from where the discolored area of the chart is–that ought to tell you about the quality of the chart. But technically, you’re supposed to use all available assets to navigate, so even though the unofficial chart that had a small seamount some distance away wasn’t corret, they maybe should have had a danger area 20 nm around it. Finally, when you’re underwater, it’s not like you can take a GPs fix, and inertial systems that rely on gravitational effects actually are position affected by large masses–so when you go by a seamount, your indicated position moves–but there’s no way to know it happened until you can take a fix and reset the system.
And Kosh–you don’t know what you’re talking about. If we went slow enough to ensure complete safety, we would take the entire deployment to get to where we’re going. Fine, call your congressman and tell him we need more submarines 😛