Anyone else see the pics of the Sub that hit an underwater mountain earlier this month?
Click here for CNN story/pics.
The pic in the link is small, but wow, that thing took a major hit. 60 of about 130 crewmen were injured and 1 died. Amazing only the outer hull was damaged. Would like to see some more and larger pics but haven't found any.

~Rob

 

You would not believe the things I saw when I was stationed at Point Loma in San Diego, Ca. We used to call the fast attck subs "bumper boats". They would come in after bumping into something, like a Russian sub, or the periscope laided over at 90 degrees cause they didn't retract it when going under a ship. There is no way to see where they are going at depth except by sound. They would get brownies points for getting the best pictures of Soviet stuff, so they were VERY aggressive in getting in close.

Those submariners are a different breed. Fearless. My hat is off to them.

 

I too Salute the Bubble heads they are a breed of Warrior unmatched anywhere.

G O N A V Y

Why am I thinking about batteries now?

 

Check this link:
Damaged Sub Thread


About the 5th post down a member posted some larger pictures of the damaged sub.

 

This came from a fellow Bubblehead. He was on board the 711 when she had the accident.
Not including the name.


To All,
I thought that I would put out a note since a lot of you have been calling
and writing to find out how things are and if I'm OK and what happened. If
you hadn't heard, my boat hit a uncharted submerged sea mount at the highest
speed we can go at about 500ft below the surface. There were about 30 of us
that were seriously hurt and unfortunately one of my shipmates didn't make
it.

First off I am OK. I am pretty beat up with my entire left side and butt as
one big bruise. My shoulder is separated and may require surgery. They
will evaluate later this week. I am very fortunate that I hit the wall and
didn't go down a ladderwell that was right next to where I hit. If I had
gone down that, I would have got really messed up. I took a tremendous shot
to my left thigh from something. If it had been slightly lower in the knee
area it would have been really ugly. But all in all I am in good shape.
We hit it at about noon right after field day (where all of us clean the
boat for several hours). Thank God we didn't hit while we were doing this
or it would have been much worse. We would have had flying deck plates
through the air and such. Not good. As it was, it happened while chow was
going on and most people were either sitting and eating or on watch.
I don't remember much of the collision. People describe it as like in the
movie the Matrix where everything slowed down and levitated and then went
flying forward faster that the brain can process. My mind has blanked it out
exactly what happened. Adrenaline kicked in and I have no real memory of
how I got down to middle level or what I did immediately following. I
helped carry several shipmates to the crew mess deck (adrenaline is a
wonderful thing - my shoulder was wrecked and I had no idea until about 4
hours later). I sat with several of my junior guys that had bad head wounds
and talked with them to keep them conscious until doc could see them. It
seemed like an eternity but I'm sure wasn't that long. For those Navy folks
that ever wondered why Chief's stomp around and preach "Stow for Sea" This
was a perfect example. It definitely saved lives.
I am extremely proud of the crew to do damage control, help the wounded and
get the boat safely to the surface (for the boat guys we blew the tanks dry
on the emergency blow but unbeknownst to us we were missing some ballast
tanks/some didn't have integrity). The ship's control party did every thing
exactly right even though they were hurt as well. The Diving Officer of the
Watch had just unbuckled his belt to update a status board and hit the
Ship's Control Panel hard enough to break some of the gauges. To add insult
to injury his chair came up right behind him. Several people were injured
in the Engine Room Lower Level area. Lots of metal and sharp edges in the
area as well as that's were the boat's smoking area is at. Several crew
members are reevaluating that habit now.
Once again we got lucky in the fact that we had an extra corpsman onboard.
One of our officer's was a prior enlisted corpsman that was a Fleet Marine
Force medic so he was a Godsend for us. Our Corpsman did an outstanding job
getting everyone stabilized and did the best he could for our fallen
shipmate. I am surprised that he got him to hold on as long as he did. Our
corpsman is definitely a hero in my book. He didn't sleep for 2 or 3 days.
We finally put him down when the SEAL docs helicoptered in to help. Like I
said, I am extremely proud of my crew and how they handled themselves. My
Chief of the Boat was an inspiration of what a leader should be and my
Captain was as well. My XO took out an EAB manifold with his back but still
managed to help coordinate things. No matter what happens later, these men
did a superior job under difficult circumstances. I am humbled by the
entire crew's performance from the CO down to the Seaman that I was checking
in two days before.
For those of you wondering, I am sure there will be an investigation into
what happened and no I was not part of the navigation preps for this voyage.
I work on the inertial/electronic navigation and interior communications
part of my rate and didn't have anything to do with the conventional
navigation part of it. I will be lending support to my comrades who were to
help them prepare for the pending investigation.
I thank you all for you concern and appreciate your prayers not only for
myself, but for my shipmates. We are doing well, we band of brothers and
will pull through just fine.

Thanks,

 

Thanks Bruce, this jives with what I've heard out here.

 

Adding a bit to the story.
From a reliable government source

The boat was on track (in the right place and going where it was supposed to)
The most current charts showed nothing within at least 3 miles.
Soviet charts showed nothing but noted that surveys were not up to date.
Overhead imagery from another DoD source (non Navy) showed discolored water in the area from as far back as the late 90's but never passed the info on down the chain.
The water in that area is some of the deepest in the world.

It's a shame that the CO was relieved. He and the crew did a heck of a job just getting the boat back to the surface, much less getting her back to Guam. I think it's fortunate that she was not one of the later series with the bow planes. I heard they had to run the low pressure blower for over 30 hours just to keep positive buoyancy. Pics from Apra Harbor showed her riding real low in the water.
Even if the commander is found to be not at fault, his career is history. he can forget that fourth stripe.

moreinfoasIgetitShortround out

 

GO NAVY GO!

 

Since I am stationed in Guam I'll throw in what I know.

The sub indeed hit that underwater rock. The guy that died, machinists mate Ashley, was thrown about 20 feet and hit a pump headfirst. The subs ballast tanks (they control the subs buoyancy, there are 2 sets fore and aft), the forward set several were damaged. They would fill up with water after the air was shut off. The low pressure air pump that is used to blow out the tanks is not rated for continuous duty. They had to run the pump constantly to keep the foward ballast tanks from refilling. Some one came up with an idea to use the exhaust from the emergency diesel generator to keep air in the forward ballast tanks. That idea worked and they were able to sail home. On a positive note the machinest mate that died, he was in charge of maintaining the emergency diesel generator, which from what I read he took great pride in.

 

short round, sounds good. thanks for that post. reminds me why i miss the guys so much. some tuff and ready fella's out there hiding with pride.

glad to see it was after field day.
for field day, you take EVERYTHING loose, and my favorite phrase was "if I can see you, YOU AIN'T CLEANING"

God was merciful on them to have it happen after field day.

work as a Gov't contractor weenie now, we had a good discussion about "stow for sea" at work today, one the guys was a 27 year RMCM and COB. some the younger guys got as E6, they kind of agreed with us today.

 

Update :

Its in dry dock now. Here is the link with pictures, click here.

 

I cannot believe they saved that sub and only one sailor was KIA. Someone was watching out over them.

 

All I can say is "The Lord was with them on that sub." From the pictures, I believe there could have been alot more death in that accident.

 

That sub is probably in better shape than the one we bought of the Brits and we didn't hit anything with ours

 

Typically the Brit designed boats were good. I spent some time on an Oberon class SS (HMCS Ojibwa) out of Halifax. Good boat, good crew. However, from what I've seen of the Collins class, some iffy internal designs were not upgraded due to $$$. The Brits tend to be a bit tight at times.