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NUCLEAR SUB REVOLT: MUTINY ON THE TRAFALGAR
What would Admiral Nelson have made of this? Need we ask?
11 âtraumatisedâ crew refuse to sail; £300m vesselâs return to sea putoff
A NUCLEAR submarine failed to set sail on its first mission since hitting the seabed after the crew mutinied. The 11 sailors told their skipper they were âtoo traumatisedâ just as HMS Trafalgar was set to leave Faslane on the Clyde. They staged the revolt on Friday, 18 months after the £300million sub ran aground off the Isle of Skye. The unnamed skipper listened to the concerns and agreed to replace the men, who should will be given 39 lashes counselling.
| No yardarms on a sub, huh? |
Last night, Royal Navy top brass admitted the âshakedownâ trip had been delayed. One Navy veteran said: âThese men obviously suffered a fright during the incident off Skye. But it pales in comparison to what military personnel face during conflict.
I wonder how these guys would have responded to a depth charging?
| They ran aground 18 months ago? |
âMany people will be taken aback that a nuclear submarine crew would stage a mutiny. In the past, the Navy would have treated this type of behaviour as insubordination rather than with kid gloves.â
cat-oâ-nine-tails anyone?
The sub is one of seven Trafalgar class Royal Navy vessels that were built between 1978 and 1990. With a crew of 130, the 5200-ton vessel used Tomahawk missiles to wipe out an al-Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan.
AQ survivors can no doubt emigrate to the UK to receive their own stress counseling.
But, in November 2002, it crashed into the seabed off the north-west of Skye. The crew were badly shaken and three injured after they were violently thrown to the ground. A court martial hearing last month took action against Commanders Robert Fancy and Ian McGhie, both 39. Both men were reprimanded after trainees under their command caused an estimated £5million worth of damage. The Trafalgar was finally ready to return to sea on Friday. The âshakedownâ cruise was to put the repaired sub through its paces to ensure everything had been fixed. On Tuesday, the sub had been âpushed to the limitâ while still docked at Faslane home to the UKâs nuclear deterrent. Diesel had leaked into the ventilation system, sparking an alarm and forcing crew to breath through masks. Top brass believe that incident coupled with memories of the Skye crash sparked Fridayâs mutiny.
| That's a little different from being 'fraidy cats after running aground 18 months ago, at least... |
All 11 men who approached their skipper had declined the Navyâs offer of one-to-one counselling after the Skye incident. The Navy is assembling a team of replacement sailors with specialist skills. Last night, a Royal Navy spokesman said: âA number of sailors seem to have suffered delayed post-traumatic stress disorder. There had been an incident where diesel got into the ventilation system. The sub was being pushed to the limit without going anywhere, which is a normal procedure after a major refit of this sort. There was a diesel blowback which caused alarms to ring and a whiff of fuel. The crew then used face masks to use the emergency breathing system. That went fine and they sorted the problem. But this could have been another little click on the scale of stress to someone who didnât realise they had a problem.â
| I'm not an expert on this subject by any means, neither a submariner nor even a Brit. But I suspect there's a different story here than the one that was written. It sounds like the stress test found some areas where things weren't up to snuff — which was why they ended up breathing diesel, which could have been harder and more hazardous to deal with under pressurization. If there were that kind of bugs before they left dock, they were probably afraid there were going to be more when they did, consulted with the commander of the vessel, and he agreed with them. I'm not sure any "post-traumatic stress syndrome" was even called for. |
WARSHIP HMS Nottingham, which hit rocks off Australia in 2002 causing £39million damage, went back to sea from Portsmouth yesterday.
Posted by: Atomic Conspiracy 2004-04-25 |
