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Home Front: WoT
San Francisco at sea again after nose repair
2009-04-09
The once-crashed attack submarine San Francisco left Puget Sound for San Diego on Tuesday morning, more than four years after an accident that killed one crewman and injured 97 of 137 sailors on board.

On Jan. 8, 2005, the ship crashed into an undersea mountain 350 miles south of Guam, crushing the nose. After crossing the Pacific Ocean on the surface it arrived at the naval complex near Kitsap, Wash., in September 2005 and went into the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard and Intermediate Maintenance Facility for repairs in October 2006, according to Lt. Kyle Raines, spokesman at Submarine Group 9. He said it went into dry dock in December 2006 and was returned to the water in October 2008.

The nose of the decommissioned sub Honolulu replaced the destroyed portions on San Francisco.

San Francisco was formerly homeported in Guam but will now be based in San Diego with Submarine Squadron 11, Raines said, though was not certain when the San Francisco would rejoin the fleet or be ready for deployment again. The Kitsap Sun newspaper reported that the nose replacement repairs cost $134 million.
For those who forgot, this is what happens when you hit an undersea mountain...
Posted by:tu3031

#8  Uh. uh, instead of bumping into GODZILLA they're gonna make darn sure its RODAN this time!?

Gut Nuthin.
Posted by: JosephMendiola   2009-04-09 20:55  

#7  
Almost immediately, attention focused on the fact that the mountain was not on the charts, and even some within the submarine community wondered whether the crew should be held responsible.

But the investigation showed that there were at least five notices to mariners, most recently in 2002, about a large patch of muddy water about three miles south of the sea mount that were not incorporated on the charts the San Francisco was using at the time, the sources said.

If the bottom had been as deep as the 1989 chart indicated, that muddy patch would not have appeared.

Even more serious than them breakdown in the chart preparation process, the sources said, were the warning signs that were not heeded, particularly the soundings taken by the ship's fathometer. Just minutes before the crash, the San Francisco came to the surface to check its location on the Global Positioning System.

The submarine is also equipped with the sophisticated Ring Laser Gyro Navigator, so it knew its position with a high degree of certainty.

Yet where the charts showed 1,000 fathoms of water, the sounding showed less than 800 fathoms — still a huge safety margin below the keel, but a difference that should have caused the navigation team to recommend proceeding with caution.

In addition, the navigation team had noted for a lengthy period that the water depth was shoaling, or becoming more shallow.

The team apparently believed it was a faulty reading — moving through the water at 30 mph, fathometer readings can be inaccurate — and the team kept hoping that perhaps the next reading would correlate with the chart.

In retrospect, it's clear that the readings were accurate, the water was shoaling, and the San Francisco was heading for what was nearly an underwater cliff.
Posted by: john frum   2009-04-09 19:07  

#6  They were in the middle of a highspeed transit run - no sonar, they were blind.
Posted by: gromky   2009-04-09 18:55  

#5  Thanks, Rambler.

I'm a little fuzzy about how they crashed into a sea mount - don't they have radar? Or doesn't it work underwater? The mount must have been awfully close to the surface (unless they were practicing deep dives).
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut   2009-04-09 18:13  

#4  The reactor was recently refueled before the collision. Refueling a sub reactor costs a few hundred million $, more than the repair.
Posted by: ed   2009-04-09 18:10  

#3  Barbara, according to Wikipedia, he was reassigned to shore duty, and after an investigation, given a nonjudicial letter of reprimand and relieved of command. Six other crew members went to Captain's Mast and were given letters of reprimand. Also, twenty officers of men were given letters of recommendation and medals for their actions after the collision. Apparently the boat was almost lost.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia   2009-04-09 18:10  

#2  Yee-ouch. Good picture.

I take it the Captain "retired"....
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut   2009-04-09 17:59  

#1  I'm curious. I know the Navy has a fair number of Los Angeles class boats in storage. Was it cheaper to repair the San Francisco than to bring one of those out?
Posted by: Steve White   2009-04-09 17:38  

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