U.S. Submarine rife with problems before running aground

Since 07-02-04

Report: Submarine rife with problems before running aground

Associated Press
June 28, 2004

NEW LONDON, Conn. — A lengthy report by the Navy reveals numerous problems aboard a submarine before it ran aground in the Mediterranean Sea last year, causing more than $9 million in damages.

The 5-inch-thick report, which was released to The Day of New London in response to a Freedom of Information Request, offers a minute-by-minute report of a submarine crew that was unsure of its location, traveling too fast and communicating poorly.  The report places much of the blame on the crew’s failure to follow established procedures.

Shortly after the submarine Hartford ran aground in October, Cmdr. Christopher R. Van Metre and Capt. Greg Parker were relieved of command and six other Hartford crewmen were charged with dereliction of duty and punished. 

The Hartford was damaged off the Italian island of Sardinia.

The submarine was ordered out of the harbor Oct. 25 to make way for another submarine. It was to make just four turns and be at seas just 34 minutes. Early in the voyage, several pieces of navigational equipment failed. In response, key people left the control room to determine the cause of the problem, but the captain was never notified they were gone.

The captain then ordered the sub to speed up to 12 knots, faster than the 9.5 knots allowed for the trip. Meanwhile, with the boat preparing to turn, a navigational point was incorrectly entered into the Global Positioning System, putting the turning point several hundred yards off its actual location.

“At no point did I hear a report to the bridge of the inability to get a good fix plotted on the chart,” a technician said in the report. “At no time did I hear anyone recommend slowing until a fix was gotten.”Nobody on the bridge was aware the submarine was about 400 yards off course and the navigation team was working with the wrong chart — one that does not show the shallow water they rapidly were approaching.

Minutes later, the submarine turned onto the fourth leg of its trip out of the harbor.

The captain said he thought the navigator ordered it. The navigator said he thought the order came from the bridge. A sailor watching the fathometer, which measures the water depth, warned that the depth had suddenly decreased from 150 to 100 feet. The Navy said that three-minute warning should have been enough time for the sub to have been stopped, but the order never came.

The water level quickly drooped to 83 feet, then 50 feet, but the Hartford steamed on. It ran aground two minutes later.

The ship began to slow.“Speed on,” Parker ordered. That decision would lead Navy officials to relieve Parker of his command. “As it turned out, the order to increase speed was also the likely cause of more extensive damage to Hartford, as it continued to make contact with the bottom at the higher rate of speed,” a Navy investigator found.

The first collision was followed by two more hits, the third rolling the ship to its side. Large areas of the hull were scraped down to bare metal. The bottom of the boat’s rudder had been ripped off.

The control room was stunned; an assistant navigator suffered a panic attack. After temporary repairs, Hartford returned to Norfolk, Va., in January. It returned to Groton in March.

Some of the lessons learned from a months-long investigation of the accident have been incorporated into the Submarine On-board Training Syllabus. The Navy also has requested more navigational buoys warning of shallow water near Sardinia.
---------------------------------------------------
Contributed,
YNCS Don Harribine, USN(Ret)