A US nuclear sub rammed another ship causing nearly £60MILLION damage - while its navigator was listening to his iPod.
Sailors aboard the USS Hartford had also rigged up loudspeakers so they could play MUSIC on duty, an official report found last night.
Sonar operators and radio men were missing from their posts. Others drove the attack sub while “with one hand on the controls and their shoes off”, it said.
The report slammed the navigator, who was listening to his iPod in his cabin while revising for an exam at the time.
The captain, Commander Ryan Brookhart, was relieved of his duties after the Navy found that more than 30 errors, - including “an informal atmosphere” and “a weak command” - led to the “avoidable accident”.
Fifteen sailors on the Hartford were injured when it hit the transport ship USS New Orleans in the Persian Gulf in March 2009.
Navy chiefs approved a whopping £57million repair bill for the Hartford and another £1.5million for the New Orleans.
thanks for the link to the better article, the only thing I found online at the time was the article I originally posted. From doing a little research online, I found that the Hartford was involved in another collision in May of 2009 with the USS New Orleans. Wonder if its the same crew/Captain.
It’s the same incident. The final report just came out though it actually happened some time ago.
By transiting a choke point at periscope depth, likely in the dark, they left themselves vulnerable to an incident like this. There should have been more awareness displayed by the leadership to prevent something like this from happening. Complacency kills.
Only two things surprised me: that it took so long for this to come out, and the New Orleans actually felt it when they hit.
i’m navy ignorant… i would assume the hartford was sailing mostly submerged, and hit the New Orlean’s hull with her sail? what do you do at that point? seems you’d probably have a breach, and a submarine quickly filling with seawater… do you immediately surface? how do you assess where the other ship is, so you don’t just hit her again on surfacing? seems like a shitty situation to be in
The damage was a lot worse than they let on. My brother is a diver/welder and was dispatched to clean these ships up so that they could make it home. All he could tell me was that main structure I beams in the USS New Orleans where snapped like twigs. Kind of fitting, I Shell Backed on the previous USS New Orleans LPH-11 and that ship had a hole in it too.
