I would have thought that to be an oxymoron:
A crash between a nuclear-powered US submarine and a warship in the strategic Strait of Hormuz was an “avoidable” accident caused by complacent sailors and weak leadership, a Navy report said.
The crash between the USS Hartford and USS New Orleans, an amphibious vessel, on March 20 was a “catastrophic failure” of management and navigation practices on the submarine, according to the report obtained by the Navy Times through a Freedom of Information Act request.
The investigation, reported by the Navy Times on Wednesday, revealed that sailors on board the Hartford took a “lax” approach to navigating their vessel, with those assigned to keep watch often sleeping on the job.
The heavily redacted report described one navigator listening to his iPod and simultaneously taking an exam while on duty.
In the course of my naval career, I’ve heard the undersea nuke bubbas described as many things, but complacent was never among them.
I guess there will always be an exception to the rule, but, damn, this kind of thing always blows my mind. Complacency on a vessel that can flood and sink on command? Not on my watch, thank you very much.
No comment on what that must have been like on the sub, except ‘Jumping Jiminy’!
Well, the word loses a bit in translation from nuke to human. Joel’s post and importantly the comment string gives good understanding as to what the bubbleheads think.
My take, sans other info: They came off station, relaxed too far, didn’t see the strait transit as the Big Deal that they shoulda done.
It’s going to take/has taken 3 Guard Mail Petty Officer/Duty Radioman runs just to fetch back all the “personal for CO” msgs, ltrs and memos from up the chain. For every boat.
Just remember “Anything worth doing is worth overdoing, to extreme excess while viewing with concern.”
Wow, “Guard Mail Petty Officer/Duty Radioman runs”; I remember those (Pearl Harbor)! And wearing a ‘45 strapped to my waist. Also, the Personal Fors will make interesting reading.
Not as bad as leaving the Marines stranded on the Canal or dropping them hundreds of meters offshore on Tarawa. You Marines, is there any lingering bad feeling about such incidents?
The Higgins boats required 4′ clearance and there was only 3′ over the coral. As I read history, the Navy did what they could, transferring many Marines to halftracks and/or tanks that could crawl up and over the coral reef. Of course, they should have known it was there in the first place!
“The heavily redacted report described one navigator listening to his iPod and simultaneously taking an exam while on duty.”
Well, yeah, if off-watch = on duty.
From the Navy Times…
“The navigator, off-watch, was found to have been taking an engineering exam in the wardroom “while listening to his iPod,” despite the hazardous evolution underway.”
http://www.navytimes.com/news/2009/11/navy_hartford_111509w/
That should read “The Navigator”, Nav/Ops Department Head. During the Maneuvering Watch or tricky transits, the Nav is usually in the control room at the charts, supervising the quartermasters.
We constantly fight complacency because we know it can get us killed, but sometimes, rarely, it does happen. And all of the submarine accidents reflect that to one degree or another. Some of what was said in the media has to taken with a grain of salt however. We are not well understood by the media, or even other parts of the Navy. Things get lost in translation when what you know of the military is Gomer Pyle/McHales Navy.
Chap has the main point, beware of post patrol (I know, the term dates me, but I glory in old age) let down. Guardfish put herself on the rocks in front of the Hickam OClub on Christmas eve long ago, and while the report would have a fine antique ring now, there are still parallels.
That said, CO/XO/COB come off in the report as kind of toothless and a wee bit detached. That had to seep into the DH’s and LPO’s. The lack of a pre-evolution walk thru talk thru don’t let down your guard meeting is telling, call it what you will.
THERE IS ABSOLUTELY NO EXCUSE FOR NOT KNOWING THAT ZERO BEARING RATE DEFINES RISK OF COLLISION, THAT GOES FOR EVERY OFFICER, SONARMAN, AND NAVET IN THE BOAT. Every line Naval Officer, designator be damned. (I’m fine, put away the blood pressure cuff, thanks.)
The Sonar Sup should have been jacked up, trammed, aligned, bored out, chipped down,
pickled, primed, painted and top coat renewed loooonnng before this happened.
The fact that this wasn’t done polluted his watch section and the whole sonar gang. Multiple layers were not managing by walking about. Of the CO/XO/COB triad, none were likely in the “universally respected and feared” category.” While that can (and often has been)overdone, the stagecoach can’t get through indian country without the lead horses and the wheel horses knowing there is a firm grip on the reins. LPO’s are too important not to communicate high expectations and model high professionalism too. If you get a bad one, you MUST
Nobody said anything but no QM’s and all NAVET’s is a BAD IDEA. A good QMOW of the old school likely would have edicated the OOD without him knowing it and a Leading QM is a Nav’s best friend and a gift from a loving God
No ESM entries on the CEP plot should have been caught by one of the officers.
You got that right Gramps! I wonder what happened to the QMOW.
OOPS, SORRY (continuing on the SONAR SUP…(after MUST..) deal with it and if he proves obdurate, well, take him down or he will take you down, maybe all hands down. This one came close.
NUFF SAID, but let’s not forget that most of the guys were good sailors let down by a few, and the Investigating Officer took pains to say it in the report.
Just an old curmudgeon decades out of the loop’s opinion, hope it contributes something for those with no ‘phins.
Agree totally, Gramps.
The Submarine Force has two problems in this area. First problem is the lack of emphasis on seamanship and navigation among the O-gangers. Line officers, surface or submarine, *should* be seamen first. The Marine Corps has the right attitude with ‘Every Marine a Rifleman.’ That needs to be modified and adopted by the Submarine Force. Second, they got rid of the QMs and made them all ETs (including me). I became a QM because I wanted to navigate for a living. Twidgets become Twidgets because they want to be techs, not plot dots. As a QM, my sole purpose was to keep Das Boot off the rocks; an ET has several duties of which maintaining the Nav plot is only one. Add one more that dovetails with the second problem….over-reliance on electronic navigation. The Navy treats navigation as a science now due to all the electronic navigation systems available, but it’s not. Navigation is an art, and the talent to practice an art lies between a pair of human ears, not inside a haze gray electronics cabinet. The Nav ETs MUST be expert at the old skills such as DR, running fixes and anticipating how environmental factors may cause set and drift. They need to know the Rules of the Road backwards and forwards. They need to learn to use electronic navigation as a tool and not a crutch.
Get back to the basics and watch the number of collisions and groundings go way, way down.
One more thing….attention to detail. Shooting a deep water strait like Gibraltar with a modified piloting party while submerged is one thing, shooting a shallow area like the Strait of Hormuz is quite another. Stuff the friggin’ nuke exam and get up to Control where you belong, Navigator.
SoberSubetc.
Thanks, dead on, and a very nice endorsement on my basic correspondence.
Now let’s lurk, ’cause the rest of the peanut gallery will have some good insights…mmm… and Clarabell is fun to watch too.
Gramps,
Maybe decades out physically, but heart and soul you’re still hip deep in it.
Bouncing your observations off of the comments made by the younger bucks in Joel’s post, it seems complacent and lackadaisical would describe the climate on the boat. Having just come off station I can understand how the crew was knocking the attention factor down a notch, but too much was being left to chance with a seeming attitude of “we’re headed home”.
As a guy who wrangles sailboats these days, the repeated references to zero bearing rate caused certain of my body parts to start crawling. Taken alone, allowing that piece of the situation to persist is just begging to trade paint. Remarkably, and perhaps ridiculously, it takes such a minute amount of effort to remedy the situation.
The one comment over at Joel’s that got my attention was this one
Communication breakdown, indifference to watch standing protocols, and a high absentee rate of command and CPO leadership during the evolution are glaring stand outs. One comment was made about the A-Nav being present as an acceptable alternative to the Nav during the evolution, but not being familiar with Sub evolutions I’ll defer to your and SoberSub’s call on that one.
Thank God they’re even still alive.
PS Multiple references to PD. That would be?
PD = Periscope Depth
ANAV is an acceptable substitute for the Navigator as part of a heavily modified navigation party (after all, the Nav has to sleep…sometimes).
Thank you, sir.
PD–>Periscope Depth. Okay, modified question to the previous: At PD, depth from surface to keel would be what? Draft of New Orleans is reported at ~23′ with ~25K tons of sledgehammer behind the bow.
Not wanting to give away all the secrets here, but here’s a helpful
link
Back in the day, complacency cost a friend of mine his life, along with the rest of his crew and a damned fine P-3B. I become frustrated and sad whenever I hear of such things, because it brings back memories that I’d rather not have, and also reinforces the fact that these things will still occur, we being human and all of that.
My friend was on a crew in Lajes that was due to rotate back to Rota. The incoming crew had a fellow who wanted to stay in Rota, so my friend, who was the same rate/position, agreed to swap crews with him. Fair enough. Happened often.
The inbound crew arrived, settled in, then hit George the Crook’s place hard. Next day, they were to brief for a surface search off the Canary Islands. Although it was well past the 12-hour “bottle to throttle” rule, some crewmembers were still not fully up to the task, but all decided to carry on, best traditions, airdales, yadda yadda yadda. We all know the drill.
Navigator didn’t check his charts when he drew them, and apparently didn’t have any that listed elevations of the land masses, according to what was found afterward.
Enroute, the forward radar went down. The decision was made to swap out the aft magnetron with the forward, a labour-intensive, but simple enough thing to do. My crew did it a couple or three times. In the meantime, there’s no forward radar available until the swap is completed.
While approaching the IP, the a/c encountered clouds and weather. The decision was apparently made to descend to search altitude upon reaching the IP. The repairs/swap was almost complete to the magnatron, so flight felt comfortable in this, and the nav had no objections, it is assumed.
The crew began their descent through the clouds, and impacted the side of a mountain. From evidence at the crash site, it appears they detected the land mass, but too late to clear it, and the a/c hit bottom on, as if she was climbing for all she was worth.
No survivors. 2 weeks before Christmas.
There were any number of links in that chain that, had they been broken, would probably have prevented that accident. However, the crew pushed on, wanted to be seen as having that “can do!” attitude, trusting that it would all work out as it had so many times before.
Not exactly the same as Hartford, but close enough. Typical mission, no sweat, someone will take care of the problem, etc.
Anyway, not trying to hijack the thread, just talking because it’s close to the date I lost my friend, AT2 Gary Nesbitt, CAC-6, VP-11.
Respects,
“However, the crew pushed on, wanted to be seen as having that “can do!” attitude, trusting that it would all work out as it had so many times before.”
I think this sentance alone is the crux of this, and many other accidents. No one ever wants to be the one to say, “Nope, can’t get it done.” It’s in the genes. We’re men of the sea, we make it happen. There’s nothing we can’t get done. Blah blah blah.
No one ever wakes up going, “Hmmmm….how can I completely screw up today?” In the interest of “getting it done” you lose sight of the bigger picture, which causes you to lose sight of the details that are telling you something is wrong.
You are, sir, quite correct when you say “It’s in the genes”. It’s why we do what we do. Those without the gene are left to wonder what might have been…
Not a bad thing, nor a good thing, just a fact. Folks find their way to where these things are because it’s where they are meant to be, what they were meant to do.
And it’s both blessing and curse, the two sides of a very sharp sword.
“However, the crew pushed on, wanted to be seen as having that “can do!” attitude, trusting that it would all work out as it had so many times before.”
I think this sentance alone is the crux of this, and many other accidents. No one ever wants to be the one to say, “Nope, can’t get it done.” It’s in the genes. We’re men of the sea, we make it happen. There’s nothing we can’t get done. Blah blah blah.
No one ever wakes up going, “Hmmmm….how can I completely screw up today?” In the interest of “getting it done” you lose sight of the bigger picture, which causes you to lose sight of the details that are telling you something is wrong.
What I don’t see in the above is the ” IF the individual SPEAKs UP and points out the things that could go wrong, or offer alternatives, then the individual will be downrated and told they are not a “team player”. That their “negative attitude” is “detrimental to the function of this unit” that “further motivational exercises are required to correct the efficiency of this individual” and “reassignment to a non flying position is indicated”. I’m sure a few of the leading O types can find much better examples of “dismissal phrases” from recent evolutions than my fast fading memories. The beatings will continue until the morale improves.
See a few of those, justifiable or not, and any wonder that “can do!” overcomes “logic, reason, and rationality”? There is a fine line between discipline and outright dictatorship espoused by many LPo’s. “My way or the highway” is the leadership cliche. Not by example but by fiat. “Shut up and soldier” Rationality leaves in the face of shut up and fly or speak up and scrub the head.
Unfortunate for all concerned that the loss of rationality is not discovered until a few lives and another $50 million light up hillside, Grandpa Pettibone trots out old columns for the “Safety Shirt Special”, all make a mandatory safety stand down all hands evolution where some talking head spouts the company line about “SAFETY FIRST!” and maybe even passes out a freebie pen or mouse pad these days with the company CAN DO! motto artfully silk screened upon, the later everybody goes back to work…. and the LPo’s start the former policy all over again. Because that is the Navy way. We’ve done it this way since 1776 and by God! we’ll do it this way forever.
Not that I am cynical you understand. Me? Nope. No way. uh-uh.
Out of my element here for sure, except to say “get-home-itus” has killed many a pilot/”aviator” as well as Navy types. An occupational hazard. I was once on an accident investigation team where a sister squadron lost a bird and crew due, at bottom, to just that very thing.
If they could harness Rickover’s rpm’s right now it could power a boat for quite awhile.
I remember from my time on the boat that most of the drills were run back aft. The only drill time the Coners got was during TRE/TWP. It was like they had to relearn their jobs all over again. TMOW: “Where is that button? I just saw it a minute ago.” as he looks at the torpedo control panel. I wonder if maybe their is too much emphasis on the reactor and not enough on the forward half of the boat. Seemed that us nukes had training twice as often as everybody else. What do y’all think?
The care and feeding of the God of the Teakettle understandably compels attention and obedience. Money, priority, career threat capability, first cut on what officers go to the boats, and depth on the bench for helpers from group and squadron. Not to mention suction for the strong leaders in the O-ganger locker.
Plus, the 600 pound gorilla of the force, the superb organization and culture for Engineering training. It all eats time. Which everybody has the same amount of, which is to say, not enough.
Operations and Tactics, also known as why the boat exists, can slip to below
Engineering and Maintenence. Way below.
Unless the Commodore, Captain and XO teach, preach, practice and emphasize that ORSE is necessary, but not sufficient. The hard part is that the top of the pyramid has to denonstrate expertise, presence in the ship control and weapons spaces, commitment to mentor JO’s and LPO’s, esteem for the personnel – who can take way too much ribbing from the nukes – and….leave room for initiative, innovation and growth.
Because Operations and Tactics are performance art.
All submarining is to a degree, but shipdriving is so to a greater degree than back aft, where procedural compliance, regulations and deep DEEP technical knowlege of the equipment tends to put more weight on that side of the teeter-totter.
Which is why an UBER boat has an UBER CO, and will, in time, often emit UBER ex XO’s and Ex DH’s who become UBER CO’s and XO’s in their own right who create, for a time, more UBER boats.
The great god MURPHY permitting.