"Top 5 Worst Submarine Disasters" Topic

"North Korea's apparent loss of one its submarines this week is a stark reminder that operating in the undersea domain is fraught with danger.

Since the Second World War, the United States, Russia and China—and a host of other nations—have lost vessels and their crews to accidents. Operating submarines is a risky business under the best of circumstances—and will likely remain so. Even the highest technology nuclear submarines can end up on the ocean floor if the crew isn't careful or the technology fails.

Here are some of the worst submarine disasters of the past several decades…."
Full article here
link

Amicalement
Armand

Dr. Robert Ballard (of finding the Titanic fame) was brought on board by the Navy to determine what happened to the Scorpion. It was a secret mission, in fact Ballard had to carry it out in exchange for the Navy's help in loaning equipment to find Titanic. He is of the opinion, after extensive investigation of the wreck, that she was sunk by one of her own torpedoes that went rogue and sank her. This is a not completely uncommon occurrence (although in the US Navy this is the only time that it involved the destruction of a vessel.

Interesting…

Amicalement
Armand

I guess the Bonefish fire doesn't quite count, the ship didn't sink. By some miracle. But that is the single scariest accident we talked about while I was driving subs.

Damn near did lose the San Francisco after she slammed head-on into a seamount at 35mph, but that was some gross stupidity in action.

The USN has done well since Thresher and Scorpion, haven't lost a sub since (knocks on wood). Come close a couple times, as mentioned above. But heroic action and equipment surviving use far in excess of design capacity saved the San Fran.

There's even two theories about the Scorpion sinking itself. One has the torpedo actually launching, locking on to the Scorpion and hitting it the other has the torpedo arming itself and detonating whilst still inside the submarine. Given the poor state of repair of the vessel (budget cutbacks led to the Scorpion having to endure long periods at sea with minimal time in port being refurbished) I think the latter is the likeliest explanation.

One theory I read on the torpedo issue suspected a torpedo battery fire which caused the warhead to blow (Mk37 torpedoes were electrically powered, big silver-zinc batteries).

For the cause of the Scorpion's loss, my money is actually on a "Jam Dive" where the packing on the stern planes hydraulic ram blows out and shoves the planes to full dive.

My big honking Ohio-class had all of 8 seconds to run through the recovery actions, a responsive hotrod like the Scorpion probably had 5 seconds to respond, max. Add to that the Scorpion hadn't had the SubSafe refit yet (was scheduled for the yard period after that deployment), and that means her emergency main ballast tank blow system was highly likely to freeze up instead of empty the ballast tanks. This is important because the last step of the Jam Dive immediate actions is an EMBT blow to stop the uncontrolled dive. Then you jockey ahead and astern propulsion to stay relatively flat in the water while you float up to the surface to call for a tow truck.

Jam dive plus no EMBT blow equals a sub below crush depth in very short order. The Scorpion was doing a high-speed transit from Gibraltar to Norfolk at the time of her loss, and because of her not having the SubSafe refit was restricted to operating shallow. Go too fast and you're outside the safe submerged operating envelope, you need to be deep to go really fast.

While the loss might have been preventable, it wasn't a predictable cause. Otherwise, there wouldn't be a discussion about what caused it!

Article left out sinking of Russian ballistic sub K-129 in 1968 with full crew and nuclear torpedoes and ballistic missiles.

The CIA/Howard Hughes cooperative Glomar Explorer spy ship succeeded in raising at least the front section with nuclear torpedoes, possibly also recovered were Russian nuke launch codes, crypto equipment, and ballistic missiles but we'll never know the full story. This was the basis for the novel & movie "The Hunt for Red October".