"You have got to be kidding me?????" Topic

Somebody must be a bit embarrassed:
link

I can hear the skipper shouting "What's the matter with you, were you born in a barn!?!"

Maybe they wanted to leave a hatch open for ventilation. Human error accounts for a lot of things, and is difficult to replicate in gaming terms.

Oh my!

Dan

Reminds me of the time I read in Aviation Week & Space Technology that a jet had crashed when the pilot forgot how to lower the landing gear and ejected instead. He was quoted as saying something like, "The jet belongs to the King but the skies belong to Allah!"

Well, at least there wasn't a draught…….

Accidents happen, which is what the co-pilot on a weather info trip my dad was navigating said when he pulled the emergency hatch release 4 hours out over the Atlantic. Not what the rest of the crew said apparently. It gets pretty cold in a Halifax convertible for 4 hours.

Didn't, or don't, submarines have a "Christmas tree" display of red and green lights telling when it's safe to dive?
I seem to remember reading that in Run Silent Run Deep. Or am I wrong?

Or is this safety feature something that Johnnie Foreigner bypassed? I find that hard to believe.

To be fair this is their first nuclear submarine. Who gets things right on the first try? When I try something new I'm usually disappointed if it goes perfectly the first time out. No, I have not tried skydiving.

In fact, this is why I'm less worried about Chinese submarines and aircraft carriers than a lot of people. Owning the equipment is one thing, having a culture of seamanship that can make them work is another. In fact, the latter may be more challenging…

+1 Andrew Walters

Funny thing about that Andrew Walters is that it was an Indian submarine not Chinese.

I do not know if the journal still does this, US Naval Institute proceedings used to list accident reports in every issue. The one I remember was on base a building suffered a power outage. An officer pried open the junction box on the building's lawn and proceeded to jiggle wires. He was survived by a wife and several children.

Also remember reading a roster of pilots of P-51 unit in Europe during WWII… a jaw dropping number of the pilots were killed in jeep accidents.

"Or is this safety feature something that Johnnie Foreigner bypassed? I find that hard to believe."

"To be fair this is their first nuclear submarine. Who gets things right on the first try? "

Read up on the sinking of the USS Guitarro :)

So it was really an old refit Russian sub? Maybe the signs on the light panels and the hatch were still in Cyrillic. :)

Dan
PS. I'm sure that Pakistan is hopping up and down with joy over this.

Didn't, or don't, submarines have a "Christmas tree" display of red and green lights telling when it's safe to dive?

Yes, we did in the USN. Plus a lot of the non-access hatches have physical interlocks that prevent inner and outer doors from being open at the same time.

Pretty sure the Russians have a similar system. Submarines are expensive, submarine crews are far more expensive to train.

We also had a physical 'rig for dive' checklist that an officer and an enlisted had to both sign that everything was in the proper position. I've had to open and re-rig an access hatch before, because whoever closed it up didn't sign it off in the Rig For Dive Exceptions log. Delayed submerging by about 5 minutes.

But I'm not aware of any normal access hatches in the side of the hull, everything's always on top.

Our own fleet is not exactly batting a thousand when it comes to operational safety at the moment.

It is a relatively new sub, at first it was operated bu mixed team, then it was handled to indians, so in theory they should have learnt all safety prodedures. A couple of months ago there was a big fuss when Russian intelligence learned, that US specialists were invited on the sub…may be it was an attempt to send them all to the bottom of the sea in revenge ;))

As I often say at work, "We don't require documentation because we like documentation. We require documentation so we don't skip what might turn out to be an important bit."

Ship's boats all have plugs in them to prevent rain and seawater from building up in them while in the davits. Naturally one of the standard pre-launch requirements is to put in the plugs. Naturally it is something often missed, and it seems to happen most often after the boat's just finished an overhaul.

To be fair this is their first nuclear submarine. Who gets things right on the first try?

What has the type of submarine got to do with anything? I would have thought shutting all the hatches before diving would be pretty standard on ALL submarines.

To be on the safe side send them some duck tape to stick over all the hatches before they dive.

The article doesn't say that the sub was trying to dive, or even sailing. In fact, it says it was "in harbor."

Most likely, the sub was tied to the pier when a storm came in (someone could check weather reports) and the hatch had been left open. Wind just sloshed sea water into the sub over the course of hours.

"But I'm not aware of any normal access hatches in the side of the hull, everything's always on top."

The photo clearly shows open hatches of some type on the sides near the waterline, but those probably don't go through the inner pressure hull. Also, the term "rear side" is pretty confusing and probably not accurate.