Monday, April 16, 2018

What Caused USS Thresher To Sink ???

USS Thresher (SSN 593) sank 55 years ago. Apparently the Navy has not been forthcoming about the reasons for her loss. You can read about it here:

https://www.military.com/daily-news/2018/04/09/55-years-after-thresher-disaster-navy-still-keeps-secrets-sub-loss.html

I'd like to add something to the mystery:

In a former life, I served on USS Nautilus (SSN 571) and was on her decommissioning crew (l was her final MPA). I can recall taking a "sound silencing and vibration" course in the late 1970s that included video of a submarine which was fitted with shock analyzing equipment and which then was depth-charged to determine how much damage such shocks would cause. The sub was USS Thresher (SSN 593). After seeing that video, I have always felt Thresher's demise had something to do with those depth charges and whatever lingering damage they may have caused. Yet I have never seen any mention of this in previous studies and reports.

I have been in a situation which may have been similar to what happened to Thresher. We ran a drill which included a reactor scram, lost propulsion, and then found ourselves sinking with significant negative buoyancy (our bilges were always full). Fortunately we were able to recover using a normal blow of MBTs, something Thresher apparently could not do. Still gives me the willies to think about it.

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