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US Nuclear Sub Crashes Into US Navy Amphibious Vessel

Posted by timothy on from the all-in-the-same-gang dept.

Kugrian writes "Showing that it's not just the British and the French who have trouble seeing each other on the high seas, a US Nuclear submarine yesterday crashed into a US Navy heavy cruiser. The USS Hartford, a nuclear-powered attack submarine, was submerged as it crashed into the USS New Orleans in the strait of Hormuz, resulting in the spillage of 95,000 litres of diesel fuel. Both vessels were heading in the same direction when the collision occurred in the narrow strait and were subsequently heading to port for repairs. A spokesman for the 5th Fleet said that the USS Hartford suffered no damage to its nuclear propulsion system." According to the USS New Orleans' Wikipedia page, it's actually an amphibious transport dock.

2 of 266 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Why so negative. by tftp · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Deaf? Not to be too harsh, but please come back when you know what you're talking about.

    Since you obviously know the subject, maybe you can comment on three items of my post:

    1. Who has the primary duty to avoid such a collision?
    2. Is it reasonable to expect a surface ship to see a submarine 30' below the surface at night?
    3. Would it be expected that many sailors aboard the sub will hear 100,000 HP diesels of a surface ship a couple of hundred feet away?

    In my opinion these answers, made by a competent person, would be far more useful than guessing about me and at the same time telling nothing on the subject of discussion.

  2. Re:The Navy needs more men and ships. by Shipwack · · Score: 5, Insightful
    As retired submariner, I can certainly get behind the idea of having more subs... The number missions they are tasked with every year never goes down (and usually goes up), but there are fewer and fewer submarines every year to do them (old subs are being decommissioned faster than new ones are being built).

    I've also heard surface types saying we need more carrier battle groups, an I understand their reasoning. And the logistics corp can also talk about we don't have enough supply vessels to adequately take care of our ships -now-. But... Where does it all stop? We only have so much money... I think one of the greatest presidents of the 20th century said it best:

    ''Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children . . . This is not a way of life at all in any sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.''--Dwight D. Eisenhower, April 16, 1953, before the American Society of Newspaper Editors