Slashdot Mirror
Fire May Leave US Nuclear Sub Damaged Beyond Repair
Hugh Pickens writes "AP reports that a fire that swept through a nuclear-powered submarine in dry dock at Portsmouth Naval Shipyard has caused such extensive damage to its forward compartments that the 22-year-old Los Angeles-class attack submarine might have to be scrapped. 'These submarines were designed decades ago. So they're no longer state of the art,' says analyst Loren Thompson. 'If this vessel returns to service, I will be amazed.' The fire broke out while the Miami was on a 20-month stay at the shipyard for an overhaul, and it took firefighters from more than a dozen agencies twelve hours to put out the fire, described as intense, smoky, and a 'hot scary mess.' 'It takes a lot of guts to go into a burning building. But the idea of going into a submarine full of hot toxic smoke — that's real courage,' said U.S. Rep. Chellie Pingree after meeting with the shipyard commander. Firefighters isolated the flames so they would not spread to nuclear propulsion spaces at the rear of the submarine. There was nuclear fuel on board the sub, but the reactor has been shut down for two months and was unaffected. Rear Admiral Rick Breckenridge says an investigation has been launched into what caused the fire, but he expects that investigation to take a long time to complete and wouldn't say if human error has been ruled out as a cause of the fire, or if the focus is on mechanical issues."
Well, that's confusing... The article is from a newspaper in Seattle, about a Los Angeles class boat in Portsmouth, Maine named Miami...
Hi there. Ex-submariner here. One reason was that they likely could not close the hatches. Being in one of these extended dry dock periods usually means that they have all sorts of hoses, wires, etc. going through the hatches making them neigh impossible to close without taking a hatchet to them all. Not to mention, if they were doing any sort of work on the sea water piping, which may be plausible since they were in dry dock, then the fire would still be supplied from the lack of piping that is normally there due to the repair.
My first guess of how this fire happened is that someone had done some welding in a compartment and something caught fire. Usually the Navy is pretty good about removing flamables in the area. They even go so far to have a "fire watch" for several hours after the welding was done to ensure that nothing catches fire. it will be interesting to hear what the root cause is.
Another interesting fact about L.A. class submarines, of which the Miami is included. There is only one water tight door interior to the sub, and that is the one that separates the forward part of the ship to the rear (ie engineering which was apparently not affected). Compare that to the submarine that I was on (Sturgeon Class), there were two water right doors for just the forward part of the ship, and two in the engine room. Basically, if you ever have flooding in an LA class sub, you are going down. At least in a Strugeon class, if 3 of the 5 compartments were completely flooded, you could still survive.
Every ship is manned until it is decommissioned. One third of the crew is on board at all times to stand security watches and maintain the ship. For various reasons listed in other comments, just shutting the hatches was unacceptable - even if you had been able to stop the fire that way, the risk of reflash and the damage would be unacceptable. Submariners do not run from fires.
The ship is never unmanned. There is always people in the engineering spaces except for very few limited special conditions during a defueling of the reactor and there is at least one person forward of the engineering spaces as a roving watchstander.
I'm not sure about the specific conditions while in drydock but normally, any temporary setup (hoses, pipes etc) that passes through a water tight door has to have a quick disconnect or a way to isolate or cut the obstruction away so the door can be shut easily and quickly. I don't recall ANY circumstance where the reactor tunnel water tight door (the door that separates the forward part of the ship from the engineering spaces above the reactor compartment) could ever have anything passing through it and that door had to be shut at all times unless you are actually passing through it.
As for fire and flooding on a sub? I went through one flooding and two fires. The flooding was pretty bad and scary but at least you are "aware". You can still see, hear, and move around freely to isolate and fix it. Any type of fire almost immediately fills the entire compartment with heavy smoke, even small transformers, coils, actuators, etc can have a much bigger bark then a bite. It is scary. In 10 seconds you can't see or breathe and running away is NEVER an option. There is no "fire" department or any safe place to go. You have to immediately respond and act quickly to save you and your shipmates lives. The ship has breathing masks spread out in places and standard air type valves to plug them into all around the ship and you are trained how and where to find them in the dark. It is very scary when you have to unplug your mask, hold your breath and walk 10-20 feet in complete blinding smoke hoping you can find the next place to plug in your mask. All of this while trying to roll out a fire hose in an area about 2.5 feet wide with cabinets and pipes all around and fumbling with your mask and its hose and coordinate with other people you can not see and barely hear. You also have to check and make sure the air is cut off between compartments, luckily, the valves and air pipes can be shut from the adjacent compartments. It's hard to describe in words in a forum post but there is a lot going on. Submariners train for this and other situations over and over and over again. You have to know where every piece of damage control gear is on the ship, every hose, every type of extinguisher, every pump, every locker with breathing masks, know how to find the connections where to plug your mask in, who is in charge when, what information to relay, how to secure your space, how to remove an electrical panel, know what is flooding or on fire and how to get the power off to it etc.. If you give the wrong location of the source and someone shuts that source down, you could be screwed because the fire/flooding will rage on and you lost some other vital capability by shutting down good running equipment. Same extensive training with flooding, reactor "issues", loss of propulsion etc as well. You spend more time training and running exercises than anything else. I was on a submarine for about 10 years. Everyone makes jokes, picks on nubs, did some hazing within new Navy guidelines etc but when the shit hit the fan or something was going wrong, people stepped up and had your back 100% every single time. The option to walk or run away from a threat is not there. Stepping outside for a while is not an option.
Happy Memorial Day to my fellow shipmates and those that have served in the armed forces. I Thank You.