On April 10, 1963, the USS Thresher, an atomic submarine, sinks in the Atlantic Ocean, killing the entire crew. One hundred and twenty-nine sailors and civilians were lost when the sub unexpectedly plunged to the sea floor roughly 300 miles off the coast of New England.
The Thresher was launched on July 9, 1960, from Portsmouth Naval Yard in New Hampshire. Built with new technology, it was the first submarine assembled as part of a new class that could run more quietly and dive deeper than any that had come before.
On April 10, 1963, at just before 8 a.m., the Thresher was conducting drills off the coast of Cape Cod. At 9:13 a.m., the USS Skylark, another ship participating in the drills, received a communication from the Thresher that the sub was experiencing minor problems.
Other attempted communications failed and, only five minutes later, sonar images showed the Thresher breaking apart as it fell to the bottom of the sea. Sixteen officers, 96 sailors and 17 civilians were on board. All were killed.
On April 12, President John F. Kennedy ordered that flags across the country be flown at half-staff to commemorate the lives lost in this disaster. A subsequent investigation revealed that a leak in a silver-brazed joint in the engine room had caused a short circuit in critical electrical systems. The problems quickly spread, making the equipment needed to bring the Thresher to the surface inoperable.
The disaster forced improvements in the design and quality control of submarines. Twenty-five years later, in 1988, Vice Admiral Bruce DeMars, the Navy’s chief submarine officer, said “The loss of Thresher initiated fundamental changes in the way we do business—changes in design, construction, inspections, safety checks, tests, and more. We have not forgotten the lessons learned. It’s a much safer submarine force today.”
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Mostly true. The death blow was moisture in their 4500 psi emergency blow lines. The reactor “scrammed,” due to the aforementioned electrical fault. No reactor = no steam (eventually) to drive to the surface. With moisture in the blow lines, the lines froze as soon as the high pressure air is applied.
The Thresher became negatively buoyant and slowly sank. Comms with skimmers were maintained as she slowly sank to crush depth.
I was a sub-QAI once upon a time and was learned this tale. Failure to adhere to stringent standards mean death to all on board.
BTW: the Scorpion sank because of a faulty design of the electrolytic plates within the batteries of the torpedoes on board.
Run silent. Run deep.
Kev
Please speak in English… us old Air Force guys don’t know your lingo.
I’m just an everyday Joe, and yet, I understand every word of what the original poster was talking about.
Howdy Will! The water leaking onto electrical equipment, as noted from the post, caused an emergency shutdown of the nuclear reactor. As they were too heavy to maintain depth, and were slowly sinking, they initiated an emergency blow. This is when high-pressure air is forced into the ballast tanks just inside of the hull, causing the true and only stealth military machine to become more buoyant and ascend to the surface.
Unfortunately, there was moisture in the air lines leading to the ballast tanks. When local pressure increased from ambient to 4500 psi instantaneously, the moisture flashes to ice. This clogged the air lines and prevented the boat from becoming buoyant. With the reactor offline, the boat was unable to use its propulsion to drive to the surface. Thus, the negatively buoyant boat slowly sank to crush depth. At which point the hull breached, immediately increased the pressure within the hull, and igniting the diesel fumes and farts in the air of the sub (think diesel cylinder). Everyone burns when a sub implodes.
That sad part of the tale is that the Thresher was communicating with the surface support ships (skimmers) the whole time. They knew death was neigh, and nothing could help those poor souls during their 12 minute final dive.
War Is A Racket
Some contractor (or many), got more money to build a replacement.
And a bunch of the young dumb fulla cum brigade climbed inside, instead of going to trade school and building, instead of destroying.
Because they believed in the racket of war they’d been sold since birth, downvoters.
I rode SSN 595 17 years later…
SSN-639
Our next-door neighbor was a Westinghouse engineer and disappeared for 3 weeks when this happened and his wife was in the dark as to where he went, too.