I spent 20 years in the submarine force as a Sonar Technician. My first major deployment was a Western Pacific (WestPac) 7-month long cruise. One of the ports we stopped at was in Guam. For people unfamiliar with this location, Guam is literally the top of a mountain. I was assigned to the fathometer (depth to keel sounder) during the maneuvering watch. Pretty sure the Sonar Chief did this on purpose. So we're coming in and the soundings are at maximum scale. Then within seconds, we go from deep ocean to shallow (red soundings) faster than I could change the range scale and I'm pretty sure the pitch of my voice rose just as quickly. Of course this sudden change in bottom reflected the steep incline of the mountain and it was totally expected by the more experienced members of the Navigation party, but it definitely made an impact on myself. The Navigation drill involving red & yellow soundings brought back all of the sheer terror that I remembered!!
So massive command failures at nearly all levels, but the sailors manning their stations saved the day despite the lack of command leadership.... that says a lot for the young sailors and non-comm's involved.
What's fantastic is that they had a heads up on the situation and knew what to do. This reminds me of a WW-2 sub that went into an uncontrolled steep dive. Without waiting for orders, the engine room went into full reverse and that gave them the extra seconds to regain control of the sub.
I agree BZs to the crew for performing so well in an intense situation. Maintaining propulsion was critical for saving the ship. I do however recognize that both the QM and the ANAV failed miserably in their core duties, the QM especially. Regardless of the past operational issues and mistakes made on the plot, not reporting the issues with the soundings was the key event that contributed to the grounding. With a working key indicator of depth, in shallow waters, this device more than likely would have warned them of problems in their navigation. The Captain relies heavily on his watch standers to do the jobs they were trained to do. Without prompt feedback from the QM, the ANAV, NAV, OOD, CDO and the CO could not respond to this potentially crippling situation.
22 year retired submariner TMC/SS. I have just one word listening to your report and the arrogance of this crew. INEVITABLE! COMSUBPAC should’ve been relieved as well!
I was surface warfare during my 20 years as a QM. During a small snapshot of time in the early 2000's our FTG in San Diego evaluated my nav team as insufficiently trained. I addressed everything FTG listed in their final evaluation and re-evaluation was scheduled for 3 months later during our work ups for deployment. 3 months later, again, my team was given low scores even though we passed every single navigation and ship handling exercise. The navigator appealed the evaluation. It was found that the evaluator had less experience than my entire nav team and he was replaced. We received a passing evaluation a short time later before deployment. Sometimes its just political.
That's the sad thing that can happen in any organization, especially a large, complex one. Key people, insecure about their own shortcomings, point the finger loudly and often at others, esp. a low-ranking target, to take the spotlight far away from themselves.
Happened on my boat. Everything got blamed on the enlisted for a bad orse eval. Beat us like dogs and even had the base commander come down to the boat, sat us all down and proceeded to rip all of the enlisted a new ass hole. Right afterwards, the senior ET1 who was a good friend, gets up and leaves the boat (he's on duty). He disappears and no one has a clue where he went. I don't know what the command does in that situation, but a couple of days later we find out that he went to Vermont. He was in the parking lot of Walmart, called the cops and told them to come get his body. He then shoots himself in the head. Sometimes you can beat the people at the bottom a little too much and they end up feeling trapped, resulting in terrible things.
I found out on a DD during REFTRA in Gitmo that FTG ALWAYS gives an Unsat as your first score. That way they take credit for your great second score, (supposedly) showing how good they are at their job. Unfortunately, our CO didn't know that and had the XO hound us mercilessly to try and avoid the Unsat first grades for each exercise.
Politics. Ugh. Want to take a bet against the 5 Group CO being told by SUBPACFLT or S-74 that someone he fingered was somebody's fair haired boy? ARGH! DOUGout
I worked for General Dynamics in the late 80's to early 90's and was part of the SSN-21 class design team. Those guys did a great job saving that ship. We only have a total of 3 SeaWolf class ships out there. These 3 ships are among the best Subs with extraordinary equipment and capabilities. We can not afford to lose a SeaWolf class ship!
I worked for Huntington and ingals building the last 5 Virginia class subs. I left as we were switching over to the new class burkle I think or something like that. I worked on the RBP (retractable bow plane) building subs was cool. Now I work at general dynamics nassco building oil tankers, I've had my hands on 4 tankers with 2 in the water currently and 2 in dry dock. Building ships is dope! Thank you for what you've done, paved the way for the rest of us!
Rumor has it, the only operational Seawolf class is the Jimmy Carter with the other two, Seawolf & Connecticut being used for parts? What a waste for such a noble set of boats?
Holy smokes those guys must have been shitting bricks when they flipped the chicken switches and kept sinking out. Can't even imagine that feeling of dread.
Although not Military, I've worked in Corporates - and when there is an issue that gets escalated up the chain and then suddenly the issue is a non-issue: Either someone is sleeping with someone or that issue is the door that is hiding a skeleton.
I’m a former sub qualified officer. It’s been many years since I served, but this summary provides some insight as to why people were relieved of their duties. One thing that wasn’t mentioned (I assume because it’s not in the report) was when was the last time they had a navigational fix. It would be interesting to know. If they were traveling at those speeds I assume they were transiting and not doing a specific operation. If so the two OOD’s involved weren’t doing their jobs, nor was the navigator and the QM. At the very least when the watch section switched over the oncoming OOD should be verifying the ships position and identifying possible hazards. It sounds like everyone was in a relaxed “business as usual “ transiting mindset.
Having the Fathometer in deep mode while being shallow is roughly the equivalent of using a Geiger counter to test the radiation of a spent nuclear fuel rod. To those who do not know what I mean by that, it is that the amount of radiation produced by the rod is so ridiculously high that it causes the Geiger to essentially have a seizure which causes it to not give a reading at all, giving the false perception that there is no radiation at all. The same thing happens with a Fathometer, that is expecting a fairly weak signal from deep water, suddenly being blasted by high energy soundwaves coming up from a bottom directly below it. The fathometer was getting such a strong return, that in the deep-water mode, it was being oversaturated by return signals to the point where it could not give any reading at all.
Reminds me of high school physics class when they are using ammeter and the teacher saying you can easily blow the equipment if you use the wrong setting (eg measure in mili ampere instead of whole amps)
I’m a 69yo disabled USAF veteran and have only been on a USN Submarine once in Pearl Harbor. My friend Manny Irwin brought me aboard to show me around. Very impressive. We spent about an hour in the sub and I was in awe the whole time. How you men do this is an amazing feat. Thank You for protecting America.
Standing watch on the fathometer was stressful in shallow water, especially when the returns became erratic. Always felt a severe sense of dread in those situations as I adjusted knobs to dial it back in even if the QM’s chart showed we were in navigable water.
it's very taxing! your dread is THE CORRECT response, but it's emotionally draining! Instead it appears these guys NAV et al and higher were just mailing it in.
I'm on a sub out here in Guam, and seeing the damage to the bow with my own eyes when they pulled in next to us really gave me a different view on just how crazy our job is as submariners!
Thank you for your service and standing the watch. I am a retired submariner. As had as it was (and is for you now) it is an amazing assignment to sail on a submarine.
The Engineering crew really was on their toes. This navigational error could have easily become an imploded sub had Engineering not been able to recover.
This is definitely why we train so hard I suppose. You just kick in to gear and go onto auto and get it done. It's amazing as you don't stop to think until its all over.
Well, it should have been a tip off, were command actually in command of the vessel, when the night relief NAV got lost inside the head and needed rescue to extract him. *I* could've ran those watches better and being 28 years Army, I'd get lost halfway through the frigging hatch! Let's be honest, that vessel had nobody in command, save perhaps the currents. It's likely, that had the senior leadership of the boat remained ashore, the watches would've been effective, which is a very sad, but unfortunately true state of affairs in a lax enough as to effectively be absent command climate. I've witnessed that myself on more than a few occasions over my career. That's not only the Captain's fault, but a major fault in the flag level leadership, as was displayed when our surface fleet played bumper cars in congested waters in 2017. In those, there were fatalities - all because leadership was nebulous at best, absent at worse. There's a casualty model that's called the Swiss cheese model, referencing the holes in the cheese and the concept is that failures can be stopped if the holes don't match up, so ensure that you don't allow situations to be possible where the holes do line up. Instead, they allowed things to so degrade that every position became a single point of failure and a casualty was inevitable. Even money, the only reason nobody opened the hatch while they were at depth was due to the water pressure.
Submariner Veteran here. The entire crew of a US Sub is trained in damage control and casualty control. Firefighting flood control and saving lives is the responsibility of the entire crew and we are all trained in these matters. We know the proper fire extinguisher to use depending on what material is burning how to use FFE and Emergency Air Breathers along with the multiple connection points. Flood control we have the portable and main water pump units wooden wedges hammers and clamps to reduce or stop the inflow of water even to the point of pumping out more water than what is coming in. Subs do not have a damage control department/division that is the responsibility of the entire crew. Key clue of flooding if it scares you sound the alarm (report it) by whatever means necessary then get the proper gear and get started controlling the water inflow. Same thing for fires and casualties/injuries/deaths. Yeah the engineering crew did their job.
Thank you for doing this. As a person who has never served in the military forces it is an outstanding insight into the hows and whys of the way things are done. There are many lessons that are applicable outside of the military context. For example, your discussion of the need for "formal" language was very interesting to me as I run a cyber-security team which can also suffer from degradation of communication when the adrenalin is pumping, in the middle of a cyber breach event.
1. Procedural Compliance 2. Formality 3. "Point, Read, Operate" 4. Forceful Backup 5. Integrity There are a lot of things people could utilize in the civilian sector from the "sub life."
@@cheddar2648 Exactly the same in the PBI. Ground - Situation - Mission - Execution - Administration/Attachments and Detachments - Command responsibilities - Questions. And don't get me started on our political bosses.
@@cheddar2648 is that why vets make up such a high % of the homeless population? Sure it teaches some good lessons, if you survive. But it also gives some false impressions of real life
I agree with you brobsonmontey. I am not military either. I know there’s a chain of command and punishment is handed accordingly. I am also not sure what “fired” truly means. We’re they demoted, reassigned, given more training or a pink slip aka a dishonorable discharge. I really don’t know. I do know that all of the fired people while obviously asleep at the switch were highly trained. I hate seeing that go out the door. I will wait to see if others far knowledgeable than me can help me out. To all of you out there who have served, thank you so much for your service to our country and to the citizens of the USA!
16:30 The crew not performing immediate actions during drills... Holy crap. That'd be like ORSE showing up and the drill team simulating a dropped control rod and the Reactor Operator just ignoring it. Sheesh. I would imagine that the RO would be relieved on the spot!
As a former QM both sub and surface red and yellow soundings were drilled into our heads as well as procedures. I was Chart PO on paper charts and every day I was updating the charts and adding and updating them. I can not imagine going 24 knots blind with no situational awareness. I hope this has taken care of the attitudes so it never happens again. We are way past statistical probabilities of losing a boat since 1968 we have had several collisions and almost lost at least 4 boats I know if including mine while on it. I have PTSD from our almost catastrophic event but there was not such thing as psyc help for it in the 90’s.
We had an XO that spent his time during ship yards scalp hunting destroying enlisted and lower rank officers enlistments and planned careers to try to get command of the boat after the yards on the blue crew. We had an nuke engineer that had just made chief that received so much crap from said XO that he walked out the front gate of the ship yard and bought a bag of pot and walked back to the crew barge and turned himself in just to get himself transferred off the boat. I found out back during the 2000 to 2010 period that the reason the sub was decommed because the sub was run aground coming out the firth of Clyde. They found the damage so bad the command crew was relieved and another command team was assigned to return the boat to New London. Yes there has been crappy officers that CYA and scalp hunt to further their career to get to the Pentagon to get into the perfumed princes cliché to get their flag. You are correct we are damned lucky we did not lose the boat and crew it was totally the enlisted and lower rank officers that saved the day my congrats to the crew that saved the CT.
in my 20 years I found that Ensigns and Admirals were the nicest officers to do business with. Ensigns because they didn't know any better, Admirals because there wasn't much you could do to hurt their career. Worst case were Lt's and LCmdr's. And it wasn't always their fault. It had to do with the way they were promoted. Every three years they had to be evaluated for advancement. Top percent (not sure what percent) were advanced early, then the bulk advanced at the three year point. If you didn't advance, you got a mark on your record and then if you didn't advance the next time, you got a handshake and a plastic watch for your service. To protect themselves LT's and LCmdr's had to be aggressive and, yes, assholes for the most part. Once they made Commander, that requirement was no longer there, as the upper officer ranks became smaller and chances of advancement dropped drastically. Now that was not always the case. The best XO I ever served with was one of the "advance" promotion types. The worst XO was just the opposite, had already been passed over once.
Sounds like the case of, 'people who seek promotion should not be considered for promotion'. But there are people who present themselves as the best candidate for all sorts of elected activities.
as nothing more than an old landlubber I thought to myself wow they hung these guys out to dry for striking an uncharted undersea obstacle. Now I know why. Nothing is as simple as it first appears, especially with systems as complex as an SSN. thanks for a fascinating update.
A friend of mine had a brother working on this sub, and he won't talk about what happened. I guess now I understand why. Thank you for making this easily available and understandable
I served with the SSN 22 COB when he was a first class. One of the very few first classes on the boat that was qualified dive. He was incredibly smart and a great leader. I hope he makes it back.
This same thing happened to the Seawolf (SSN575) back in the late 60's when I was new on board. The similarities are amazing. I can still remember the emergency blow and the horrendous up angle. We damaged the bow and the stern. The part I had a chuckle about was that "7 Sailors were recommended for mental health treatment". Back then I guess we were just expected to "suck it up"! Anyway, I am so glad she made it back and those guys did a wonderful job saving their boat!
@@1337penguinman The didn't call The USS Andrew Jackson the "Crashin' Jack " for no reason. Damned thing could find a way to run aground over the Marianus Trench.
I'll never forget when my boat got an LOI and the CO took it out on us back in the Engine room. Friend of mine killed himself due to depression from being degraded so badly. Definetly didn't want to reenlist after that and I never forgave the CO or the base commander who personally came down to our boat and attacked our character.
@@SubBrief it was so shocking when they called us in to tell us what happened. I remember going topside and sitting in different places just trying to avoid everyone. I always wish I could have done something to help him. It messed me up mentally for the last half of my 4 years on that boat.
You have to ask why the CO wasn't removed well before this could happen. Both COMSUBPAC and the task force commander need to be investigated for there role in this.
I don't know how the US Navy works, but in the Royal Navy there's a specific course (the Submarine Command Course, aka the Perisher) which you HAVE to pass before you can take command of one of Her Majesty's remaining handful of submarines (and if you fail, you're never serving on a sub again...). I would assume the USN has something similar, so there very possibly wasn't a qualified officer who could take over at the drop of a hat from someone who must himself have passed that qualification. Combine that with the fact that it's a Seawolf and supposed to imminently "deploy to the Western Pacific" (how far between the lines do you have to read to interpret that as "go spy on China"?), and I think this was a case of "we need the boat doing this Secret Squirrel mission, the CO is qualified, light a fire under his arse and get the boat under way."
Wow, this was so much more serious. I thought they had just smashed up their expensive sonar. Instead they almost got themselves killed. They managed to ram enough gravel into the ballast tank to be negatively buoyant even after an emergency blow... plus the temporary loss of propulsion, broken trim system that they managed to fix only for the pump to catch on fire... oh my.
Being Quartermaster 50 years ago on a NUC, this all sounds crazy. We used charts, some hand drawn from far away places with limited soundings. DR plots were sometimes better than LORAN, no GPS back then. The Fathometer was never used while on deployment. Maybe now there is something less noisy, we only listened. I did use the Fathometer transiting the east coast and it was fun to watch the depths change as we we went over a canyon. The chain of command was very relaxed. I rarely saw the Navigation officer except on maneuvering watch or to wake him up for a major course change. The OOD was a rated chief and had no control other than watching the planesmen and trimming the boat. While on the surface the OOD, on the bridge, relied on the QM to tell him where to go and change coarse, he had no other means except visual. So, approaching a pier, usually with tug help, should be pretty routine, things can go wrong. As with us, no tug showed up once. We have to dock. Slowly approaching the pier, closer and closer, remember tho OOD on the bridge has no control of the boat. Barking commands, he does his best…bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam. Seven pilings split and a three foot dent on the bow. Before I reported on board, We bounced off a sea mount and wrangled up the forward blast tank grate. I could go on and on.
I served on the Darter starting in 86,I don't think our fathometer worked we stayed quiet and tiptoed (3 knots) just off the beach in all the bad guys front yards. We always knew Exactly where we were, we were Uber our clients needed us at precise coordinates to snag our periscope on our way through
I was on the 22 from 2013-2018. Out of drydock, there was much to learn on everyone's part with most sailors with zero seawolf class experience. There was definitely an atmosphere of arrogance as we began to learn and excel. Our triad was smart and confident, and though arrogance arose, we never got too ahead of ourselves. My friends who stayed on after I departed would always complain about how the new guys didn't want to work hard or try. Maybe generational, but large in part caused by the SDS5 attitude towards maintaining the 21 and 22 at sea as much as possible. From the top down, this all falls on accepting subpar day to day operations, training, and military standards. If we continue to allow softness, our navy will surely continue down this path of egregious error. Sad to know my beloved ship is potentially a parts boat becuase of ignorance. Thank you for this review.
Fascinating but - even allowing for the redactions in the report - the story is incomplete. 1. Why was the boat not recalled immediately to Guam once the failings during the mid-deployment inspection came to light? 2. What the hell was the boat doing flogging around at just shy of 20 knots in the South China Sea? It's dangerous enough there for surface ships, let alone submarines and, being in China's back yard, is very likely to be full of Chinese underwater sensors. 3. What happened to the Commander of Submarine Development Squadron 5? He had flagged this boat as below standard (dangerous, even) all the way through. 4. Why did the Squadron Commander then withdraw his criticisms, following his conversation with COMSUBPAC? 5. Was his departure REALLY a routine, planned succession of command? 5. Finally, what happened to COMSUBPAC? Surely, his judgement had to have been questioned in endorsing the boat as fit for operations. Did he get off Scot free because he was the one who convened the board of enquiry.
Freemasons are weakening western War capabilities from within before WW3 with China, russia and half the muslim world is started. Weak the soldiers, weak cohesion, weak the training standarts, let equipment break down and screw up new developments and deployments wasting billions of taxmoney. Nothing ive seen the American military and politics been doing since bush senior came into power was to benefit of america
As far as I know, the report only addresses question #2. The CO wanted to get back to port as soon as possible in order to perform a "humanitarian evacuation transit" (essentially, a crew member needs to leave the boat ASAP, probably for important health or personal reasons). The CO also wanted to get back to port in order to fix the forward fathometer as soon as possible.
@@thefreeaccount0 that’s not a good reason to be noisy in those waters. China has got to have arrays out there. And I shouldn’t laugh but going faster to fix the fathometer when you get to port is is laughable.
There must have been some world class ass-covering over at COMSUBPAC. The suddenness of the squadron report's change makes me think that the Connecticut's old captain has a few superiors indebted to him in some way.
An interesting discussion would be whether the process and stadards of the nav team and watch officers was so bad because of lower standards held by the CO, or if the CO,XO had created an environment where the crew was reluctant to speak up about the (seemingly) minor stuff. I don't know the standards required by the QM, but if his job says report ANY failing of the ONE fathometer they are using, why would he not do so, except for failing level of standard or bad environment for reporting. Sickening stuff. Almost lost a crew, and a boat, to incompetence that could have been avoided.
As much as I have studied philosophy and logics and being and ex-military I would say that you are on track with your analysis. Too many factors that ends up in a pattern that leads to a grave mistake. But I would believe that there have to be some lingering pattern of ignorance in the system of naval command aswell. "There is no fire without a smoke"
@@Opiuth I've heard stories (no details, just situational) from people involved in investigations into sub commanders and other high brass, and it reminded me that while many are fantastic and honorable individuals, there are always some who cannot live up to the highest standards of conduct. Sometimes I wonder if a British "Punisher" style command school might help a bit to weed out the ones like the main story's CO.
Great video. Very well presentend and super interesting. It reminds me of many videos from the Mentour Pilot channel where air accidents are explained. And here as well as in his channel you can clearly see how one failure leads to more and more and what a cascade of such failures can cause. Thank you for this informative video.
Glad to see the Command did get some UCMJustice. My 2 COs were awesome and my old XO became the first CO on the USS Virginia. Mr Kern I believe. He hated us Agangers because early in his career as a junior officer, he was climbing out of his boat and accidentally tripped the Hatch latch as he grabbed the handle to exit. That water tight Hatch just happened to be in the middle of having the counter balance springs replaced. So instead of having the 800lb 3" HY80 Steel Hatch slowly start to close as he hit the hold-open latch, it just just fell closed with his head inbetween and literally broke his head in half at the nose level. From what I was told, he was in the hospital for over a year or so, but he recovered and came back to the sub service. So when he was our XO, he would come by and do pop quiz's anytime he saw Auxillary Division doing maintenance or PMS. So I learned quick to always have every tool, ppe, and correct in-date lubricants called out in the maintenance procedure as on-the-spot inspections were the norm. I can probably give that man 75% of the credit for our boats "Battle E" due to his involvement with the crew. He was harsh, but he made us better men in the end. Great Men: Commander Kern and my mentor COB, Master Chief Gooch!
Very informative report, thank you for presenting it in an interesting way. Basically shows that no single f' up can cause something like this, but only many, systemic issues combined.
It's called the "swiss cheese" model of accidents: several layers have to line up to allow an accident through. 1. SDS-5 rider got over-ruled by his relief. Could have been pushed to sea to meet operational requirements despite numerous noted work-up problems. 2. Forward fatho INOP. 3. Bad chart work. 4. Failure to communicate: QM did not report irregularities to anyone. Maybe one day we will stop sending boats into the "Dangerous Ground" area after two near-fatal rammings of undersea mounts. Well, I guess it was fatal for the one guy aboard Frisco. RIP.
@@SubBrief 22 was a good boat, we all loved the COB, Nav, and Cap, even the Anav was pretty ok, if there's anywhere heads shoulda rolled at it shoulda been at Devron 5, guarantee the commodore, whos so busy showing off the seawolves to the navy, didn't get any blame
I was stationed on the USS Wasp LHD-1 when we ran aground off the coast of Somalia in '93 doing gator squares. I remember the ship shuddering when I was in my rack, and I thought we were doing speed trials. Thankfully, it was only the screw that impacted the bottom. They relieved our captain (who was in his quarters at the time), navigator, and a couple of others. Other than that (which I heard was the enlisted navigator's fault), he was a great captain. He was the same captain whose ship hit a magnetic mine in the Persian Gulf that tore open the starboard bow. His leadership helped save that ship.
Wow, this is just terrible. I am so glad I served on my boat when I did. Any crew that we were part of could've ended up like this crew, but thank God it didn't. I really hope the crew of CONNECTICUT turns it around whenever the boat gets out of drydock. I highly recommend they all read Capt. L. David Marquet's books, they're going to need them.
I don't think that boat is ever getting out of dry dock. The Navy just doesn't want to admit it yet, but i don't see them spending the money to get her seaworthy again.
@@louiscypher4186 Respectfully disagree. The capabilities of that boat are far too great to just scrap it. They installed the forward part of HONOLULU on SAN FRANCISCO, a boat that was far less advanced than CONNECTICUT. They're going to get CONNECTICUT back out to sea as she's too valuable to not be out there.
@@machinesofgod eh far enough disagreement is always healthy, I just thought she's older, extremely expensive, she'll never be as quiet and the new Virginia block V's are being rolled out soon. I thought it would make more sense to turn her into a parts bin for the other two seawolf boats.
@38:46: This part reminds me of something an instructor once told me. A lot of people expect Murphy's law, but sailors are better of served by O'Toole's commentary on Murphy's Law which goes, "Murphy was a [REDACTED] optimist. After all, things tend to go from bad to worse."
I think that is half the problem. THey have worked hard to get there, now that they are there, they dont need to improve as they are already the best of the best. The actual best of the best realise they are there because they act like there is always someone better out there.
@@taylorc2542 they wouldn't "RELIEVE A CO of command (fire him) just for "cover". No..! this is legit. Cover could go many many other ways other than this. Course correct your thinking!
First time here. This report earned a like and subscribe. I grew up reading USNI proceedings and this is hits a similar combination of insight and clarity. Top notch.
I’m a marine who did two deployments on the 31st MEU on the BHR (ship that burned down). This is fascinating bc I really don’t know a lot about how the navy operates. I was an 0311 so I’m good at eating crayons. The more I learn the more the navy impresses me and I’m grateful for how y’all treated us on ship!
"Eating crayons!" I'm a jarhead ('60-'64) and that expression always makes me laugh! I was an airdale twidget, not 0311; and maybe we didn't eat as many crayons -- but we did eat them! :-) SF
I can't even imagine how terrifying that must have been for the crew. I guess if the boat has negative buoyancy and the emergency blow fails, without propulsion the next step is to pray that the bottom is shallower than crush depth. Outstanding reporting as usual!
@fortusvictus8297 I did 50 feet in submarine school, between 2 and 400 you're ears are gonna blow. "Don't worry, we can fix those" Below 400 you're doomed
@fortusvictus8297 I was honorman for submarine school for the 688 nuclear fast attack. "You should read all the manuals "?? I have, at least 3 times AND I'm qualified submarines. And you?
Awesome work, thanks for this. I was precom crew on the USS Connecticut before I got out in 1998 and I have been eagerly awaiting this report. As always your coverage and insights have been spot on.
I have a feeling the real root cause of this incident will not be addressed until there are significant changes farther up the command structure - perhaps all the way up.
The problem is that the US Navy is loosing it's war with it's longest standing and most nefarious enemy, the US Congress. Cutting budgets, 'doing more with less', efficiency savings, deferred maintenance, eventually they take their toll on both the equipment and the personnel.
@@DERP_Squad Nope...Congress didn't force the LCS or contractor-only maintenance on the Navy. That was CJCS Mullen, who wanted a leaner, faster navy capable of "network-central warfare (NCW)." Mullen's goals were very forward-looking, and his initiatives succeeded in restoring the reputation of the Navy after its disastrous performance and inability to coordinate with other services during Desert Storm (1991) and Kosovo (1999). However, the implementation of NCW left a lot to be desired. Congress is partly to blame, but in some respects, the Navy asked for this and got what it wanted.
@@DERP_Squad dude, the navy we have has been obsoleted "as a platform" (ie nearly in toto). This is the age of hypersonics! scary stuff for surface ships. huge obsolescence of investments.
You have done a great job reviewing and explaining this report . The members of the crew who in whole or in part caused this incident should be court martialed and seperated from the service . While their motivation to serve is not in question , the possible death of an entire crew cannot be overlooked .
Favoritism for "minorities" is the likely culprit here. CO's name is Al Jilani. That is probably what COMBUBPAC told CSDS-5 on their call. Rickover spinning in his grave
Thanks once again SUB BRIEF for this latest update concerning the USS Connecticut underwater incident in the South China Sea. Being a former submariner yourself only adds to the excitement and joy that l experience while watching your many videos.Please keep up the good work sir. Guess Lady Luck was present that almost fateful day. God bless you sir....from a fan here in the Fiji Islands down the South Pacific.
I appreciate you fairly judged the entire picture and especially recognized the crew who did the right things to save the ship and prevent the problems from being far worse. Great work.
This is an excellent summary and presentation of a very dramatic and entirely preventable occurrence. It should be mandatory viewing for anyone working in safety critical environments, whether it is on land, at sea or in the air. Thank you for taking the time to create and share this content.
When we did the SSN 23 conversion we added a deep submergence object avoidance sonar (DSOAS) which hopefully prevents this type of mishap. However if memory serves, it's operation is limited to lower ship speeds. Also, wouldn't a faulty trim pump have been a CAT 3 CASRP? TYCOM wouldn't normally release a ship for unrestricted ops with this problem.
Excellent video. I was a QM on the USS Chicago in the late 80s to early 90s. I had 18 years of sea time in 22 years of service. I can't imagine having a chain of command that functioned like this. Although, we did have a CO that thought he walked on water near the end of my tour there. I think you nailed the hubris comment spot on.
I was an STS2 on board Connecticut during this whole event and all the events leading up to it to include the pier allision in San Diego. The COB was relieved by our squadron CMC and never returned. The CMC was later relieved by an entirely new COB.
My father served on one of the last diesel boats and why I was born in Key West in the early 60s. He is 100% boats and I pursued a career in aviation. I can relate to the wording used as being overly technical. The control input operator made contact with a elevated terrain feature leading to a destructive aircraft dismantling. Meaning. The pilot flew into a mountain.
Thank you. As an old boat sailor I pretty much filled in the blanks, although that trim system failure is a puzzler. The temporary loss of propulsion was a frightening aspect. I recall the "recovery curves" and how important maintenance of propulsion is to coming out alive (those curves got drilled in as part of qualifying on throttles). Your comments about some people feeling that they are "special" by virtue of being assigned are spot-on. There are those who think themselves "chosen ones" and then there were those who recognize that they have a lot of learning to do if they are going to meet expectations. The former are dangerous. It's the difference between arrogant and humble. Like you, I would love to know what transpired in that magical "Zoom Call" that led to the assessment reversal. It seems to me that the people who orchestrated that change of heart should be under review as well. Their political concerns overrode their readiness mandate. This seems to be a case of SRDH. The cooking oil fiasco raises concerns about stowing for sea. Didn't they do angles and dangles? Did they allow stowage to degrade over time as some stores were pulled for use? Rocks in 1A and 1B. That explains the initial buoyancy problem after EBT blow. Remember the pictures of the bow of the USS San Francisco (2005)? I have not found any Connecticut damage pictures. (The Atlanta had a similar run in with mother earth as well. That happened near Gibraltar.) Forward fathometer failure. Trim pump problem (known, then caught fire). Weird trim system malfunction. This is a pretty new boat. What is going on with its material condition? Own ships noise reflected back to them. They are at 24 knots and they hear this? I thought this class was supposed to be quiet?! Perhaps it says good things for their passive sonar... it could hear this despite flow noise. Sort of a good news / bad news situation.
For civilians who have always regarded the submarine service in a romantic and adventurous light thanks to films and books, you bring an awareness that it requires a team of highly trained, hard working people in difficult conditions to be successful. Thanks for your insights.
If u romanticize the ocean and submersibles you are Naive. No power matches that of the ocean. None makes you feel more insignificant. And in a wondowless steel tube w/ incompetent leadership is a NIGHTMARE not a dream. - not a military person but grew up on the water
Thanks Jive, great breakdown. Quick question, the admirals that kept giving the CO a pass on some pretty glaring shortcomings, any mention of disciplinary actions for them?
Terrific video. Wonderful and inciteful analysis of the accident investigation. The incompetent skipper was an expert in unmanned vessels, they say! The Navy command structure is so overwhelmed by fear over equal opportunity officers that they allowed this dude to stay in command when he clearly was unfit.
Diversity hires can't be fired for poor performance because most of the diversity hires got in despite failing the minimum requirements from the start. It's in the name diversity hires are hired for "diversity" and not ability.
That was a WILD ride. I'm reminded of several times that Drach, Jamie, and Dr. Clarke have talked about problems in peacetime chain of command and culture in multiple navies. This incident appears to have both some of the same problems that they've mentioned, and some contrasting ones. I'm very curious to see what conclusions on that line of evaluation we see in this case in the near future.
I found interesting the similarities between HR practices in Corporate and the Navy, verbal counseling, first letter, second letter, recommended additional training etc. also the same issues with team members not willing to listen - the big difference is that people don't have the potential to die and take the rest of their teammates in Corporate.
The point at which someone takes command of a sub, they represent a significant investment of resources between their training and experience. It makes sense they aren't relieved without very good reason.
Similarities indeed ... There are many qualified yet few are chosen, and sometimes, all being equal, it pays to be on the golf team. I had the feeling throughout this report that there were underlying currents involved.
I'm a former DWO & navigator on a USCG buoy tender home-ported on Guam. I kept cringing and muttering "Oh, you guys are screwed" and "Damn, that was lucky" as I watched this. USS CONNECTICUT almost became the next USS THRESHER. Yikes.
I am a retired surface navy MCPO …retired almost 40 years ago. Short story - it appears this boat was not ready to deploy but was deployed anyway which is a problem with not only the boat but with their upper command. I see everyone of consequence on the boat gets fired but nothing in the report about the sub fleet upper command in deploying a vessel not ready. I recall my second deployment on one particular DLG in June of 1975 - was about a year early because another DLG failed an operational propulsion plant evaluation (OPPE) and were not allowed to deploy which I presume was ALNAV guidance rather than a local decision by her CCDG. Our ship took her deployment. I’ve always thought subs were far more strictly overseen on guidance like this. It appears that’s not the case or if it is, there’s no mention of it in this report. Was it sanitized?
I would suspect they classified it as bios primarily based on initial visual cues. (Broad and diffuse). Last time I checked though, shrimp sounds quite different from steam noise. Who knows, maybe it got labeled as magma displacement. Proves nature of sound still needs to be in the mix. Still, they may not have had the time to fully analyze the trace considering the bell they were at. By the time they heard their own noise being reflected back it was most likely already too late. So, moot point.
@@motuit Very good point. And if your boat is as silent at standard/full bells as a Seawolf is reported to be, that just makes it even harder to hear your own reflection off submerged terrain features anyways.
As a Ex MM3\SS this fricken Nav crew is unbelievable. I would be ripping into and throttling these enept kids running that boat. Not reporting Loss of Sounding? They are lucky to be alive. And they are a Special Ops boat! That whole Command needs to be fired and unqualified.
They were flying a huge bus, underwater blind, and far off course. Going too fast for accurate fathometer readings, or any soundings at all? Okay, slow the boat down and take a few readings, resume speed if needed. Why was none of this done?!?! Did they have to make a rendezvous? Well so many errors with the command and nav crew, I'm shaking my head. I get it, no one boat is 100%, but you make do with the limitations. You sure as hell don't navigate blind, the nav crews should have been raising alarms but were...SNAFU?!?! Just rings so very wrong.
Very good report; in my reading of the report I had missed the time line of the discussion between CSDS5/SubPac/St 74. While the Change of Command/relief of CSDS5 CO may or may not have been a reaction to his prior reporting, it seems apparent that the drive to deploy at all costs was the controlling interest. While not military, I worked over 30 years in the marine environment (offshore production facilities) and one thing that becomes obvious as you gain experience/exposure is that crews attitude/performance is usually a reflection of their leadership, regardless of how they personally feel about that leadership (good or bad). Having been on teams assessing crew performance, I would not be surprised that if you had audio/video of the entire command with the CO, you'd find early in his tenure he took people to task for 'bothering' him with needless details. You beat the messenger often enough and they will stop carrying the messages. The very worst, most destructive thing a crew can do is to begin doing EXACTLY what their leadership tells them to do. And not one thing more.
"You will do as your told".... just smile and say "Yes Sir" Over 50 years of employment, and several careers,, I only had 2 knucklehead's to work for; not bad. One was a submarine chief who was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. I thought the Navy was crap till I got to a different command, which seemed like a relative vacation. The other was later in life, and evil incarnate. Developing a good crew, or working for one is very fulfilling. Some people you can turn lose ... others need close supervision ... There was something wrong in this command ... undercurrents .
Just amazes me such a dis-functional crew is assigned to one of the best submarines in the world. Really shows how pressed the navy is to actually man what they have I guess. At least though it shows how much the drill training paid off. These men, especially those standing, slammed into whatever was directly fore of them at dangerous velocities with no warning, as the boat encountered massive deceleration from an immovable object. And that they were able to get their senses enough to do everything they did to save the boat was impressive.
The crew is probably perfectly capable of handling the ship just fine. The issue lies with the command team that trained and led them. It makes a big difference when the command allows standards to slip, whether because they don't know or don't care. It starts from the top, but trickles down to deckplate through the department heads/department chiefs to the division officers/division chiefs to the crew members and watch standers. If one person lets something slid at any level, it can go bad pretty quickly and takes a lot to get back to the proper standard.
The Navy is in such a push to get subs still in service out to sea, they'll average a crew based on no other experience. Every submariner need to performing perfectly once and that's usually their last time, or the boats last time
Can understand the sentiment of old boat and everything seems to be broken, reportedly the Trafalger class were much like that though they had another decade on the Seawolf class. HMS Talent and HMS Trenchart were both decommissioned on the 20th May leaving just HMS Triumph in service.
The Navy has had one embarrassing debacle after another in the last several years. This is perhaps the most egregious. There needs to be a culture change. What has happened to our Navy???
Peace has cost them their strength. Victory has defeated them. But seriously, the lack of actual combat experience has lulled the service to complacency.
What happened was Donald Trump pushing OPSTEMPO to crushing levels. The culture issues go way further back to even before the Cold War ended, but the training and qualification lapses were caught, or at least not as likely to go unnoticed before causing an incident, because the crews prior to 2017-ish weren't operating on less than 4 hours of sleep and record deployment lengths. People who objected got removed, because that's how the Trump administration works, and the result is you're only left with ass-kissers and cover-upers.
As a military and civilian pilot, I find this is very close to our checklists and response to emergencies. We are tested annually or every six months in a simulator for our performance during normal flight operations and emergencies. If a pilot does not perform his required actions correctly, especially in simulated emergencies, he will receive a fainting grade. He will, of course, retrain until he passes, but that failure is recored by both his company and the FAA. It becomes part of his permanent record. I guarantee you a few failures and you are out of a job. I am surprised that more action was not taken to remove the individuals who where not performing correctly before they went to sea. This was a wonderful analysis of submarine operations. I found it very interesting and eductational.
I was commissioning Chop on this boat. The entire incident shocked me. Great job on this report. Great channel. We knew with only three Seawolf subs that part support was going to be a big problem. With all of the equipment problems the boat was having I have to wonder if the 22 boat went to sea with insufficient spare parts.
@@NovaTrap1312 lol yeah. Maybe they should use soundproof trucks without windows but with sonar as training vehicles for submariners. I bet that would be a lot of fun to see which crew performs best on a parkour.
There was never any doubt the CO, XO, NAV and OOD were going to be relieved at a minimum. I served aboard the USS Permit (SSN 594) and we had an “incident” on my 2nd underway that afforded us a lovely 30+ day vacation in Adak, AK. We had a new CO, XO and Eng (he was the OOD) on our next underway several months later. Somehow our NAV didn’t get the axe but our “incident” wasn’t really navigationally related.
As a fellow Submariner, BZ on your very informative vid. When you described as she was slipping deeper with no propulsion and blowing the MBTs didn't help, all I could think of that's exactly how Thresher sank. Awesome show- good job!
Thoughts and prayers for all the professional NAVs, ANAVs, OODs, and QMOWs out there. Also the FTs and STs out there that are gonna get roped in just because. This group is total clown shoes and caused SO much extra training for so many people. On a professional note as a former sub dude, this scenario is the stuff of nightmare. I spent a ton of time in the DOOW seat. Holy crap, seriously. A grounding followed by uncontrollable broach, then the EMBT fails, then you lose PLO, then you get propulsion back and lose the trim system due to fire. I had a few.... interesting days at work, but nothing of this magnitude.
@@ThoughtsByJBrown It was reported as loss of PLO and then once they figured it out they reported it restored without explaining. So from the perspective of the commander it was actually lost and then restored.
@@benjaminnoble2244 I understand what you are saying. I was just responding with the the paraphrasing you did as was written. That is my bad. Of course it was called away as loss of PLO they would shut down the propulsion system until they knew it was not a PLO rupture.
And I celebrate and commend the actions of her crew to save a magnificent ship. I can’t believe the negligence of the watch standers in such an important evolution!
Pretty clear that certain higher-ups were in a hurry to get this sub deployed. Also pretty clear that there were key people on this sub who very simply just weren't communicating with each other.
Favoritism for "minorities" is the likely culprit here. CO's name is Al Jilani. That is probably what COMBUBPAC told CSDS-5 on their call. Rickover spinning in his grave
You are amazingly good at taking what I imagine is a very long, heavily formalised report and turning it into something understandable for us normies, with all the missing context added. Thank you!
Might be a bitter take but the correct automatic reactions have negatively impacted the overall navy by allowing these screwups to survive their institutional neglect and failure.
The crew did it's job quickly and effectively. Seeing as how "these meatballs" saved the boat from serious compound casualties with immediate and effective action, I would have exactly ZERO problems with sailing with any of them - (um, maybe a different anav). They brought the boat back with everyone alive. I view it in the same light as pilots who claim any landing you walk away from is a good one! :-) Submariners once...
@@motuit I mean, if you consider a preventable crash due to the pilot ignoring his altimeter in heavy fog "a good landing" just because nobody died, then sure I guess. Next time, though, they might have to take the "almost" out of "almost sank the ship". Also I'm pretty sure mrspeigle1 meant the command team when talking about "these meatballs", not the crew as a whole.
Safety is everyone's responsibility. The Navy is supposed to be encouraging a culture that allows anyone to point out an unsafe condition even if it is not in their wheelhouse.
Another outstanding and detailed debriefing… You really are setting a gold standard… I stumbled across your channel during the ill fated titanic carbon fiber, submersible debacle… Been coming back ever since
I was in the Navy and one thing I remembered was that when relieving a watch, you read the logs and go over points of interest. The guy leaving briefs the guy coming on watch, so important log entries etc. are transferred. In other words when relieve you make sure you are up to speed on preceding events! From this report it appears they do not do this on that boat.
I spent 20 years in the submarine force as a Sonar Technician. My first major deployment was a Western Pacific (WestPac) 7-month long cruise. One of the ports we stopped at was in Guam. For people unfamiliar with this location, Guam is literally the top of a mountain. I was assigned to the fathometer (depth to keel sounder) during the maneuvering watch. Pretty sure the Sonar Chief did this on purpose. So we're coming in and the soundings are at maximum scale. Then within seconds, we go from deep ocean to shallow (red soundings) faster than I could change the range scale and I'm pretty sure the pitch of my voice rose just as quickly. Of course this sudden change in bottom reflected the steep incline of the mountain and it was totally expected by the more experienced members of the Navigation party, but it definitely made an impact on myself. The Navigation drill involving red & yellow soundings brought back all of the sheer terror that I remembered!!
Can confirm this is an accurate depiction of Fathometer operations in the Western Pacific.
Sounds like they owed you a new pair of boxers lol Thank you for your service sir!
The Darter lived the WesPac,we knew the bottom like it was our front yard.
My STSC stuck me as topside rover for the maneuvering watch….defiantly on purpose
Hell of a joke to play on someone.
So massive command failures at nearly all levels, but the sailors manning their stations saved the day despite the lack of command leadership.... that says a lot for the young sailors and non-comm's involved.
Favoritism for "minorities" is the likely culprit here. CO's name is Al Jilani. That is probably what COMBUBPAC told CSDS-5 on their call
This is what the Russian military personnel CANNOT DO!
@@markhugo8270 says the ones who turned a nuclear sub into a buldozer
What's fantastic is that they had a heads up on the situation and knew what to do. This reminds me of a WW-2 sub that went into an uncontrolled steep dive. Without waiting for orders, the engine room went into full reverse and that gave them the extra seconds to regain control of the sub.
I agree BZs to the crew for performing so well in an intense situation. Maintaining propulsion was critical for saving the ship. I do however recognize that both the QM and the ANAV failed miserably in their core duties, the QM especially. Regardless of the past operational issues and mistakes made on the plot, not reporting the issues with the soundings was the key event that contributed to the grounding. With a working key indicator of depth, in shallow waters, this device more than likely would have warned them of problems in their navigation. The Captain relies heavily on his watch standers to do the jobs they were trained to do. Without prompt feedback from the QM, the ANAV, NAV, OOD, CDO and the CO could not respond to this potentially crippling situation.
22 year retired submariner TMC/SS. I have just one word listening to your report and the arrogance of this crew. INEVITABLE! COMSUBPAC should’ve been relieved as well!
Agreed. The firings didn't go up the chain far enough.
And replaced with the training commander that papered the boat
@@Sshooter444 Definitely!
Where does the level of accountability stop?
@@alantoon5708 I'd say the handlers of this mission. Maybe CIA or top level government.
I was surface warfare during my 20 years as a QM. During a small snapshot of time in the early 2000's our FTG in San Diego evaluated my nav team as insufficiently trained. I addressed everything FTG listed in their final evaluation and re-evaluation was scheduled for 3 months later during our work ups for deployment. 3 months later, again, my team was given low scores even though we passed every single navigation and ship handling exercise. The navigator appealed the evaluation. It was found that the evaluator had less experience than my entire nav team and he was replaced. We received a passing evaluation a short time later before deployment. Sometimes its just political.
That's the sad thing that can happen in any organization, especially a large, complex one. Key people, insecure about their own shortcomings, point the finger loudly and often at others, esp. a low-ranking target, to take the spotlight far away from themselves.
Happened on my boat. Everything got blamed on the enlisted for a bad orse eval. Beat us like dogs and even had the base commander come down to the boat, sat us all down and proceeded to rip all of the enlisted a new ass hole.
Right afterwards, the senior ET1 who was a good friend, gets up and leaves the boat (he's on duty). He disappears and no one has a clue where he went. I don't know what the command does in that situation, but a couple of days later we find out that he went to Vermont. He was in the parking lot of Walmart, called the cops and told them to come get his body. He then shoots himself in the head.
Sometimes you can beat the people at the bottom a little too much and they end up feeling trapped, resulting in terrible things.
I found out on a DD during REFTRA in Gitmo that FTG ALWAYS gives an Unsat as your first score. That way they take credit for your great second score, (supposedly) showing how good they are at their job.
Unfortunately, our CO didn't know that and had the XO hound us mercilessly to try and avoid the Unsat first grades for each exercise.
Politics.
Ugh.
Want to take a bet against the 5 Group CO being told by SUBPACFLT or S-74 that someone he fingered was somebody's fair haired boy?
ARGH!
DOUGout
sounds like the review board in MEN OF HONOR
I worked for General Dynamics in the late 80's to early 90's and was part of the SSN-21 class design team. Those guys did a great job saving that ship. We only have a total of 3 SeaWolf class ships out there. These 3 ships are among the best Subs with extraordinary equipment and capabilities. We can not afford to lose a SeaWolf class ship!
This event vindicates how good the submarine was built.
I worked for Huntington and ingals building the last 5 Virginia class subs. I left as we were switching over to the new class burkle I think or something like that. I worked on the RBP (retractable bow plane) building subs was cool. Now I work at general dynamics nassco building oil tankers, I've had my hands on 4 tankers with 2 in the water currently and 2 in dry dock. Building ships is dope! Thank you for what you've done, paved the way for the rest of us!
They are not ships. They are boats
Rumor has it, the only operational Seawolf class is the Jimmy Carter with the other two, Seawolf & Connecticut being used for parts? What a waste for such a noble set of boats?
@@xnavyroCT is still under repair till about 2025 at this rate
Seawolf is still listed as active and has deployed
Holy smokes those guys must have been shitting bricks when they flipped the chicken switches and kept sinking out. Can't even imagine that feeling of dread.
really they deserve 6 mos recouping time, i'd think! just .....too much stress.
No kidding. My breath caught on that slide.
There were 7 recommended for Mental Health Treatment.
"...and kept sinking our. Can't even imagine that feeling of dread." Memories of Thresher's crew.
Lucky for me, I have the "maniacally delighted" reaction to danger / impending death.
But you really never know "how" you will react until that time.
"More counseling sheets than a seaman after a liberty call." I loled very, very hard at that. Well done, sir. :heart:
20 years in Naval Aviation. That line got me, too!
Although not Military, I've worked in Corporates - and when there is an issue that gets escalated up the chain and then suddenly the issue is a non-issue:
Either someone is sleeping with someone or that issue is the door that is hiding a skeleton.
I’m a former sub qualified officer. It’s been many years since I served, but this summary provides some insight as to why people were relieved of their duties. One thing that wasn’t mentioned (I assume because it’s not in the report) was when was the last time they had a navigational fix. It would be interesting to know. If they were traveling at those speeds I assume they were transiting and not doing a specific operation. If so the two OOD’s involved weren’t doing their jobs, nor was the navigator and the QM. At the very least when the watch section switched over the oncoming OOD should be verifying the ships position and identifying possible hazards. It sounds like everyone was in a relaxed “business as usual “ transiting mindset.
What you're referring to is called 'fix expansion', and it's used to determine the absolute limit of positional uncertainty since the most recent fix.
Having the Fathometer in deep mode while being shallow is roughly the equivalent of using a Geiger counter to test the radiation of a spent nuclear fuel rod. To those who do not know what I mean by that, it is that the amount of radiation produced by the rod is so ridiculously high that it causes the Geiger to essentially have a seizure which causes it to not give a reading at all, giving the false perception that there is no radiation at all. The same thing happens with a Fathometer, that is expecting a fairly weak signal from deep water, suddenly being blasted by high energy soundwaves coming up from a bottom directly below it. The fathometer was getting such a strong return, that in the deep-water mode, it was being oversaturated by return signals to the point where it could not give any reading at all.
hahaha nice analogy there ;)!
I'm just stunned there was no log reviews. I remember God and country coming back to the engine room to check the logs.
Alas!
Reminds me of high school physics class when they are using ammeter and the teacher saying you can easily blow the equipment if you use the wrong setting (eg measure in mili ampere instead of whole amps)
Yeah we know. Pretty self explanatory tbh.
**Walks into the surf and bangs toe on a rock**
Damn you, you unexposed bathymetric feature!
You were in shallow water and should have reduced speed and used your heel for sounding
RELIEVED!
I’m a 69yo disabled USAF veteran and have only been on a USN Submarine once in Pearl Harbor. My friend Manny Irwin brought me aboard to show me around. Very impressive. We spent about an hour in the sub and I was in awe the whole time. How you men do this is an amazing feat. Thank You for protecting America.
Standing watch on the fathometer was stressful in shallow water, especially when the returns became erratic. Always felt a severe sense of dread in those situations as I adjusted knobs to dial it back in even if the QM’s chart showed we were in navigable water.
And you should! It's amazing that others apparently don't feel that way!
it's very taxing! your dread is THE CORRECT response, but it's emotionally draining! Instead it appears these guys NAV et al and higher were just mailing it in.
We avoided touching Knobs in the Surface Fleet ha ha. Sorry I couldn't resist.
Why don't they have depth sounders all over the place? Kinda important no?
@@rogersmith7396 Not much room in the boat. Can only pack so much inside the tube.
I'm on a sub out here in Guam, and seeing the damage to the bow with my own eyes when they pulled in next to us really gave me a different view on just how crazy our job is as submariners!
Thanks for taking the watch its not an easy life
How did u feel though?
Thank you for your service and standing the watch. I am a retired submariner. As had as it was (and is for you now) it is an amazing assignment to sail on a submarine.
I'm not Navy or military, but the lessons learned here can be applied to many kinds of teams with similar command structures. Thanks for this vid.
The Engineering crew really was on their toes. This navigational error could have easily become an imploded sub had Engineering not been able to recover.
This is definitely why we train so hard I suppose. You just kick in to gear and go onto auto and get it done. It's amazing as you don't stop to think until its all over.
Well, it should have been a tip off, were command actually in command of the vessel, when the night relief NAV got lost inside the head and needed rescue to extract him.
*I* could've ran those watches better and being 28 years Army, I'd get lost halfway through the frigging hatch! Let's be honest, that vessel had nobody in command, save perhaps the currents. It's likely, that had the senior leadership of the boat remained ashore, the watches would've been effective, which is a very sad, but unfortunately true state of affairs in a lax enough as to effectively be absent command climate. I've witnessed that myself on more than a few occasions over my career.
That's not only the Captain's fault, but a major fault in the flag level leadership, as was displayed when our surface fleet played bumper cars in congested waters in 2017. In those, there were fatalities - all because leadership was nebulous at best, absent at worse.
There's a casualty model that's called the Swiss cheese model, referencing the holes in the cheese and the concept is that failures can be stopped if the holes don't match up, so ensure that you don't allow situations to be possible where the holes do line up.
Instead, they allowed things to so degrade that every position became a single point of failure and a casualty was inevitable.
Even money, the only reason nobody opened the hatch while they were at depth was due to the water pressure.
@@vxrdrummer well, in an emergency, one tends to not have time to think. At least, that's been my experience.
Definitely came within inches of losing the boat. And due to negligence on the part of the most important people on the boat.
Submariner Veteran here. The entire crew of a US Sub is trained in damage control and casualty control. Firefighting flood control and saving lives is the responsibility of the entire crew and we are all trained in these matters. We know the proper fire extinguisher to use depending on what material is burning how to use FFE and Emergency Air Breathers along with the multiple connection points. Flood control we have the portable and main water pump units wooden wedges hammers and clamps to reduce or stop the inflow of water even to the point of pumping out more water than what is coming in. Subs do not have a damage control department/division that is the responsibility of the entire crew. Key clue of flooding if it scares you sound the alarm (report it) by whatever means necessary then get the proper gear and get started controlling the water inflow. Same thing for fires and casualties/injuries/deaths. Yeah the engineering crew did their job.
Thank you for doing this. As a person who has never served in the military forces it is an outstanding insight into the hows and whys of the way things are done. There are many lessons that are applicable outside of the military context. For example, your discussion of the need for "formal" language was very interesting to me as I run a cyber-security team which can also suffer from degradation of communication when the adrenalin is pumping, in the middle of a cyber breach event.
1. Procedural Compliance
2. Formality
3. "Point, Read, Operate"
4. Forceful Backup
5. Integrity
There are a lot of things people could utilize in the civilian sector from the "sub life."
@@cheddar2648 Exactly the same in the PBI. Ground - Situation - Mission - Execution - Administration/Attachments and Detachments - Command responsibilities - Questions.
And don't get me started on our political bosses.
@@cheddar2648 is that why vets make up such a high % of the homeless population?
Sure it teaches some good lessons, if you survive. But it also gives some false impressions of real life
I agree with you brobsonmontey. I am not military either. I know there’s a chain of command and punishment is handed accordingly. I am also not sure what “fired” truly means. We’re they demoted, reassigned, given more training or a pink slip aka a dishonorable discharge. I really don’t know. I do know that all of the fired people while obviously asleep at the switch were highly trained. I hate seeing that go out the door. I will wait to see if others far knowledgeable than me can help me out. To all of you out there who have served, thank you so much for your service to our country and to the citizens of the USA!
16:30 The crew not performing immediate actions during drills... Holy crap. That'd be like ORSE showing up and the drill team simulating a dropped control rod and the Reactor Operator just ignoring it. Sheesh. I would imagine that the RO would be relieved on the spot!
I know, I think this report is very one sided.
@@SubBrief" one side" because there's probably more "underwater" or one side because they act so poor that nothing good can be say?
@@SubBrief The Navy leadership needs to protect the 1.2 admirals per ship, because they are an irreplaceable resource.
Favoritism for "minorities" is the likely culprit here. CO's name is Al Jilani. That is probably what COMBUBPAC told CSDS-5 on their call
@@k53847 Perhaps you should lend some to Moscow.
As a former QM both sub and surface red and yellow soundings were drilled into our heads as well as procedures. I was Chart PO on paper charts and every day I was updating the charts and adding and updating them. I can not imagine going 24 knots blind with no situational awareness. I hope this has taken care of the attitudes so it never happens again. We are way past statistical probabilities of losing a boat since 1968 we have had several collisions and almost lost at least 4 boats I know if including mine while on it. I have PTSD from our almost catastrophic event but there was not such thing as psyc help for it in the 90’s.
Favoritism for "minorities" is the likely culprit here. CO's name is Al Jilani. That is probably what COMBUBPAC told CSDS-5 on their call
Because U were TRAINED / TAUGHT Right 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🏴☠️🦈
We had an XO that spent his time during ship yards scalp hunting destroying enlisted and lower rank officers enlistments and planned careers to try to get command of the boat after the yards on the blue crew. We had an nuke engineer that had just made chief that received so much crap from said XO that he walked out the front gate of the ship yard and bought a bag of pot and walked back to the crew barge and turned himself in just to get himself transferred off the boat. I found out back during the 2000 to 2010 period that the reason the sub was decommed because the sub was run aground coming out the firth of Clyde. They found the damage so bad the command crew was relieved and another command team was assigned to return the boat to New London. Yes there has been crappy officers that CYA and scalp hunt to further their career to get to the Pentagon to get into the perfumed princes cliché to get their flag. You are correct we are damned lucky we did not lose the boat and crew it was totally the enlisted and lower rank officers that saved the day my congrats to the crew that saved the CT.
So THAT's what my XO was doing!
(destroyer)
in my 20 years I found that Ensigns and Admirals were the nicest officers to do business with. Ensigns because they didn't know any better, Admirals because there wasn't much you could do to hurt their career. Worst case were Lt's and LCmdr's. And it wasn't always their fault. It had to do with the way they were promoted. Every three years they had to be evaluated for advancement. Top percent (not sure what percent) were advanced early, then the bulk advanced at the three year point. If you didn't advance, you got a mark on your record and then if you didn't advance the next time, you got a handshake and a plastic watch for your service. To protect themselves LT's and LCmdr's had to be aggressive and, yes, assholes for the most part. Once they made Commander, that requirement was no longer there, as the upper officer ranks became smaller and chances of advancement dropped drastically. Now that was not always the case. The best XO I ever served with was one of the "advance" promotion types. The worst XO was just the opposite, had already been passed over once.
Sounds like the case of, 'people who seek promotion should not be considered for promotion'.
But there are people who present themselves as the best candidate for all sorts of elected activities.
as nothing more than an old landlubber I thought to myself wow they hung these guys out to dry for striking an uncharted undersea obstacle. Now I know why. Nothing is as simple as it first appears, especially with systems as complex as an SSN. thanks for a fascinating update.
I felt the same... learning that they had all of these procedures for handling uncharted objects and were ignoring them. It is quite the eye-opener.
A friend of mine had a brother working on this sub, and he won't talk about what happened. I guess now I understand why. Thank you for making this easily available and understandable
I served with the SSN 22 COB when he was a first class. One of the very few first classes on the boat that was qualified dive. He was incredibly smart and a great leader. I hope he makes it back.
This same thing happened to the Seawolf (SSN575) back in the late 60's when I was new on board. The similarities are amazing. I can still remember the emergency blow and the horrendous up angle. We damaged the bow and the stern. The part I had a chuckle about was that "7 Sailors were recommended for mental health treatment". Back then I guess we were just expected to "suck it up"! Anyway, I am so glad she made it back and those guys did a wonderful job saving their boat!
Happened to the San Francisco when I was in.
@@1337penguinman The didn't call The USS Andrew Jackson the "Crashin' Jack " for no reason. Damned thing could find a way to run aground over the Marianus Trench.
My boat,SS576 Darter got tangled in the anchor chain of a moored super tanker and tried to surface Under it. 3rd blow it rolled out from under
Have you visited the Seawolf in Galveston
I'll never forget when my boat got an LOI and the CO took it out on us back in the Engine room. Friend of mine killed himself due to depression from being degraded so badly. Definetly didn't want to reenlist after that and I never forgave the CO or the base commander who personally came down to our boat and attacked our character.
tragic story.
@@SubBrief it was so shocking when they called us in to tell us what happened. I remember going topside and sitting in different places just trying to avoid everyone. I always wish I could have done something to help him. It messed me up mentally for the last half of my 4 years on that boat.
@@InarusLynx Was the boat the USS Los Angeles?
@@roysokolowski7234 Providence
You have to ask why the CO wasn't removed well before this could happen. Both COMSUBPAC and the task force commander need to be investigated for there role in this.
I don't know how the US Navy works, but in the Royal Navy there's a specific course (the Submarine Command Course, aka the Perisher) which you HAVE to pass before you can take command of one of Her Majesty's remaining handful of submarines (and if you fail, you're never serving on a sub again...). I would assume the USN has something similar, so there very possibly wasn't a qualified officer who could take over at the drop of a hat from someone who must himself have passed that qualification.
Combine that with the fact that it's a Seawolf and supposed to imminently "deploy to the Western Pacific" (how far between the lines do you have to read to interpret that as "go spy on China"?), and I think this was a case of "we need the boat doing this Secret Squirrel mission, the CO is qualified, light a fire under his arse and get the boat under way."
@@Dafmeister1978 yes the us navy does SCC too
At least the regular enlisted came off looking pretty good in this.
@@mattwilliams3456 Yep, everyone outside of the command staff and navigation knew how to do their job which is why they were able to save the boat.
@@mattwilliams3456 Enlisted men - saving their officers arses since 2300 BC.
Wow, this was so much more serious. I thought they had just smashed up their expensive sonar. Instead they almost got themselves killed. They managed to ram enough gravel into the ballast tank to be negatively buoyant even after an emergency blow... plus the temporary loss of propulsion, broken trim system that they managed to fix only for the pump to catch on fire... oh my.
Favoritism for "minorities" is the likely culprit here. CO's name is Al Jilani. That is probably what COMBUBPAC told CSDS-5 on their call
Interesting. The Toledo is the ship from the Smarter Every Day series.
My brother was a sonar tech on Toledo for several years.
Being Quartermaster 50 years ago on a NUC, this all sounds crazy. We used charts, some hand drawn from far away places with limited soundings. DR plots were sometimes better than LORAN, no GPS back then. The Fathometer was never used while on deployment. Maybe now there is something less noisy, we only listened. I did use the Fathometer transiting the east coast and it was fun to watch the depths change as we we went over a canyon. The chain of command was very relaxed. I rarely saw the Navigation officer except on maneuvering watch or to wake him up for a major course change. The OOD was a rated chief and had no control other than watching the planesmen and trimming the boat. While on the surface the OOD, on the bridge, relied on the QM to tell him where to go and change coarse, he had no other means except visual. So, approaching a pier, usually with tug help, should be pretty routine, things can go wrong. As with us, no tug showed up once. We have to dock. Slowly approaching the pier, closer and closer, remember tho OOD on the bridge has no control of the boat. Barking commands, he does his best…bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam. Seven pilings split and a three foot dent on the bow. Before I reported on board, We bounced off a sea mount and wrangled up the forward blast tank grate. I could go on and on.
Damn very interesting, would love to hear more. Btw what does your sleep cycle look like with lack of sunlight?
@@konosmgr3 "days"(18 hr) of coffee, 11 1/2 hours sleep 😊
I served on the Darter starting in 86,I don't think our fathometer worked we stayed quiet and tiptoed (3 knots) just off the beach in all the bad guys front yards.
We always knew Exactly where we were, we were Uber our clients needed us at precise coordinates to snag our periscope on our way through
I was on the 22 from 2013-2018. Out of drydock, there was much to learn on everyone's part with most sailors with zero seawolf class experience. There was definitely an atmosphere of arrogance as we began to learn and excel. Our triad was smart and confident, and though arrogance arose, we never got too ahead of ourselves. My friends who stayed on after I departed would always complain about how the new guys didn't want to work hard or try. Maybe generational, but large in part caused by the SDS5 attitude towards maintaining the 21 and 22 at sea as much as possible. From the top down, this all falls on accepting subpar day to day operations, training, and military standards. If we continue to allow softness, our navy will surely continue down this path of egregious error. Sad to know my beloved ship is potentially a parts boat becuase of ignorance. Thank you for this review.
Fascinating but - even allowing for the redactions in the report - the story is incomplete.
1. Why was the boat not recalled immediately to Guam once the failings during the mid-deployment inspection came to light?
2. What the hell was the boat doing flogging around at just shy of 20 knots in the South China Sea? It's dangerous enough there for surface ships, let alone submarines and, being in China's back yard, is very likely to be full of Chinese underwater sensors.
3. What happened to the Commander of Submarine Development Squadron 5? He had flagged this boat as below standard (dangerous, even) all the way through.
4. Why did the Squadron Commander then withdraw his criticisms, following his conversation with COMSUBPAC?
5. Was his departure REALLY a routine, planned succession of command?
5. Finally, what happened to COMSUBPAC? Surely, his judgement had to have been questioned in endorsing the boat as fit for operations. Did he get off Scot free because he was the one who convened the board of enquiry.
Freemasons are weakening western War capabilities from within before WW3 with China, russia and half the muslim world is started.
Weak the soldiers, weak cohesion, weak the training standarts, let equipment break down and screw up new developments and deployments wasting billions of taxmoney.
Nothing ive seen the American military and politics been doing since bush senior came into power was to benefit of america
As far as I know, the report only addresses question #2. The CO wanted to get back to port as soon as possible in order to perform a "humanitarian evacuation transit" (essentially, a crew member needs to leave the boat ASAP, probably for important health or personal reasons). The CO also wanted to get back to port in order to fix the forward fathometer as soon as possible.
@@thefreeaccount0 that’s not a good reason to be noisy in those waters. China has got to have arrays out there.
And I shouldn’t laugh but going faster to fix the fathometer when you get to port is is laughable.
@@JoeOvercoat Could be...I'm not an expert. That's just what the report says.
There must have been some world class ass-covering over at COMSUBPAC. The suddenness of the squadron report's change makes me think that the Connecticut's old captain has a few superiors indebted to him in some way.
An interesting discussion would be whether the process and stadards of the nav team and watch officers was so bad because of lower standards held by the CO, or if the CO,XO had created an environment where the crew was reluctant to speak up about the (seemingly) minor stuff. I don't know the standards required by the QM, but if his job says report ANY failing of the ONE fathometer they are using, why would he not do so, except for failing level of standard or bad environment for reporting.
Sickening stuff. Almost lost a crew, and a boat, to incompetence that could have been avoided.
Seems like the CO didn't want to be bothered with minor details like, depths
@@Sshooter444 🤣🤣🤣
They needed Steven Segal to fix this mess and he was just a cook.
As much as I have studied philosophy and logics and being and ex-military I would say that you are on track with your analysis. Too many factors that ends up in a pattern that leads to a grave mistake. But I would believe that there have to be some lingering pattern of ignorance in the system of naval command aswell. "There is no fire without a smoke"
@@Opiuth I've heard stories (no details, just situational) from people involved in investigations into sub commanders and other high brass, and it reminded me that while many are fantastic and honorable individuals, there are always some who cannot live up to the highest standards of conduct.
Sometimes I wonder if a British "Punisher" style command school might help a bit to weed out the ones like the main story's CO.
Great video. Very well presentend and super interesting. It reminds me of many videos from the Mentour Pilot channel where air accidents are explained. And here as well as in his channel you can clearly see how one failure leads to more and more and what a cascade of such failures can cause. Thank you for this informative video.
Th Swiss cheese model
"You better start making plans for the next life, because you're almost done with this one" The way you said this made me chuckle.
Former ETR2. This is absolutely terrifying. It's like I used to tell my nubs, complacency kills.
Great job on this video, mate. I hadn't realized how close we came to losing this sub.
Glad to see the Command did get some UCMJustice. My 2 COs were awesome and my old XO became the first CO on the USS Virginia. Mr Kern I believe. He hated us Agangers because early in his career as a junior officer, he was climbing out of his boat and accidentally tripped the Hatch latch as he grabbed the handle to exit. That water tight Hatch just happened to be in the middle of having the counter balance springs replaced. So instead of having the 800lb 3" HY80 Steel Hatch slowly start to close as he hit the hold-open latch, it just just fell closed with his head inbetween and literally broke his head in half at the nose level. From what I was told, he was in the hospital for over a year or so, but he recovered and came back to the sub service. So when he was our XO, he would come by and do pop quiz's anytime he saw Auxillary Division doing maintenance or PMS. So I learned quick to always have every tool, ppe, and correct in-date lubricants called out in the maintenance procedure as on-the-spot inspections were the norm. I can probably give that man 75% of the credit for our boats "Battle E" due to his involvement with the crew. He was harsh, but he made us better men in the end. Great Men: Commander Kern and my mentor COB, Master Chief Gooch!
In fairness to the guy, he was the victim of someone else not doing their job right in a way that very nearly killed him.
Very informative report, thank you for presenting it in an interesting way. Basically shows that no single f' up can cause something like this, but only many, systemic issues combined.
Glad you enjoyed it!
It's called the "swiss cheese" model of accidents: several layers have to line up to allow an accident through.
1. SDS-5 rider got over-ruled by his relief. Could have been pushed to sea to meet operational requirements despite numerous noted work-up problems.
2. Forward fatho INOP.
3. Bad chart work.
4. Failure to communicate: QM did not report irregularities to anyone.
Maybe one day we will stop sending boats into the "Dangerous Ground" area after two near-fatal rammings of undersea mounts. Well, I guess it was fatal for the one guy aboard Frisco. RIP.
@@SubBrief 22 was a good boat, we all loved the COB, Nav, and Cap, even the Anav was pretty ok, if there's anywhere heads shoulda rolled at it shoulda been at Devron 5, guarantee the commodore, whos so busy showing off the seawolves to the navy, didn't get any blame
I was stationed on the USS Wasp LHD-1 when we ran aground off the coast of Somalia in '93 doing gator squares. I remember the ship shuddering when I was in my rack, and I thought we were doing speed trials. Thankfully, it was only the screw that impacted the bottom. They relieved our captain (who was in his quarters at the time), navigator, and a couple of others. Other than that (which I heard was the enlisted navigator's fault), he was a great captain. He was the same captain whose ship hit a magnetic mine in the Persian Gulf that tore open the starboard bow. His leadership helped save that ship.
He was captain of the Samuel B Roberts?
@@MusingMageofDisney No, this was Cpt. McEwen. He was CO of the USS Tripoli LPH-10. The Tripoli hit a mine in the Persian Gulf around April of 1991.
"We hit a bathymetric feature"
You mean a rock?
"Yes"
Wow, this is just terrible. I am so glad I served on my boat when I did. Any crew that we were part of could've ended up like this crew, but thank God it didn't. I really hope the crew of CONNECTICUT turns it around whenever the boat gets out of drydock. I highly recommend they all read Capt. L. David Marquet's books, they're going to need them.
Correction: 69-75'
Thanks for the recommendation.
I don't think that boat is ever getting out of dry dock.
The Navy just doesn't want to admit it yet, but i don't see them spending the money to get her seaworthy again.
@@louiscypher4186 Respectfully disagree. The capabilities of that boat are far too great to just scrap it. They installed the forward part of HONOLULU on SAN FRANCISCO, a boat that was far less advanced than CONNECTICUT. They're going to get CONNECTICUT back out to sea as she's too valuable to not be out there.
@@machinesofgod eh far enough disagreement is always healthy, I just thought she's older, extremely expensive, she'll never be as quiet and the new Virginia block V's are being rolled out soon.
I thought it would make more sense to turn her into a parts bin for the other two seawolf boats.
@38:46: This part reminds me of something an instructor once told me. A lot of people expect Murphy's law, but sailors are better of served by O'Toole's commentary on Murphy's Law which goes, "Murphy was a [REDACTED] optimist. After all, things tend to go from bad to worse."
This is actually frightening given that it's a irreplaceable $3 Billion submarine AND CREW!
I think that is half the problem. THey have worked hard to get there, now that they are there, they dont need to improve as they are already the best of the best. The actual best of the best realise they are there because they act like there is always someone better out there.
@@PantherSerpahin or worse the Peter Principle at play
This could just be the cover story.
@@PantherSerpahin Well yeah. You have to be smart enough to realize you don't know everything.
@@taylorc2542 they wouldn't "RELIEVE A CO of command (fire him) just for "cover". No..! this is legit. Cover could go many many other ways other than this. Course correct your thinking!
First time here. This report earned a like and subscribe. I grew up reading USNI proceedings and this is hits a similar combination of insight and clarity. Top notch.
Awesome, thank you!
I’m a marine who did two deployments on the 31st MEU on the BHR (ship that burned down). This is fascinating bc I really don’t know a lot about how the navy operates. I was an 0311 so I’m good at eating crayons. The more I learn the more the navy impresses me and I’m grateful for how y’all treated us on ship!
"Eating crayons!" I'm a jarhead ('60-'64) and that expression always makes me laugh! I was an airdale twidget, not 0311; and maybe we didn't eat as many crayons -- but we did eat them! :-) SF
I’ve seen several of the “After Action Report” videos and this one, by far, has set the standard.
BRAVO ZULU!!!
I can't even imagine how terrifying that must have been for the crew. I guess if the boat has negative buoyancy and the emergency blow fails, without propulsion the next step is to pray that the bottom is shallower than crush depth. Outstanding reporting as usual!
Then you have to hope that if the bottom is above crush depth that nothing goes wrong before you are rescued.
At 74 feet we'd have swum up.
@@philupson4561 some of you would have swam up. You should read the actual manuals on that procedure, the expected casualty rate specificly.
@fortusvictus8297 I did 50 feet in submarine school, between 2 and 400 you're ears are gonna blow.
"Don't worry, we can fix those"
Below 400 you're doomed
@fortusvictus8297 I was honorman for submarine school for the 688 nuclear fast attack. "You should read all the manuals "??
I have, at least 3 times AND I'm qualified submarines.
And you?
Im a BMC in the Navy and this breakdown was awesome (painful to see the failures). Well done Sir.
Awesome work, thanks for this. I was precom crew on the USS Connecticut before I got out in 1998 and I have been eagerly awaiting this report. As always your coverage and insights have been spot on.
Wow wow wow! Thank for this awesome report! I absolutely loved and appreciated it sir.
Glad you enjoyed it!
I have a feeling the real root cause of this incident will not be addressed until there are significant changes farther up the command structure - perhaps all the way up.
The problem is that the US Navy is loosing it's war with it's longest standing and most nefarious enemy, the US Congress. Cutting budgets, 'doing more with less', efficiency savings, deferred maintenance, eventually they take their toll on both the equipment and the personnel.
This kind of rot goes all the way to the top.
@@DERP_Squad I suggest it’s the endless deployments for all of the military services that is wearing them to a nub.
@@DERP_Squad Nope...Congress didn't force the LCS or contractor-only maintenance on the Navy. That was CJCS Mullen, who wanted a leaner, faster navy capable of "network-central warfare (NCW)." Mullen's goals were very forward-looking, and his initiatives succeeded in restoring the reputation of the Navy after its disastrous performance and inability to coordinate with other services during Desert Storm (1991) and Kosovo (1999).
However, the implementation of NCW left a lot to be desired. Congress is partly to blame, but in some respects, the Navy asked for this and got what it wanted.
@@DERP_Squad dude, the navy we have has been obsoleted "as a platform" (ie nearly in toto). This is the age of hypersonics! scary stuff for surface ships. huge obsolescence of investments.
You have done a great job reviewing and explaining this report . The members of the crew who in whole or in part caused this incident should be court martialed and seperated from the service . While their motivation to serve is not in question , the possible death of an entire crew cannot be overlooked .
Favoritism for "minorities" is the likely culprit here. CO's name is Al Jilani. That is probably what COMBUBPAC told CSDS-5 on their call. Rickover spinning in his grave
Thanks once again SUB BRIEF for this latest update concerning the USS Connecticut underwater incident in the South China Sea. Being a former submariner yourself only adds to the excitement and joy that l experience while watching your many videos.Please keep up the good work sir. Guess Lady Luck was present that almost fateful day. God bless you sir....from a fan here in the Fiji Islands down the South Pacific.
I appreciate you fairly judged the entire picture and especially recognized the crew who did the right things to save the ship and prevent the problems from being far worse. Great work.
This is an excellent summary and presentation of a very dramatic and entirely preventable occurrence. It should be mandatory viewing for anyone working in safety critical environments, whether it is on land, at sea or in the air. Thank you for taking the time to create and share this content.
When we did the SSN 23 conversion we added a deep submergence object avoidance sonar (DSOAS) which hopefully prevents this type of mishap. However if memory serves, it's operation is limited to lower ship speeds. Also, wouldn't a faulty trim pump have been a CAT 3 CASRP? TYCOM wouldn't normally release a ship for unrestricted ops with this problem.
Long missions, you've got a spare. One of those judgment calls.
Ay bro, maybe delete this???
@@vim2286 YES
Excellent video. I was a QM on the USS Chicago in the late 80s to early 90s. I had 18 years of sea time in 22 years of service. I can't imagine having a chain of command that functioned like this. Although, we did have a CO that thought he walked on water near the end of my tour there. I think you nailed the hubris comment spot on.
stopped what I was doing to watch this! Thank you Aaron!
I was an STS2 on board Connecticut during this whole event and all the events leading up to it to include the pier allision in San Diego. The COB was relieved by our squadron CMC and never returned. The CMC was later relieved by an entirely new COB.
My father served on one of the last diesel boats and why I was born in Key West in the early 60s.
He is 100% boats and I pursued a career in aviation. I can relate to the wording used as being overly technical. The control input operator made contact with a elevated terrain feature leading to a destructive aircraft dismantling.
Meaning. The pilot flew into a mountain.
'"Aarg, I've fetched up on a reef"--Captain Hazelwood (ret.) Exxon Valdez. [USCG transcript]
A man of few words...
Which boat? I was on Darter when it was down to just us and Barbell
Excellent review. Thank you for clear explanation of the report and events.
Thanks for watching!
@@SubBrief I was wondering if you would do a interview on my show
I'm not even tangentially related to naval stuff, and yet I can fully understand Aaron's pieces. Keep up the brilliant work!
Great Video, thanks Jive! Quick release as well, nicely done!
You bet!
Thank you. As an old boat sailor I pretty much filled in the blanks, although that trim system failure is a puzzler. The temporary loss of propulsion was a frightening aspect. I recall the "recovery curves" and how important maintenance of propulsion is to coming out alive (those curves got drilled in as part of qualifying on throttles).
Your comments about some people feeling that they are "special" by virtue of being assigned are spot-on. There are those who think themselves "chosen ones" and then there were those who recognize that they have a lot of learning to do if they are going to meet expectations. The former are dangerous. It's the difference between arrogant and humble.
Like you, I would love to know what transpired in that magical "Zoom Call" that led to the assessment reversal. It seems to me that the people who orchestrated that change of heart should be under review as well. Their political concerns overrode their readiness mandate. This seems to be a case of SRDH.
The cooking oil fiasco raises concerns about stowing for sea. Didn't they do angles and dangles? Did they allow stowage to degrade over time as some stores were pulled for use?
Rocks in 1A and 1B. That explains the initial buoyancy problem after EBT blow. Remember the pictures of the bow of the USS San Francisco (2005)? I have not found any Connecticut damage pictures. (The Atlanta had a similar run in with mother earth as well. That happened near Gibraltar.)
Forward fathometer failure. Trim pump problem (known, then caught fire). Weird trim system malfunction. This is a pretty new boat. What is going on with its material condition?
Own ships noise reflected back to them. They are at 24 knots and they hear this? I thought this class was supposed to be quiet?! Perhaps it says good things for their passive sonar... it could hear this despite flow noise. Sort of a good news / bad news situation.
For civilians who have always regarded the submarine service in a romantic and adventurous light thanks to films and books, you bring an awareness that it requires a team of highly trained, hard working people in difficult conditions to be successful. Thanks for your insights.
If u romanticize the ocean and submersibles you are Naive. No power matches that of the ocean. None makes you feel more insignificant. And in a wondowless steel tube w/ incompetent leadership is a NIGHTMARE not a dream. - not a military person but grew up on the water
Wow it sounds like the crew as a whole did a damned fine job *after* the grounding, but holy hell that Nav team...
Thanks Jive, great breakdown. Quick question, the admirals that kept giving the CO a pass on some pretty glaring shortcomings, any mention of disciplinary actions for them?
Admirals never get in trouble
That would require them to punish themselves, never happening on it's own accord.
They were promoted?
Favoritism for "minorities" is the likely culprit here. CO's name is Al Jilani. That is probably what COMBUBPAC told CSDS-5 on their call
It gets worse once you get outside the military, believe me. I had to train our civvy staff from scratch.
Terrific video. Wonderful and inciteful analysis of the accident investigation. The incompetent skipper was an expert in unmanned vessels, they say! The Navy command structure is so overwhelmed by fear over equal opportunity officers that they allowed this dude to stay in command when he clearly was unfit.
Ya think?
Yep. That is what it is
Diversity hires can't be fired for poor performance because most of the diversity hires got in despite failing the minimum requirements from the start. It's in the name diversity hires are hired for "diversity" and not ability.
That the CO dismissed the safety officer report is telling of itself.
Favoritism for "minorities" is the likely culprit here. CO's name is Al Jilani. That is probably what COMBUBPAC told CSDS-5 on their call
That was a WILD ride.
I'm reminded of several times that Drach, Jamie, and Dr. Clarke have talked about problems in peacetime chain of command and culture in multiple navies. This incident appears to have both some of the same problems that they've mentioned, and some contrasting ones. I'm very curious to see what conclusions on that line of evaluation we see in this case in the near future.
Fantastic non-legalese explanation of the situation, thanks man
Glad you liked it!
I found interesting the similarities between HR practices in Corporate and the Navy, verbal counseling, first letter, second letter, recommended additional training etc. also the same issues with team members not willing to listen - the big difference is that people don't have the potential to die and take the rest of their teammates in Corporate.
Well put. I just want wonder what private sector consultants have been involved in “revamping” prior policies.
The point at which someone takes command of a sub, they represent a significant investment of resources between their training and experience. It makes sense they aren't relieved without very good reason.
Favoritism for "minorities" is the likely culprit here. CO's name is Al Jilani. That is probably what COMBUBPAC told CSDS-5 on their call
Similarities indeed ... There are many qualified yet few are chosen, and sometimes, all being equal, it pays to be on the golf team. I had the feeling throughout this report that there were underlying currents involved.
Another great video! You don't get this type of info from anywhere else. Keep up the great work! 👍
I'm a former DWO & navigator on a USCG buoy tender home-ported on Guam. I kept cringing and muttering "Oh, you guys are screwed" and "Damn, that was lucky" as I watched this. USS CONNECTICUT almost became the next USS THRESHER. Yikes.
I am a retired surface navy MCPO …retired almost 40 years ago.
Short story - it appears this boat was not ready to deploy but was deployed anyway which is a problem with not only the boat but with their upper command. I see everyone of consequence on the boat gets fired but nothing in the report about the sub fleet upper command in deploying a vessel not ready.
I recall my second deployment on one particular DLG in June of 1975 - was about a year early because another DLG failed an operational propulsion plant evaluation (OPPE) and were not allowed to deploy which I presume was ALNAV guidance rather than a local decision by her CCDG. Our ship took her deployment.
I’ve always thought subs were far more strictly overseen on guidance like this. It appears that’s not the case or if it is, there’s no mention of it in this report. Was it sanitized?
Ahoy, Master Chief. Does the acronym 'CYA' answer your question why the upper command was not held accountable?
Very interesting and well explained. Thank you.
You are welcome!
One of the most up to date and sensitive sonars on the planet and their own noise was a biologic... possibly at 16 knots... lucky to be alive...
Makes you wonder how many chinese subs got classified as biological by this crew :D
“This whale is going to ram us!”
I would suspect they classified it as bios primarily based on initial visual cues. (Broad and diffuse). Last time I checked though, shrimp sounds quite different from steam noise. Who knows, maybe it got labeled as magma displacement.
Proves nature of sound still needs to be in the mix. Still, they may not have had the time to fully analyze the trace considering the bell they were at. By the time they heard their own noise being reflected back it was most likely already too late. So, moot point.
@@motuit Very good point. And if your boat is as silent at standard/full bells as a Seawolf is reported to be, that just makes it even harder to hear your own reflection off submerged terrain features anyways.
As a Ex MM3\SS this fricken Nav crew is unbelievable. I would be ripping into and throttling these enept kids running that boat. Not reporting Loss of Sounding? They are lucky to be alive. And they are a Special Ops boat! That whole Command needs to be fired and unqualified.
I know, man... I know. You're right on. This is nuts.
They were flying a huge bus, underwater blind, and far off course. Going too fast for accurate fathometer readings, or any soundings at all? Okay, slow the boat down and take a few readings, resume speed if needed. Why was none of this done?!?! Did they have to make a rendezvous?
Well so many errors with the command and nav crew, I'm shaking my head. I get it, no one boat is 100%, but you make do with the limitations. You sure as hell don't navigate blind, the nav crews should have been raising alarms but were...SNAFU?!?! Just rings so very wrong.
ב''ה, that would liberate them for private industry.
Very good report; in my reading of the report I had missed the time line of the discussion between CSDS5/SubPac/St 74. While the Change of Command/relief of CSDS5 CO may or may not have been a reaction to his prior reporting, it seems apparent that the drive to deploy at all costs was the controlling interest.
While not military, I worked over 30 years in the marine environment (offshore production facilities) and one thing that becomes obvious as you gain experience/exposure is that crews attitude/performance is usually a reflection of their leadership, regardless of how they personally feel about that leadership (good or bad). Having been on teams assessing crew performance, I would not be surprised that if you had audio/video of the entire command with the CO, you'd find early in his tenure he took people to task for 'bothering' him with needless details. You beat the messenger often enough and they will stop carrying the messages. The very worst, most destructive thing a crew can do is to begin doing EXACTLY what their leadership tells them to do. And not one thing more.
"You will do as your told".... just smile and say "Yes Sir" Over 50 years of employment, and several careers,, I only had 2 knucklehead's to work for; not bad. One was a submarine chief who was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. I thought the Navy was crap till I got to a different command, which seemed like a relative vacation. The other was later in life, and evil incarnate. Developing a good crew, or working for one is very fulfilling. Some people you can turn lose ... others need close supervision ... There was something wrong in this command ... undercurrents .
The guy that had the idea to pump one vented tank into another vented tank, in order to "jog" the system on the trim, deserves a shout out.
Just amazes me such a dis-functional crew is assigned to one of the best submarines in the world. Really shows how pressed the navy is to actually man what they have I guess.
At least though it shows how much the drill training paid off. These men, especially those standing, slammed into whatever was directly fore of them at dangerous velocities with no warning, as the boat encountered massive deceleration from an immovable object. And that they were able to get their senses enough to do everything they did to save the boat was impressive.
The crew is probably perfectly capable of handling the ship just fine. The issue lies with the command team that trained and led them. It makes a big difference when the command allows standards to slip, whether because they don't know or don't care. It starts from the top, but trickles down to deckplate through the department heads/department chiefs to the division officers/division chiefs to the crew members and watch standers. If one person lets something slid at any level, it can go bad pretty quickly and takes a lot to get back to the proper standard.
The Navy is in such a push to get subs still in service out to sea, they'll average a crew based on no other experience. Every submariner need to performing perfectly once and that's usually their last time, or the boats last time
the rotten apples are mixed in with the prize apples.
I wouldn't classify the crew as dysfunctional. The crew is the reason this boat came back. The Navigation Division was certainly far below par though!
Favoritism for "minorities" is the likely culprit here. CO's name is Al Jilani. That is probably what COMBUBPAC told CSDS-5 on their call
Can understand the sentiment of old boat and everything seems to be broken, reportedly the Trafalger class were much like that though they had another decade on the Seawolf class. HMS Talent and HMS Trenchart were both decommissioned on the 20th May leaving just HMS Triumph in service.
The Navy has had one embarrassing debacle after another in the last several years. This is perhaps the most egregious. There needs to be a culture change. What has happened to our Navy???
Peace has cost them their strength. Victory has defeated them. But seriously, the lack of actual combat experience has lulled the service to complacency.
What happened was Donald Trump pushing OPSTEMPO to crushing levels. The culture issues go way further back to even before the Cold War ended, but the training and qualification lapses were caught, or at least not as likely to go unnoticed before causing an incident, because the crews prior to 2017-ish weren't operating on less than 4 hours of sleep and record deployment lengths. People who objected got removed, because that's how the Trump administration works, and the result is you're only left with ass-kissers and cover-upers.
The US Navy is loosing their war with their most nefarious and longest standing enemy, the US Congress.
Iraq and Afghanistan. More money for the Army and the Marines less money for the Navy.
A 20 year land/counter terrorism war focus.
As a military and civilian pilot, I find this is very close to our checklists and response to emergencies. We are tested annually or every six months in a simulator for our performance during normal flight operations and emergencies. If a pilot does not perform his required actions correctly, especially in simulated emergencies, he will receive a fainting grade. He will, of course, retrain until he passes, but that failure is recored by both his company and the FAA. It becomes part of his permanent record. I guarantee you a few failures and you are out of a job. I am surprised that more action was not taken to remove the individuals who where not performing correctly before they went to sea. This was a wonderful analysis of submarine operations. I found it very interesting and eductational.
I was commissioning Chop on this boat. The entire incident shocked me. Great job on this report. Great channel. We knew with only three Seawolf subs that part support was going to be a big problem. With all of the equipment problems the boat was having I have to wonder if the 22 boat went to sea with insufficient spare parts.
Next time load the cooking oil in the officers staterooms.
Having stood watches at CSG-7 many years ago, this OPREP 3 voice report would have been an OMG moment. Glad we didn’t loose the boat.
I imagine 16 knots with no idea what's below/ahead in a submarine is like driving a car with 60mph in thick fog.
Without looking out of the window :D
@@NovaTrap1312 lol yeah. Maybe they should use soundproof trucks without windows but with sonar as training vehicles for submariners. I bet that would be a lot of fun to see which crew performs best on a parkour.
There was never any doubt the CO, XO, NAV and OOD were going to be relieved at a minimum.
I served aboard the USS Permit (SSN 594) and we had an “incident” on my 2nd underway that afforded us a lovely 30+ day vacation in Adak, AK.
We had a new CO, XO and Eng (he was the OOD) on our next underway several months later. Somehow our NAV didn’t get the axe but our “incident” wasn’t really navigationally related.
Yeah, Adak is surely the place to spend ANY time 🙂
Unbelievable videos sir. Love the structure, love the in depth style. Thank you for this great information.
As a fellow Submariner, BZ on your very informative vid. When you described as she was slipping deeper with no propulsion and blowing the MBTs didn't help, all I could think of that's exactly how Thresher sank. Awesome show- good job!
Thoughts and prayers for all the professional NAVs, ANAVs, OODs, and QMOWs out there. Also the FTs and STs out there that are gonna get roped in just because. This group is total clown shoes and caused SO much extra training for so many people.
On a professional note as a former sub dude, this scenario is the stuff of nightmare. I spent a ton of time in the DOOW seat. Holy crap, seriously. A grounding followed by uncontrollable broach, then the EMBT fails, then you lose PLO, then you get propulsion back and lose the trim system due to fire. I had a few.... interesting days at work, but nothing of this magnitude.
They didn't lose PLO. So used cooking oil stored in shaft alley spilled into the PLO bay and the watch THOUGHT it was lube oil.
@@ThoughtsByJBrown yeah and they took immediate actions so they lost propulsion for a period of time
@@ThoughtsByJBrown It was reported as loss of PLO and then once they figured it out they reported it restored without explaining. So from the perspective of the commander it was actually lost and then restored.
@@ThoughtsByJBrown With an electrical fire next door. Get His Eminence in, a bit of Holy Water is very good at washing the soot off.
@@benjaminnoble2244 I understand what you are saying. I was just responding with the the paraphrasing you did as was written. That is my bad. Of course it was called away as loss of PLO they would shut down the propulsion system until they knew it was not a PLO rupture.
And I celebrate and commend the actions of her crew to save a magnificent ship. I can’t believe the negligence of the watch standers in such an important evolution!
Favoritism for "minorities" is the likely culprit here. CO's name is Al Jilani. That is probably what COMBUBPAC told CSDS-5 on their call
Pretty clear that certain higher-ups were in a hurry to get this sub deployed.
Also pretty clear that there were key people on this sub who very simply just weren't communicating with each other.
Leaders who say "just make it happen" without knowing the real situation can be a problem. Same for "yes men."
@@aj-2savage896 Indeed. Both being problems for ANY field of human endeavor.
Favoritism for "minorities" is the likely culprit here. CO's name is Al Jilani. That is probably what COMBUBPAC told CSDS-5 on their call. Rickover spinning in his grave
You are amazingly good at taking what I imagine is a very long, heavily formalised report and turning it into something understandable for us normies, with all the missing context added. Thank you!
This was really fantastic. Understanding these kinds of failures helps us in every kind of endeavor because this is a study of how humans operate
Might be a bitter take but the correct automatic reactions have negatively impacted the overall navy by allowing these screwups to survive their institutional neglect and failure.
Favoritism for "minorities" is the likely culprit here. CO's name is Al Jilani. That is probably what COMBUBPAC told CSDS-5 on their call
Imagine being a crewmember and having your life in the hands of these meatballs 😳
The crew did it's job quickly and effectively. Seeing as how "these meatballs" saved the boat from serious compound casualties with immediate and effective action, I would have exactly ZERO problems with sailing with any of them - (um, maybe a different anav).
They brought the boat back with everyone alive. I view it in the same light as pilots who claim any landing you walk away from is a good one! :-)
Submariners once...
@@motuit
I mean, if you consider a preventable crash due to the pilot ignoring his altimeter in heavy fog "a good landing" just because nobody died, then sure I guess. Next time, though, they might have to take the "almost" out of "almost sank the ship".
Also I'm pretty sure mrspeigle1 meant the command team when talking about "these meatballs", not the crew as a whole.
@@motuit he means the NAV specific guys.
After rereading, I now realize I misread his post as a shot at the crew. I stand corrected. Thanks for the redirect.
Apologies, mrspeigle1.
Safety is everyone's responsibility. The Navy is supposed to be encouraging a culture that allows anyone to point out an unsafe condition even if it is not in their wheelhouse.
Another outstanding and detailed debriefing… You really are setting a gold standard… I stumbled across your channel during the ill fated titanic carbon fiber, submersible debacle… Been coming back ever since
I was in the Navy and one thing I remembered was that when relieving a watch, you read the logs and go over points of interest. The guy leaving briefs the guy coming on watch, so important log entries etc. are transferred. In other words when relieve you make sure you are up to speed on preceding events! From this report it appears they do not do this on that boat.