U.S. Nuclear Submarine Collides with Japanese Tanker

A United States nuclear submarine has collided with a Japanese tanker in the Arabian sea today. No word has been released as of yet in regards to injuries.



I cannot really say too much about thius subject as of yet as more news is pending. I can only hope that the men/women aboard both of these vessels are ok. Please feel free to update with new news when possible.

According to CNN, it was the U.S.S. Newport News. No injuries, but some damage:



[edit on 1/8/2007 by djohnsto77]

I wonder how they did that? Don't they usually check to see if something is on the surface first? Unless it was some sort of emergency that they needed to surface without having control. I'd like to hear more about this. Imagine if it was a smaller vessel or a passenger ship? If anyone has any other news please feel free to add to it.


Pie

Yes, definitely an error. There's no excuse for surfacing below another shipl

The Captain will hold ultimate responsibility.

Originally posted by djohnsto77
Yes, definitely an error. There's no excuse for surfacing below another shipl

The Captain will hold ultimate responsibility.

The captain and the radar guy!! You would think he wouldn't have missed the big blip on his screen. I imagine an Oil tanker coming through that area must be immense.

This is eerily similar to incidences that occurred a few years back...

U.S. submarine, ship collide in North Arabian Sea (January 28, 2002)

Sub practicing emergency ascent hit boat (February 10, 2001)

And a report from the aftermath of the above linked incident:

Japanese relatives view video of ship hit by sub (February 18, 2001)

It has happened before numerous times and it happens more often than you think it's just at you never hear about it because most of the time a collision is avoided. It's a problem, and when in busy and confined shipping lanes it very easy to make such an error. But I'm willing to bet the tanker got the worst of it, even though I don't yet know how serious it was or wasn't.

For me this however this highlights some key points, US SSN's in the gulf, probably part of the CBG (they usually have two subs) but an interesting insight none the less. And it also shows the hazards of running ops in confined littoral conditions and in busy shipping lanes. If a conflict was to break out it will be interesting to see how these two things impact US surface and submarine operations.

Japanese trawler in Feb 2001 killing a few students, Jan 2002, the Greenville sub and our own ship colide. The same sub. Sounds par for the course. Hopefully a civilian was not at the wheel again.

Thomas.