Keeping the blogosphere posted on the goings on of the world of submarines since late 2004... and mocking and belittling general foolishness wherever it may be found. Idaho's first and foremost submarine blog. (If you don't like something on this blog, please E-mail me; don't call me at home.)
Eagle1 has done a good job of starting to look over the official declassified report on the San Francisco grounding. I'm hoping to look at it a little more closely tonight, and hope to have something useful to add to Eagle1's remarks. (One small little nit-pick; I think the chart that Eagle1 provided has the grounding location about 160nm south of the actual location).
posted by Bubblehead at 1:27 PM
I'm Joel Kennedy -- a married, 50-something year old retired submarine officer and esophageal cancer survivor with three kids who has finally made the transition to civilian life. Politically, I'm a Radical Moderate. (If you don't like something on this blog, please E-mail me. Don't call me at home.)
3 Comments:
Allow me to reiterate the obvious. Even commercial airline pilots have schedules and routes from their HQ, but the PILOT IS ALWAYS RESPONSIBLE FOR SAFE NAVIGATION, and adjusts as necessary for all attendant factors including volcanic eruptions (potentially fatal for gas turbine engines), weather, balloons, odd traffic, and EVERYTHING else. When adjustments are made for good cause, the pilot is in the clear even if the schedule is blown and the route altered. Sub skippers are NO DIFFERENT! Secondly, the Navy's SSN-711 punishments appear consistent with historical precedent.
5/09/2005 7:19 PM
Somehow, I can't envision the Navy telling the Skipper. "Thats ok! we understand! The chart you were using didn't show a seamount so you were perfectly right in proclaiming Damn the soundings! All ahaed flank! Since your ship is totalled, here is a new command!"
Even under a more compassionate Nuclear Navy (And the current Nuclear Navy calls for 100% perfection 100% of the time or you are finished!) Any errors in navagation would hold the CO culpable. While the Nuclear Navy does indeed need to mellow out a little, going the opposite way with this bleeding heart libaeralism is not the answer.
5/09/2005 8:06 PM
Thanks for the link and the correction. I have now posted a better guess and also stole - er - appropriated the chart used by NavET over at Lubber's Line. And, while I agree with Vigilis that the Skipper always has the ultimate responsibility, the point is that there seems to have been a collective effort that resulted in a very bad result and implies, as I think you said in an earlier post, the need to improve the process, not just hang one CO out to dry.
5/10/2005 4:56 AM
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