Put this atop your list of things you don't want to be on board for. http://www.boston.com/news/local/ne...reported_on_sub_at_portsmouth_naval_shipyard/ http://www.kjonline.com/news/Fire-breaks-out-on-board-a-nuclear-submarine-docked-in-Kittery.html By the way...I heart the media... "The ship’s nuclear reactor is in the forward part of the submarine. The fire broke out at the other end." Uh....no. Thanks though.
Another story to make you realize that somewhere, someone in the Navy is having a worse day than you.
I heard from a sub driver that the fire was so hot that the hull plates were glowing. The big concern was how can you verify the strength of an entire hull plate. You can only do so much NDI but you may never be able to certify the hull to be what it was before the fire.
Sub hulls probably don't react well to redneck heat treatment. At a minimum those plates got annealed, then probably a surface quench when the water form the hoses hit them.
Wonder what the cost/benefit is on just striking it. I'm sure the engineers will figure it out, the they've got to be thinking of the liability of putting it back into service with a hull that has been subjected to that kind of punishment. I presume the hulls are done in a modular fashion, but that's still quite an undertaking.
If they do decide to repair/refurbish, I wouldn't want to be aboard on the first dive to 'test depth'! I am fortunate that my number of career dive and surface totals are the same... BzB
If they knew how hot the fire was and the length of exposure, they probably wouldn't even have to NDI it. I'd venture to say it's pretty muched fucked.
I was at some fine Navy training there when it happened. They woke us up at 0200 to have a mando emer muster to make sure we didn't head down the block to "help out". Def crazy stuff!!
They can do some amazing stuff with fixing these submarines, if they can cut the nose off of the San Fran and replace it with another I am sure they can fix the Miami, the question is "is this cost effective"
As I understand it, the only reason they kept San Fran was because they had recently dropped all that coin on the refueling and it would have been a bigger waste to go through the scrapping/disposal of the nuclear reactor process.
My educated guess would be, that since it's one of the older 688i's that it all comes down to EFPH remaining on the core. If it's early in life, it may well be worth salvaging....if it isn't, that cost will put it over the reasonable cost threshold to operate and she'll be struck.
My biggest disappointment (aside from losing half a submarine) is how the media portrayed the Submariners as needing to be saved by the local fire depts. Of course, media recognition is not why we do this, but at least have the courtesy to not make the crew out to be helpless souls who needed to be rescued. If the hull passes testing and can withstand a dive, she will be repaired. If not, they will explore whether to make her a prototype or to scrap her. Nothing is confirmed, but the first option is looking optimistic.
You would think that would be the case, but there have been several cases where good cores with lots of EFPH left scrapped and ones that should have been scrapped were used until the last possible minute.
The work done on the San Francisco was pretty impressive, but I would be interested to find out the extent to which the actual pressure hull was damaged. From pictures, it looks like only the main ballast tanks, sonar, and anything housed in the tanks took the majority of the blow. I know the Hatford was a serious undertaking (did an internship at Electric Boat when they were fixing her), since the sail actually listed and warped the pressure hull. If the Engineers decide that the Miami's hull was compromised then I don't see it being feasible to keep her going. The only thing they could do is splice her with a boat that has been mothballed, and that will be no easy task.
I've read it was $400 million to repair the sub and another $40 million to repair the dockyard. The cause was a short in a vacuum cleaner motor. I also read somewhere they can just splice the bow off a decommissioned sub on as all the decomm's are original LA classess while Miami is a flight one (?) / newer boat. The big difference being Miami has bow diving planes instead of fairwater diving planes (sail mounted). The article also said the bow sonars, etc. are different.
Everything you said is correct with one minor exception: The official cause of the fire is a vacuumed up piece of slag from welding that smoldered with the other debris inside and eventually caught fire. However, that is proving to be a challenging thing to reproduce.
YHGTBSM !!!! "Multiple" medications for anxiety and depression and this freak show is allowed to work on an SSN ???? Amazing . . .
Yeah... They let the Goodwill come in and clean our alert facility at Offutt. I oftentimes wonder how they screen them. I know a 3p who was thrown in jail for running on a TRACK in front of the facility, and we are letting people of questionable mental capacity around crews on hard alert... What do I know...
