Probe: Submarine Procedures Skipped: Safety checks on nuclear sub omitted; records falsified

[DeepModem Mom]

Source: NYT/AP

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: October 22, 2007

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Sailors on the submarine USS Hampton failed to do daily safety checks on the ship's nuclear reactor for a month and falsified records to cover up the omission, a Navy investigation shows. The revelation is sure to raise new questions about the military's handling of the nation's nuclear assets following an Air Force incident in which a B-52 bomber was accidentally loaded with nuclear-tipped missiles and flown across the country without any one realizing it for more than a day.

In the case of the Hampton, it appears from a preliminary investigation that sailors in Submarine Squadron 11 had skipped the required analysis of the chemical and radiological properties of the submarine's reactor for more than a month, even though a daily check is required....

Other members of the squadron discovered the lapse during a routine examination required as part of the redundancy built into the system so that problems are caught, he said. The examination was done as the submarine was nearing the end of a West Pacific deployment, which was completed Sept. 17. Officials also discovered that logs had been filled out to make it appear that the daily checks of the reactor water had actually been done.

Six nuclear personnel have received an undisclosed nonjudicial punishment after a preliminary investigation, but the probe is continuing, (Lt. Cmdr. Ryan Perry, a Navy spokesman at the Pentagon) said.

A nuclear powered fast attack submarine, Hampton is the most advanced nuclear attack submarine in the world, carrying a torpedo, cruise missile, and mine-laying arsenal, according to information on its Web site....

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Navy-Nuclear-Probe.html

[soothsayer]

1. I wonder why they didn't do it?

[uberotto]

7. In the Navy...

You have a series of Preventative Maintenance procedures you have to do either Daily, Weekly, Bi-Weekly, Monthly, Quarterly, Semi-Annually or Annually. Doing these procedures is about 90% of the work you do. The problem is, is that after doing your dailies every morning for about a year or so with nothing ever going wrong, you start to build up a comfort level where you start to just assume that if nothing has changed, there's no reason to go through the effort of retesting.

These tests are usually written in a way that makes them difficult to accomplish, in that they are often too labor intensive for what was actually being done. For example, if you were to use these types of procedures for checking a spark plug in your car, the test would include steps such as
1. Drain all fuel from the fuel tank
2. Disconnect ignition switch
3. Disconnect and remove battery from engine compartment
4. Attach grounding strap to engine block
5. Remove wire from Spark plug
6. Remove Spark plug from engine block

It usually starts with skipping steps 1 through 4, eventually over time, if you have been doing this test every day for several months, you get to a point where if the engine is running o.k. you start to skip steps 5 and 6 also.

My guess is this is what happened here. Since there was no sign of trouble, over time the crew started to become too complacent in their work.

[DeepModem Mom]

10. Thanks for sharing your insider info, uberotto! nt

[billyoc]

14. Oh, the zerk fittings, THE ZERK FITTINGS!!

AAAAAHHHHGGGG!! :freak:

[rocktivity]

15. Reminds me of a story about a woman applying for a job in an auto plant

She found herself in a roomful of men, each with a mockup of a car whose tire they were directed to change by following the instructions provided. The woman doggedly plowed through the instructions while the men seemed to zip right through the task, and she was the last person to finish and leave. She thought she'd blown it sky high, of course. But she got hired because she was the only one who followed the instruction to follow the instructions!

:headbang:
rocknation

[KittyWampus]

20. and THAT reminds me of the story about Al Qaida training. They take candidates, put 'em in a room

and tell them not to move and then leave them there for days.

The ones who move are not accepted.

[Javaman]

26. here's my tinfoil hat theory...

this is a smoke screen story to give credence to the B-52 nukes.

They came out with this one awfully quick.

"look we have fuck ups all over the place! and damn it we are going to get to the bottom of this!"

perhaps, this really did happen, but only now they thought to use it to distract us. :shrug:

but what this does is, it makes the brass look all puffed up about cracking down on the lax procedures and makes it sound as business as usual.

thus once again putting the few that actually pay attention, but don't question anything into a false sense of catatonic calm.

not having been in the military nor played one on TV, I'm probably talking completely out of my ass here, but having paid attention to how these tools* operate over the last 7 years, I put nothing past them.

[BOSSHOG]

2. Incredible

While on Patrol what the hell would Sailors on a Sub have to occupy their time but doing their jobs? This is begging for courts-martial.

[Sirveri]

21. You have obviously never been underway on a submarine.

Trust me, there is a shitload of bullshit that has to be accomplished. Nuclear trained crewmembers onboard a submarine are possibly the most over worked group of people around, 30+ hour long work days are a FREQUENT occurance. During the ORSE exam (where these guys got busted) you do not sleep for three days straight. These are the people who run the nuclear reactor, and we beat them down and exhaust them to see how safe they are. ORSE is hell, pray to God you never go thru one.

[driver8]

25. ORSE is hell on a carrier, I cannot even imagine what the nucs on a sub go through.

We had a lot of guys who could carry the load. Sub guys aren't that lucky.

[KoKo]

3. agree....it's not like there are so many distractions aboard a Sub that

the crew just can't get around to scheduled tasks... :shrug:

[Tyler Durden]

4. It's called "GUNDECKING" in the NAV

Freely translated: cooking the maintenance books by just filling in the blanks because performing the actual job interferes with Coffee, Cards, and TV.

Happens all the time. Shocks me less than not at all.

[KittyWampus]

5. Is this a failure of leadership? Surely top brass on ship would be aware his crew was goofing off

way too often.

I mean there's a daily routine and rythym here and anywheres. You can kind of tell when all the sudden guys are playing way too many hands of cards.

[Tyler Durden]

6. Yah think? Nope.

We used to say the Officers only THINK they are in charge: The Petty Officers run the Navy, and if you get a bum crew, STAND BY.

[uberotto]

8. No, they wouldn't

In the Navy, the "Top Brass" are typically clueless on what is actually happening on the ship because that's not their job. Their job is to pass down orders from the captain to the crew, fill out paperwork and give tours of the ship when we pulled into port.

All real work was done by the Enlisted, mostly Petty Officers (E6 and below). Every once and a while, you would get a good chief who actually did something other than count the days to their retirement.

[Tyler Durden]

13. Or read "The Chief's Courses"

Translated, The Sunday Funnies.

[DeepModem Mom]

11. Thanks for your insider view, Tyler! nt

[Sirveri]

23. The name varies by boat.

Gundecking is probably the 'official' term for it. However it is also known as 'blazing' (All right, time to blaze another log set), and I've heard it called 'gaffing' (I'll just gaff that off). I once heard someone call it 'grape' (you got that sig graped off).

Sometimes it's unavoidable, like for instance if you're running a drill set that takes two hours of your complete attention, you will end up doing a 'two-fer' on your hourly logs (I got close to a 'three-fer' once).

Saying it interferes with coffee, cards, and TV is incredibly insulting. Especially since submarines get no TV, and there really isn't any room on board to play cards. That and between maintenance, cleaning, and training, that only leaves about 6 hours for sleep, if you're lucky. Standard rotation is 18 hours consisting of: 6 hours on watch, 6 hours off-going (where you preform maintenance, clean, do paperwork, work on quals, run drills, monitored evolutions, etc), then 6 hours on-coming (where you can shower and sleep, or get told you have to be a drill monitor or perform a monitored evolution which means you don't get to sleep until next cycle, or you sleep in the torepedo room when they perform weapons moving exercises and kick you from your rack). Eating is generally done before and after watch, and you're considered to be a fat bitch if you eat between off going and on coming. Point being, submarines are a lot of work and it sucks being on one, but at least they have air conditioning.

[Turbineguy]

9. Non-nuke here

but I know Rickover decreed that there shall be no accidents in the US Navy's nuclear fleet. To this end lots of checks and maintenance were introduced.

It's the tendency of those who make up the maintenance requirements to make the list grow ever longer. Things are always added and rarely taken away. Until something is "tested to destruction" the list grows.

So for years you do your checks and make your rounds and find nothing wrong. But the reason you find nothing wrong is because of the checks and rounds. Not because there is nothing wrong.

This particular check is probably redundant because there are sensors and alarms in case of a radiation leak. Also people wear personal dosage meters.

It is impossible to make things fool-proof because fools are so ingenious.

[uberotto]

12. In order to make the procedures idiot proof...

The Navy would find the biggest idiots around and have them write the procedures for doing the tests...

[Sal316]

16. I'm an ex-Navy ELT..and I'm pissed.

In the case of the Hampton, it appears from a preliminary investigation that sailors in Submarine Squadron 11 had skipped the required analysis of the chemical and radiological properties of the submarine's reactor for more than a month, even though a daily check is required....

Other members of the squadron discovered the lapse during a routine examination required as part of the redundancy built into the system so that problems are caught, he said. The examination was done as the submarine was nearing the end of a West Pacific deployment, which was completed Sept. 17. Officials also discovered that logs had been filled out to make it appear that the daily checks of the reactor water had actually been done.

This was my job when I was in the Navy. The Primary (Reactor chemistry) was to be analyzed at midnight every day. The Secondary (steam generator chemistry) is analyzed every 4 hours.

In a submarine there is one reactor and two steam generators.

Primary analysis takes ~20-30 minutes. Secondary analysis takes about the same time.

How in the hell could the RL (reactor labs) Chief let this go for a month...much less the Reactor Officer!!?!?! Add to that EOOW (Engineer officer of the watch) has to authorize any valve movements in the plants.... particularly if one is opening the reactor plant!!!

This is a massive breakdown in the system....and it just pisses me off!

MM3(ELT) Sal 316 CVN-65, aft shack

[driver8]

17. I'm an ex-nuc (MM), also. (Not an ELT)

I cannot believe that the guys would even think to blow their analysis off for a month!

Sal, based on a review of the logs...how would this get discovered?

[Sal316]

19. My guess.....Naval Reactors audit.

My guess is someone at NR got hold of the logs..... it's hard to believe that it would get blown off for a whole month!

[Sirveri]

22. ORSE log audit.

Actually what happened is they looked at the logs and they were literally the same for like a week straight. No downward trending, nothing. They can't even blaze logs properly, idiots. So when they questioned one of the guys he cracked under pressure and ratted out everyone else.

[driver8]

24. Unbelievable...

I cannot believe that these guys were so lazy that they couldn't do their samples.

Thanks for the info!

[gratuitous]

18. See? We can't trust Iran with the knowledge of how to make nukes

And that way lies World War III (pause here for heavy panting by George and Dick, oh, they want it so, so, so very much). The U.S. can barely manage its nuc-u-lar responsibilities; how can we possibly trust Iran?