By Ryota Dei, Pacific Daily
News (
The USS San Francisco will undergo further damage
assessment out of
To prepare the
The submarine was damaged while making a submerged
transit from
"As part of having on-hand materials for potential
use in these repairs, a large, steel dome about 20 feet high and 20 feet in
diameter will be arriving (on) Guam in the next few days," according to
the Navy public affairs office in a press release. "As of now, no
decisions have been made about when the
The assessment of what will happen with the crew will be made after the repair assessment, according to the Navy.
Cmdr. Kevin Mooney, the submarine's commanding officer at
the time the
(KUAM-TV (NBC)
As reported over the weekend, the commander of the USS
San Francisco was relieved of his command by the commander of the
Today KUAM News was able to speak with 7th Fleet
spokesperson Commander Ike Skelton. We speculated on the fact that national
media has been saying that the submarines have been operating on navigational
charts that are outdated, and on the charts that Commander Mooney had the sea
mount on which the
Replied Commander Skelton, "Well, as the report is still under review that would be entirely inappropriate to talk about until the actual investigation is completed, so I ask you to bear with me."
Commander Skelton says while the initial report has been completed, it is still under review and cannot be released. One crewmember died and more than two dozen others were injured when the submarine ran aground last month.
By Christopher Drew, New York Times,
The Navy relieved a submarine captain of his command today for failing to follow critical navigational procedures before the vessel crashed into an undersea mountain in the South Pacific last month.
The officer, Cmdr. Kevin Mooney, also received a letter
of reprimand after a hearing in
The submarine was 500 feet below the surface at the time,
and Navy officials have said that the mountain was not on its charts. But in
announcing the disciplinary action today, the Navy said investigators had also
found that "several critical navigational and voyage planning procedures were
not being implemented" aboard the
The Navy said Commander Mooney had placed the vessel in danger by "not assuring that these standard procedures were followed."
Navy officials declined to offer details of the navigational errors, and Commander Mooney could not be reached for comment.
The decision to relieve him was made by Vice Adm.
Jonathan W. Greenert, the commander of the Navy's Seventh Fleet. The
Commander Mooney has said that the navigational charts did not indicate any hazards in the area. But the main chart onboard was created in 1989 and was based on even older data. Some former submarine captains have said the sketchiness of that data should have prompted greater caution.
The collision severely damaged the submarine's bow, and
23 of its 137 sailors were injured too severely to stand watch duty as the
vessel limped back to its base at
USS San Francisco Commander Guilty Of Hazarding Vessel
By Robert A. Hamilton,
The captain of a submarine that hit a seamount Jan. 8 in
the western
Cmdr. Kevin Mooney, the captain of the USS San Francisco, was permanently relieved as skipper after an administrative proceeding known as an admiral's mast. The proceeding was convened by an order of the commander of the Seventh Fleet, Vice Adm. Jonathan Greenert.
Cmdr. Ike N. Skelton, a spokesman for the Seventh Fleet in Yokosuka, Japan, said late Friday night that Greenert determined during the investigation that Mooney failed to follow "several critical navigational and voyage planning" standards.
"By not ensuring those standards were followed, Mooney hazarded the vessel," Skelton said, reading from a statement issued by Greenert.
The mast concluded that Mooney's crew had access to charts that showed there might have been an underwater obstruction in the area, and that a sounding taken just minutes before the accident did not correlate with the charts that were in use at the time, which should have prompted him to be more cautious.
The news stunned several Navy sources who
have been following the accident investigation, particularly because Mooney's
actions after the accident were characterized as heroic by everyone familiar
with the situation. Despite extensive damage to the ship, he and his crew got
it to the surface and kept it floating long enough to limp back to its homeport
of
The
Minutes after diving, and while traveling at a high rate of speed, the submarine slammed into a seamount in an area where official Navy charts list 6,000 feet of water.
Other charts of the area, however, show muddy water in the area, which normally indicates shallowness, and other government agency charts show evidence of the seamount less than 150 feet below the surface.
The grounding destroyed three of the four ballast tanks in the submarine's bow, shattered the sonar dome and smashed the sonar sphere. In addition, a bulkhead at the front end of the ship was buckled.
Machinist Mate 3rd Class Joseph Ashley was killed when he
was thrown more than 20 feet and struck his head on a large pump. Almost
two-dozen others were injured so badly they could not perform their duties,
though they have all since been treated and released from the hospital in
The crew saved the ship by constantly running a low pressure blower meant for only intermittent use to force water out of the badly damaged forward ballast tanks, as well as using exhaust from the ship's diesel motor to augment the blower.
Despite the force of the blow, the nuclear reactor and the ship's turbine generators continued to operate normally, and even sensitive electronic and navigation gear continued to function.
On Jan. 20, Mooney was reassigned to Submarine Squadron
15 in
The mast means that Mooney will not face a more serious proceeding known as a court martial, but the letter of reprimand and the decision to relieve him of command "for cause" means that his promising career is over, the Navy sources said.
In a related development, Lt. Cmdr. Jeff A. Davis, a spokesman for the Pacific submarine force commander, said late Friday night that assessment of the damage to the San Francisco is proceeding and that shipyard workers in Guam are planning to make temporary repairs to the bow of the ship so it can be moved under its own power to a shipyard where it can be repaired.
Although the location where it will be repaired has not
been determined, Navy sources said it would likely be
"These temporary repairs will be engineered to
ensure a successful transit,"
Other Navy sources said that if the assessment determines
it makes sense to repair rather than scrap the