Great to see you again Admiral. Likely you don't remember me but we served together on SEA DEVIL. You were the weps and a Lt. and I was an STS1. I was happy to see you had such a great career. Admittedly, I wasn't surprised! Seen a couple interviews you did. I think your contributions to keeping Naval history alive and current is wonderful. Certainly qualified as "subject matter expert". Fair winds and following seas, Sir! I was proud to have served with you!
I corresponded with Bruce Rule for several years while investigating the Scorpion. An amazing man. RIP to Bruce, who gave all of these men from both submarines an opportunity to tell their story. His diagnosis allows historians to put failures/accomplishments into perspective. Godspeed to all.
I gave Admiral Rickover a haircut while he was on sea trials for the USS Jacksonville (SSN 699). I was the ships designated barber as a Reactor Operator. It was an honor. He tipped me a silver dollar. I still have it. Those little one-week schools the Navy offered were valuable.
My Dad was a very Proud Submariner. He served aboard the USS REDFIN (SSR-272). Aboard the REDFIN, one of my Dad's best friends was another Sailor that Dad always referred to as "Doc" Gallant. Doc Gallant & Dad were up for transfer & Doc Gallant was sent to the USS THRESHER. Dad was sent to another school (I was quite young & don't remember which school). Anyway, I can remember coming home as white as a sheet & him telling Mom that he had heard that the THRESHER was gone. I know Dad mourned the loss of one of his best friends/Shipmates for a long time..... Although Mom was a good "Navy Wife" & I can never remember her ever complaining about our Duty Stations & Dad's Deployments, I do remember her asking Dad to leave Subs. Dad didn't argue & agreed. In fact, he cross-rated from RM-C (SS) to CT-C (SS). Until his death, Dad rarely mentioned Doc Gallant, as it would send him into a bit of a "depression". Thank You for posting this video. I wish my Dad had lived long enough to view this.....
Very interesting. I was on the commissioning crew of the USS Flasher SSN 613. Flasher was on the building ways at EB when Thresher went down. She was launched in June of 1963 and tied up and all the plans were reviewed. There was discussion about scrapping her and the remaining boats on the ways at one point. The commissioning crew was disbanded. Later it was decided to fram her and add 13'9" midsip and a second crew was started to be put together but that was also disbanded. When it was decided to make her the first constructed boat with the new SUBSAFE plans were finalized and a third Pre Commisioning crew was formed. I reported aboard in Feb 1965 as the first non rated man. We had our fast cruise alongside the EB pier and as I remember it, it was 5 days. Later our sea trial was coming up and we pulled out with Adm Rickover aboard. We started down but after a few hundred feet the gland seal on a periscope failed and water was coming in all over Control. We surfaced and went back to EB. Next days we went out and 50 feet at a time dove the boat. When we reached test depth the hull a screaming and shrieking at us. The sound of pop rivets was failing was almost like popcorn. We actually overshot the depth target by a bit and then started back doing the same thing. Later trials we tested the SUBSAFE system and what a wild ride! Personal opinion here, I have always felt renaming the class was a slap in the face to the men who died on Thresher! I've always been proud to tell people I sailed a "Thresher Class" sub!
In the German film "Das Boot" the sub dove to beyond safe death-rivets on the hull started popping off as the hull contracted-always believe this was fiction-but you experienced it.
@@genekelly8467 These were internal Pop Rivets holding the internal floating cabin structure together. The hull compression put stress on the internal free standing habitat. Pop rivets just like you can get a Home Depot. Nothing structural as that was all welded and X-rayed for defects.
Love hearing first hand stories from servicemen. Thanks for sharing, and risking your life (especially in the early days of the nuclear subs), in the service of our country. My brother served on the George Washington SSBN 598, although it was close to 40 years after before he would tell me what sub he served on. He still won't talk about anything they did, patrols etc... He took (and still does) the term "Silent Service" quite literally!
@@gayprepperz6862 Tell your Brother that the "Actual Sail" of the GW is on permanent display at the HS Nautilus site in Groton Conn. God Bless Submariners.
I am an old FBM sailor from the early '70s. My boat was SSBN 600 (Theodore Roosevelt). I loved her, but I had tremendous respect for her too. My shipmates and I didn't talk much about the Thresher or Scorpion, and I can only speak for myself, but I think all of us would have liked to know a little more about what had happened to those boats. I sincerely believe that our crew we were mature enough and strong enough to have known more than we were told. It certainly would not have affected my personal performance, which earned a Cammanding Officer's Commendation on my first patrol. Our COB was a plank owner on the Nautilus, starting out as a mess cook. I used to ask him, as well as my "A Division" Senior Chief, about the loss of the two boats. Neither of them said much, probably for good reason. One vivid memory I have is looking at our blow system, the Marotta valves, piping, etc., and wondering what actually froze up during Thresher's attempt to emergency blow. I would scour my piping tabs to intimately comprehend our blow systems. Now, knocking on 70 years of age, I understand more than ever before after watching this video. This algorithm suggested video was a tremendous gift for me. Thanks to all for your efforts in making this information easily accessible to us. I plan to consume every video on your website! Again, thanks sincerely!
Look up "37 pings" by the "sub brief" youtube channel [link: ruclips.net/video/HV5FGTxIU4Q/видео.html]. 600 documents relating to the thresher was released on July 9th. Be warned it's very sad
hi Robert. I was 38A on the holland and a couple others, including the McKee on the west coast. I worked on a lot of old boomers and diesel boats like the bonefish. I would go back and forth between the tenders and the USS Alamogordo ARDM-2. yes I'm a girl. went in in the early 80s and they didn't make it easy. but I just showed up and did my job. snorkel mast clamps, no problem even though I only weighed 100lbs and each half of the clamp was 80lbs there bouts. I loved everything about the subs. sucked that I was a girl but I went to a bunch of specialty schools like an bra-24 in philly, O2 school to certify the sub guys once a year on their own equipment like the O2 generators, lol, you'll laugh at this but i went to Fairbanks Morris school at great lakes.
I am the nephew of LCDR John Wesley Harvey. I found this video on Memorial day thinking about my uncle and his crew. Also I am retired Navy and submarine qualified Quartermaster Senior Chief Petty Officer. The Thresher has been a major milestone in my family's history since I was five years old. I never discussed my relationship to the Thresher while I served on the boats. What I found listening to this report was the discussion about the MCP's (Main Coolant Pumps) it was brought up that the first CO testified that he always ran the MCP's in fast speed at depth early in his testimony and then changed in later testimony that he ran the MCP's in slow speed at depth. The Captain in this discussion felt that someone may have influenced the testimony to cover CDR Axene's butt. I wonder that if during the turnover of CDR Axene and LCDR Harvey, if Axene didn't tell Harvey that he found in practice that it was in his opinion proper procedure on Thresher to run the MCP's in fast speed at depth? This is something I heard for the first time tonight. Wow!
As is often the case with youtube, I found this presentation by accident. You did a great job on this. I am a retired senior engineer from NAVSEA. It was my great honor to serve as one of the managers of the SUBSAFE Program from 87 - 98. Beside my desk was a safe that contained much of the original documents from the Thresher inquiry along with the early submarine safety investigations. Also, there was a copy of the 200 or so black and white photos taken by Trieste. I would occasionally get questions from other activities as to why we have a certain requirement (e.g. the flooding casualty sequence that the EMBT system design is based on). I was pretty diligent in diving into the safe and researching the background for current requirements. Those documents, through several office moves and changes in management, are likely scattered to the four winds by now. Good to see my friend Steve Walsh is still making valuable contributions to the cause.
Adm Foggo phenomenal Lt. back in the early 80's and no doubt has gotten better over time. It was my pleasure serving with you on the USS SEA DEVIL (SSN-664). That boat helped to mold the careers of so many men who achieved so much for so long. Many Master Chief, one MCPON, a number of later Commanding Officers and flag officers such as yourself. Adm. Mies is a man I will hold tremendous respect for as his leadership was key to the highly successful missions we conducted and the careers of men who contributed so much to the force.
I remember reading a story about the "kindly old gentleman" Adm. Rickover telling a young serviceman (officer?), that there wasn't anything the serviceman could do that would get him upset, and he challenged the serviceman to try his best (I'm paraphrasing a bit here). The serviceman then stepped up to the Admiral's desk and with both hands, wiped everything on the desk and on to the floor! I laugh every time I think of that story.
They weren't alive. They were gone pretty quickly. Skylark and SOSUS both logged an implosion not long after the last contact with Skylark. The depth there was 8400 feet. The crush depth was "estimated" to be a 1,950 feet( test depth plus half. Test depth being 1,300ft). At the rate of descent the sound of the implosion was determined to be at around 2,400 ft( or 730 meters). The "37 pings" was probably sound interference from another submarine not on communication with seawolf, and the other surface vessels involved in the search. And the so called metal on metal contact asked thresher to hit the hull with a hammer could be any kind of sound interference. The point is, those men never had a chance of survival and that's the sad part. Thank goodness that the loss gave birth to the 'SUBSAFE' program. RIP brave men. You will never be forgotten
A fine review now that I'm forty-six minutes in. The "sense of urgency" may well relate to intelligence (or possible intelligence) the United States had at the time with Soviet ICBM's in Cuba. I was a young teenager living in Crestwood, NY at the time both THRESHER went down and when the Cuban missile crisis took place. My father, the late Captain Andrew McKane, MC (USN), had left the Navy in mid-1961 where we had been living on Oahu. My dad was a nuclear submariner. All five members of my immediate family felt terribly over Thresher's loss. I'm delighted to see this video, as nothing can be learned if those who need to know don't know the true facts about incidents of the past. Great work, as always, Navy! Thank you very much. Andy McKane, 12 September 2022, Maunaloa, Molokai, Hawaii.
As a naval historian, I was intrigued by Admiral Rickover's omnipresence, like a protective parent, on the scene with Thresher, of course. But what caught my attention was Rickover's signature driving agenda to change the character of the U.S. submarine as a weapon altogether; into its full technological potential as much as any surface vessel or land based system and to formalize and straighten out the outlaw nature of submariners; e.g., subs changing from early, passive, random, occasional ambush to aggressive anti ship aggressor by WW2 to a nuclear-sustained strategic weapon launch platform, then too to even antisubmarine hunter. Like General Curtis LeMay up-dated and professionalized the newly-created U.S. Air Force's Strategic Air Command into the aerospace part of the nuclear triad, his naval counterpart, Admiral Rickover steadfastly and almost single handedly designed our nuclear submarine strategic weapon response capabilities for submarines and submariners. Thresher and Scorpion's twin loss show the speed to deploy new national defense weapons now coupled with the exponentially-increasing costs of the Vietnam war then too were biting into America's defense budget, affecting the quality controls of weapon production at the height of the Cold War that got the better of us. Their sudden shocking losses were a wake-up call like the Columbia and Challenger were to NASA too, famously showing NO such losses since, with BIG responsive developments and changes coming from these agonizing surprise losses' post mortem investigations. With Thresher and Scorpion sudden surprising losses too, overnight, many heartbroken and bewildered Goldstar family members all over America lost their personal knights in shining armor to the cruel sea - 50 years ago! The shock and grief were then and remain colossal.
As someone not fortunate enough to have served in the US Navy or on board submarines I have always been fascinated by their technology. Growing up and learning about the monumental technical feats of the Nautilus, evolution of hull shapes and loss of the Scorpion and Thresher gave me a sense of awe, pride and appreciation for the folks who made it happen and lost their lives. It was interesting to hear how Admiral Rickover was not only a demanding genius/perfectionist (definitely what you needed with the stakes) but looked for a certain character type to command nuclear submarines. I always assumed existing submariners were given updated training and automatically grandfathered in to the nuclear navy? To hear Admiral Rickover wanted officers that were less likely to take risks and even excluded those who were considered heroes during WWII, was very interesting. Definitely a different character profile than the test pilots of the day. This must have been the early beginings of industrial, workplace psychological suitability, character and occupational screening? To all the men who lost their lives and families who supported them in making the ultimate sacrifice to advance US Naval Submarine technology and help keep the peace thank you so much. To the presenters and facilitators, thank you for your service to the country and work to put this presentation together.
Retired MMN1(SS) here. It's an example of not asking the grunts what they think because politics were more important. Not as bad in my time as I stopped a 688 from going to sea as a 2nd class due to a yard QA violation. Just MHO, but zeros tend to forget the blue shirts not only run the boats, but know them far better than the zeros and in fact TRAINED YOU ALL AT SEA
I nod thanks to the O-gangers for coordinating our days at sea even as we blueshirts trained them, and I remain aware the submarine is a unique sort of vessel, a ship fought and operated through the single mind of her commissioned Commanding Officer, a good C.O.'s being as close to a god-like presence as any blueshirt ever admired--and, hey, sub C.O.s aren't born; they're made from somewhere, right? meaning there will probably be an assortment of less-than-fully-baked officers lurking around--but The Blue Droids are the system experts and will be heard, aye. ET2(SS), nuke
Friend of mine was an EDO (Engineering Duty Officer.) He went to the Captain to ask to tag along on the Thresher voyage. While in the ante-room he overheard the Captain and another officer laughing and saying anyone who wanted to go along as getting a joy ride. Friend, a CDR, was upset that he would be seen in a negative light so he left the office......He wound up being on the liaison team for the families.
While qualifying (SS) on a Lafayette class boomer, I learned one thing very early. We owed our lives to the sacrifice these men gave to make it so much safer for me to go under the sea in a boat. I'm eternally grateful for their sacrifice. Along with Scorpion these 2 crews prove that you can't just send them to sea without being sure they are safe,or as close to it as humanly possible. Making leaps in technology requires small careful steps and should not be rushed to make someones idea a reality. Mistakes at sea get paid for eventually with someones life.
As much as it would be nice, it seems the reality is that it requires brave people to sacrifice themselves to develop technologies. It's no different with air travel. Every time there is a crash we learn something, and make changes to make it safer. It's literally impossible to dorsee every problem that might occur. So, it is what it is
I read about the Thresher in 1987 for the first time. I was shocked with the tragedy in my tiny 12 years of age. Now i know those men had a swift merciless end. Peace to their souls and respect for the families. Cold war was never fought in practical terms but full of casualties nevertheless.
Some of you will not believe me my father is one of the survivors.He was kicked off the boat on April 9th to see my brother born on the 10th.My dad worked for singer librascope and was the lead engineer for the mark 13 fire control system and he is very alive.Amen
I'm a little disappointed that the retired Naval gentleman basically regurgitated the Navy's original timeline for the Thresher's sinking, when by the documentation released a few months ago that he refers to very plainly shows the USS Thresher was still alive/ afloat over 24 hours based on the patrol logs of the 4 dives of the USS Seawolf while conducting SAR. That....is very discouraging that that retired officer still seems to be protecting the Navy over 58 years later. I'm a Medically retired Veteran with over 31 years of service and multiple combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. I've seen this same attitude in the Army unfortunately, entirely too many times.
I was one of the very early crew, so early we were assigned to Sup-Ships for a period. We joined in on any testing relating to accepting whatever was being offered by the yard to the navy. I had as much authority, (accept or deny) as the navy inspector. I was called to join the testing team to approve or deny the reinstallation of the hydraulic actuator for the hull isolation of the actuator that had originally failed. I had already seen the valve with no actuator and thought this one could be a problem because the operation stem for the ball was square, meaning it could match up in any of the 90-degree positions; it could be open when indication at the operator showed shut, I also listened to the flow sound. I rejected the test and told them to pull the operator and reinstall after placing the ball in the same position as the light indicated in the operations. It was a simple thing but it was my life as well. If the yard wants to sell you anything from install to operation my plan was "prove it to me".
I'm not a Navy vet, just an interested party. I was 13 watts hen Thresher was lost. The story was stunning. SubBrief's video was my introduction to all this. Even SubBrief stated that he needed to look more at the materials he'd received.
The only one ship that heard any pings and that was Sea Wolf, SOSUS didn’t hear it Sky Lark didn’t hear it, none of the dd’s heard it, and it’s happens to be a harmonic of the Fathometer’s being used. There’s was already a debris field found prior to the mystery pings. The sound conditions were poor with active sonar, DDs running around, Fathometer reading all over the place and Sea Wolf only barely able to detect anything. Multiple times there are qualifiers in the report, may be this, intermittent that, triple echo of something. The sea was alive with sound. To me to this is a sub crew that is hearing something to be sure, it’s just not what they think they are hearing. Im sorry but you need to ignore quite a bit of other evidence and only believe the Sea Wolf to believe that anyone was alive after SOSUS on several sensors heard the implosion. I’m going to need more than one ships record, which are contradicted by a SOSUS report and the records of a dozen other ships before I start believing this thing.
@@scottl9660 the thermal layer was strong enough that sea wolf was having a tough time communicating through it on multiple occasions. Stands to reason the ships above the layer would have a difficult time hearing anything below it. Also they were picking up not only the mainframe sonar active pings but also the emergency beacons as well as hull banging and garbaled underwater telephone transmission. Some of those might have been misidentified, but all of them? I truly hope for the sailors' sakes they all went without knowing what hit them, but it sure seems like some poor souls were stuck down there in the dark deep cold water trying very hard to be found.
Bruce Rule has stated there was no broadband noise on SOSUS detected that would indicate flooding. At only 1000 feet, the sea pressure would be 440 PSI and if there was a leak, impingement of the inrush of water against metal surfaces would be expected to have generated a lot of noise. This was not accounted for or explained in this discussion.
This report is an indictment of US Navy procedures and leadership (up and down the chain of command) at that time. fyi.. My background: US Navy 1968-74. I was engine room supervisor (ERS) and ELT (radcon, reactor radio chemistry) aboard USS Patrick Henry, SSBN-599.
ELTs are the top of all Nuclear Operators. And a big part of your job is you get to play with cool chemicals and radioactive chit. To this day I can spot yellow a mile away.
I spent about a third of my naval career in the Special Communications program, and my main duty throughout was training. The criticality of doing it properly and if sufficient TIME is devoted to it is mission critical, without a doubt. Questioning the training level of the crew is not blaming them; it is more a condemnation of those responsible for making sure it was done.
My mother’s fiancé was on USS Scorpion. I would love any guidance on best places for research. Losing him changed the her whole life and took a big part of her happiness.
No, those men were not still alive. It ended very fast for the crew, in a flash of combustion too quick for the mind to become aware. When Thresher was testing, Navy doctrine on trimming the ship (setting its buoyancy) basically said, "The nuclear reactor gives you whatever speed you need to drive out of any situation, so enjoy it!" How liberated we felt! We had mastered the ocean depths! But this was in celebration of our improvements over our WWII Diesel-electric subs that went down only as deep as 400 feet, where they poked along at 8 or 9 knots on their batteries. Now, in the 1960s, submerged subs pushed 30-knots at over a thousand feet, but the Navy, grown supremely comfortable and confident with those old fleet Diesel boats, simply hadn't considered sufficiently a new array of risks: Too fast and even a tiny error could flick a nuclear submarine far deeper than test depth, endangering the ship from pressure or even smacking it into the bottom. Too slow and a 440 pounds of sea pressure per square foot could turn a small leak into a raging flood so fast there wouldn't be time to order up a fast bell before the ship filled with too much water to do anything about it. Why did Thresher sink? Because the Navy's failure to grasp the risks of a surprisingly narrow operating envelope of speed+depth+trim boxed Thresher into an operating region where all it took were a few small things to go wrong to doom a ship. And then, on April 10th of '63, a random selection of things did just that. This is the reason we in submarines consider the details of the Thresher casualty--the leak size, location, blow rates, procedural variances--to be something of a quibble. I'm not making light of them; I'm saying we had our plate full of deficiencies to correct. *All* of those failure points had to be studied and improved, so we dismantled our creation and examined its details and came down hard on our own inattention and trained harder on all of it. But the biggest takeaway, I think, is we had to reevaluate our plunge into an entirely new operating environment. We expected the ocean to treat us as it had in Fleet Diesel-electric boats. Our expectations were disastrously ill-suited to the deeper sea and the realities of nuclear subs, and we got bitten in the ass by them. After Thresher, we became a lot more persnickety about how we trim our nuclear submarines. We know better now. But the claims Aaron Amick makes in his "37 pings" video defy all our present sense of engineering and physics and run contrary to how subs function. As a submariner, he should know better. it is a difficult and precise operation to hover a submarine with no propulsion. (See the terrific new video about this at ruclips.net/video/XFJnWp1tAdU/видео.html ) I've been on a submarine when someone made a single error with the system used to do such a hovering trick and the result was not pretty. Those events prompted my COB (Chief of the Boat) to forcibly proclaim afterward: "There's a lesson here! A SUBMERGED SUBMARINE WITHOUT PROPULSION... SINKS!" There is no logical mechanism by which a disabled sub could remain positioned in anywhere near such a manner as Amick claims occurred with Thresher. It can't happen. The Thresher is sacred to those of us in the submarine community, and to Amick, too, I'm sure, but its survival, hanging in the ocean for over a day, is impossible, no matter how strongly Amick loses control of his sense of outrage. He goes so far off the rails that he's convinced he's seeing Thresher's somehow hovering for a day and a half rather than imploding abruptly and totally, and he's so wound up about what he imagines he can't bring himself back to basic submarine logic. This is Amick's fault, alone, for misreading the report, jumping to conclusions, and then compounding his errors by not retracting his video. He is the sole source of claims the crew lived beyond the morning of 10 April. These bogus claims are not the fault of Seawolf; to his immense credit, the C.O. of Seawolf is just reporting what sounds his crew heard. He is not concluding they emanated from Thresher. Many other sound sources were operating in the search area as well that day, and there was so much noise and interference Seawolf was having major trouble hearing clearly over all the sonar noise in the area from other vessels engaged in the search. Seawolf could not even communicate reliably with Sea Owl. Beyond that, Skylark and SOSUS both heard the implosion of Thresher moments after the last UQC transmission. Bruce Rule, the top Navy acoustics expert, who testified at the Thresher Board of Inquiry, said this about Amick's allegations: “This RUclips video is false, the Seawolf report the presenter is reading from is correct, but the final report certified it was false readings. Seawolf was confused by the active sonar and noise created by the destroyers and the diesel submarine Sea Owl searching for Thresher on 11 April 1963, the day after she was lost. She mistook all sounds from the searching ships as banging on the hull and sonar pings from the Thresher. It was a mistake.” It's sad our emotional ties to one of our lost boats seem to have got Aaron so riled-up that this pile of nonsense resulted. So many people are now writing "OMG! THE THRESHER CREW LIVED FOR DAYS!" that this mess has taken on a life of its own. I feel awful for the poor families of those who died on that ship, having to hear and and wonder about these made-up horrors. As though their loss didn't already hurt enough. It falls to us in the submarines community to stand in opposition to the rising tide of dumb loosed by the "37 pings" video. Please help stop the spreading of baseless, hurtful rumours. If you want to do right by the U. S. Submarine Service, you could do worse than to edit your top-level comment with a note to the effect Bruce Rule and others in the submarine community who study the sinking of Thresher entirely reject Amick's conclusions. Thanks.
Kudos to the board member who pointed out that the men of the Thresher are indeed casualties of a war. For them, and for our sub community, the Cold War was a real, pressing war, and they treated it as such---to include taking life-imperiling risks.
God bless all of my shipmates who served onboard subs, but like I told my recruiter, there's NEVER a good time to abandon ship on a submarine. I happily served onboard the USS Forrestal with VA-85. RIP to all the men of the USS Thresher & the USS Scorpion. Fair winds & following seas shipmates. God bless you all. 🙏♥️🙏♥️🙏♥️ 🫡 🇺🇸
Great material, and a very robust in-dept analysis. Just one suggestion based upon experience: when you present these, it helps a lot to have a script prepared in advance, so your speech flows better.
As a fish boat sailer I understand the sacrifice of the loss ,I will say as a young sailer coming out of overhaul there was only two who trained us on how to operate the machine, and they were very short ,if different personality were present we would have been screwed
Closing main steam valves on rx scram was a crime the minute it was conceived. Lot's of residual heat (thermal mass) in steam generators, rx coolant loops, core decay heat. Enough possibly to push the boat up to a shallower depth and help mitigate flooding. *Closing main steam valves: I understand reasoning, thermal shock/brittle fracture of rx vessel. However, an intact rx vessel in 8,000 feet of ocean is no good to anybody.
Continued from my previous comment: PART 2 of 2: (42:40) Adm. Masso introduces panel Q&A: Capt. Bryant; Stephen Walsh, NAVSEA nuclear engineer; Norman Friedman, author. (43:00) What surprises were in the documents? Walsh: Fewer recovery-from-depth calculations had been done in advance than expected. Friedman: The overhaul was very extensive, without sufficient time to train on it. Crew members in key positions had been changed. Significant Navy pressures existed to get the sub at sea. Bryant: They could have allocated more time to testing the silver-brazed joints in the seawater piping. By comparison, they allocated a lot of time and manpower to the installation of the PUFFS hydrophones. (49:30) Should family or others have been involved in the 1963 panel? A brother of one crewman did testify; the Court did not investigate training weaknesses. (52:40) Shipbuilding schedules were under intense national security and political urgency. Thoughts? Yes, it was true. (57:22) Why did SSTGs lose speed? Condenser vacuum would have caused the slow changes seen in evidence. We don't know why the pumps weren't shifted to slow speed to prevent a scram. (58:58) Was the official story of a seawater spray from a leak in the AMS compartment some kind of a cover-up? Walsh: Evidence from the wreck seems to indicate the leak was from the AMS but the Court's report was released before the wreckage was examined. Capt. Bryant: Nothing points to any cover-up but we do see protection of stakeholders as is typical in such courts of inquiry. Walsh: Thresher's Design Superintendent had noted a misaligned pipe in AMS lower level just before the ship sailed. Bryant: They had underwater telephone communications up until 30 seconds before the implosion, therefore they had AC power. AMSLL could not have been very flooded because it would have stopped availability of AC power because of submergence of the Motor Generator (MG) sets that bring power to the AC buses from the battery. (1:03:01) Will there be more detailed examination of the wreck? Likely not. The wreck is being covered rapidly with sediment. Differences in interpretation of the Court's findings do not rate such examination. (1:07:47) So there's simply tension between the pointing of fingers at training, at the yards, or at the urgency of the Navy. Was the Permit (the next ship in the class) in any way delayed? No, the next two ships of the class were already in service when Thresher was lost. The first ballistic missile submarines were just under construction at the time and there was tremendous urgency to build, crew, train, and test for those missile boats. (1:09:50) If the absence of a fast reactor emergency recovery startup procedure was the final thing that doomed Thresher, is the crew taking blame? No, not at all. No factors, there. Who asked for a change of Commanding Officer at such a critical time, just before Thresher's sea trials? Rickover was very picky about who could be a nuke sub CO. This subject is still ripe for exploration and contention. (1:13:09) Why was there no emergency bypass capability for the clogging filters of the Main Ballast Tank blow system? At the time, the MBT blow system was not actually considered operationally as a safety system. Having evolved from similar systems on Diesel submarines, the blow system was used simply to fill the tanks at or near the surface and was known to be useless as a safety measure. The safety emphasis was on availability of propulsion and nuclear power was regarded as highly reliable. (1:15:42) With so many highly-experienced men involved with Thresher, how could we regard her loss as a training failure? They were super people who didn't have adequate exposure to operational training. (1:17:56) Before the sinking, what discussions had there been regarding actions to be taken in flooding casualties accompanied by a reactor scram, such as shutting the Main Engine Throttles or shutting the Main Steam Stop Valves (MS1 & MS2) that supplied steam to the Engine Room? Bryant: There were many discussions about how to isolate seawater leaks rapidly and avoid overheating the reactor but they focused on shutting off all possible sources of flooding, first, and only then restoring sections of the plant. Walsh: There had been many changes to the ship's systems during Thresher's overhaul and this worked against quick and effective fighting of the casualty. In summary, the totality of things working against the Thresher stacked so high as to be under-appreciated by the Navy in their allowance for testing and training. Bryant: I guess if they'd not been in such a rush to stay on their deep dive schedule they might have found and understood the sources of their problems before being killed by them. (1:21:20) Lessons learned from the declassification? Bryant & Walsh: More people can now learn from this and work to improve subs without requiring so much access to classified information. Friedman: The complexity of subs is underscored by these papers. Understanding that complexity is terribly important. The crew were as much casualties of the Cold War as if airmen had been shot down in a U. S. bomber flying over Russia. The Cold War was not a benign experience. People got killed defending this country. The urgency had to do with operational needs. It was not about somebody's ego or some kind of stupid cover-up. This went largely unmentioned in the Court of Inquiry because it was already at the forefront of the minds of those involved. (1:27:20) Thank-yous. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- There is no great deviation here from the classified briefing I received upon arrival at Nuclear Power School in 1985. I was a nuke subs ET and Reactor Operator. It is my opinion great efforts were exerted at the time by the Navy and the builders of nuclear submarines to put to rest any doubts in the safety of their ships. I believe these efforts at managing public opinion created a shroud of collateral secrecy that overly aroused suspicions in some members of the public regarding the Thresher inquiry. Having read the declassified material myself, I concur they contain few, if any, major revelations. .
Excellent evaluation of the video. As a former auxiliary chief and diving officer aboard the USS Haddock SSN621. I see a lot of conversation about training or lack of. However no comments about crew fatigue and stress, we worked long difficult hours trying to get underway. We were free labor and expected to just get it fixed. What was the status of ship’s trim, was she properly trimmed or expected to maintain control with speed? Control priorities speed, angle, planes. Did she conduct any trim dives after overhaul? Extra people on board couldn’t have helped with trim, during watch change 6 or 7 men moving aft affected trim and had to be compensated. Assumptions of flooding or a leak being the primary casualty could have been compounded by out of trim conditions. Trim pump piping and alignment was a real nightmare, the sound reduction fittings and extra elbows could have leaked when pumping from trim to sea. The comments about the 3000 psi reducers and strainers is confusing, my understanding is the original high pressure system was 3000 psi and the reducers were added with the 4500 psi conversion. 3000 psi blow system definitely was not an emergency capable system. Piping was long and small in diameter with one control valve and used only the in service air bank. Air bank control valves are designed to open slowly and close rapidly so bringing on air banks took extra time. Air strainers do not remove moisture from the air which freezes when and where the air expands, There is definitely room for speculation.
@@edkirk7080 Thank you, Ed, for your kind assessment. The video provides a useful framework on which to hang yet-more-detailed discussions, so I tried to index the key points submariners would want to discuss about the video, describe in-full for general audiences the events leading to and causes of the sinking, whilst omitting any classified information and withholding my own judgement about what was being revealed by the Navy and presented by the video. With so many personnel exchanged in key positions before her fatal trip, and with so many equipment changes installed in her immediately preceding overhaul, and with so many detailed follow-on policy decisions to be implemented by the ship, we may never know the answers to your questions, such as what adjustments were made for trim on that particular dive. We can be certain such polices became more standardised in the wake of the sinking. Cheers.
@@consubandon Exactly. As a machinist mate the initial photos of the debris field included packages of o-rings. We always hoarded o-rings because they blew frequently and had to be replaced, labor intensive and time consuming. Intellectuals probably would not see the significance and understand the man hours associated. Nothing like the pop of a blown o-ring to get the raise the heart rate. Capt. Bryant was my XO, I’m sure I affected his heart rate on occasion.
Served on the Gato (SSN-615) after it was certified sub-safe. Some of this was sort of 'known', but good to hear more of the details.. Always felt that the 'normal MBT' blow (using 3000 psi ship's service air) was not great. Especially that air fed through an orifice before reducer. Of course, we had EB, a much better way to empty MBT. With so little 3000 psi air used normally, a tiny bit of dirt causes the 3000 psi header to rise and lift the relief. If you've ever been near that relief when it pops, you've jumped out of your skin. So I can understand the 'a-gang' wanted those strainers left in for a while longer. But of course, when you really need a LOT of 3000 psi air flow... that was bad. :(
Very fascinating. Thresher sank about a year before I was born. I did prototype duty at S1W at Idaho NRF, but was involuntarily surfaced to the USS Truxtun as a reactor operator, so my knowledge of submarine specifics is limited. This video provides excellent insight into nuclear submarine operations in my opinion. Well made. I am surprised how much has been declassified.
Hearing about this story, i have a nagging thought... Did Robert MacNamara's streamlining defense cost, play any roll in Thresher's accident, as well as, the Scorpion's? BTW, i have no Navel or Engineering experience. Came across the discussion, very insightful. Did grow up in the Portsmouth,NH area. But the Thresher, was before my time.
No. Rickover bypassed the Navy (in many matters) by directly courting the support of Congressmen who controlled the purse strings. Because of their support, the Nuclear Power Program had the budget and the freedom it needed to do the job right and several subs were named after Congressmen and Senators by way of thanks. Rickover often fought the shipyards about cost overruns and what he saw as their fleecing of the American taxpayer, so it was Rickover who was working hardest to control the bottom line where nuke subs were concerned.
I was a Coast Guard Damage Control Petty officer, so this information is interesting to me, my question is, since the navy can't physically touch the submarine and have to rely on tests done on actual equipment,most of which is difficult because similar equipment doesn't exist, why can't they just admit it's all conjecture the vose the book on it , especially since it sounds a little like they are still head hunting for someone to blame it on
This video is long, so here are some timestamps and my summary in separate postings: PART I of 2: (1:00) Remarks by Adm. James Foggo. Hoorah for nuclear submarines. (5:25) Introduction by Adm. Sonny Masso (6:32) Technical presentation by Capt. Jim Bryant Diagramme of ship is at 12:50 Bruce Rule wrote a Book in 2017: "Why the Thresher was Lost" (16:39). Rule has been an important player in the drive to get Court of Inquiry documents declassified. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I'll summarise Bryant's technical presentation in plain language and for simplicity in a sequence different than the video: Thresher was the first ship in a new class of high-speed, deep-diving submarines intended to hunt Soviet subs. Thresher sank and imploded at a depth of 2,400 feet whilst on sea trials at 0918 on 10 April 1963 with the loss of all hands as well as several additional shipyard personnel; 129 people in all. At the time, Thresher was running near its greatest permissible operating depth (1,300 feet, called "Test Depth") for the purposes of testing its fitness for service after a very involved overhaul. The Navy has begun to release the declassified findings of the Court of Inquiry. There have been no major surprises or "smoking guns" in the recently released declassified documents (8:17). A shipboard accident is called a casualty. Procedures, testing, design, and quality control since judged necessary to the safety of this new generation of deeper-diving ship, were at the time not available to Thresher (8:30, 21:37, 40:42). At the time of her loss, Thresher was in communication with an escorting surface ship via a distorted, acoustic, underwater telephone system called UQC. The logs of these conversations likely contain several misheard words. Thresher also was recorded by highly secret acoustic surveillance equipment on the sea floor, known as SOSUS (15:50). Thresher had long runs of high-pressure (up to 600-PSI) seawater piping interior to her pressure hull from which seawater flooding may have arisen (19:09). Thresher's crew had been insufficiently trained on the constraints of the new systems for this deeper-diving ship (19:19). Thresher's actual depth at various times in the sequence of events may be not well understood and today remains a subject of speculation. According to Bryant, her initiating casualty may have been a loss of hydraulic control ("jam dive") rather than flooding (29:10). Thresher attempted to blow Main Ballast Tanks (MBTs) at 0909 that morning and then changed course to parallel that of the escorting surface ship, apparently because Thresher expected to come to the surface (28:14). The rapid and effective use of Thresher's Main Ballast Tank air blowing system to help save the ship was hampered by design assumptions and decisions, by material deficiencies, by construction shortcomings, and by inadequate emergency procedures. The system had been designed for WWII Diesel subs that went only as deep as 400 feet (28:16) and was not designed as an emergency means to surface the ship (1:13:09). As a result, Thresher found herself in the conditions requiring nuclear propulsion to get her to the surface. Other, backup means of propulsion would not have sufficed (23:42). Heat from Thresher's reactor was extracted by rapidly moving coolant pushed by Main Coolant Pumps. These pumps are very large and can consume a great deal of electrical power. Thresher had Main Coolant Pumps capable of running in two speeds, fast or slow (25:50). At the time of the casualty, Thresher was running her power-hungry, fast-speed Main Coolant Pumps (24:58). This fact was not made public by the Navy until the Thresher inquiry was declassified. In fast speed, these pumps could be powered only by the high-capacity, steam-driven electrical generators (called the Ship's Service Turbine Generators or SSTGs). Slow speed pumps, on the other hand (40:29), were more reliable because they could be powered either by the big, steam turbines or alternatively from other, back-up electrical power sources (the ship's battery), all while remaining sufficient to have driven the ship to the surface that day. The big, steam-powered turbine generators required the steam leaving them to be cooled and collapsed from vapour back to liquid water in the Main Condensers. To maintain steam flow, the Main Condensers were cooled by seawater pipes. The vacuum created in the Main Condensers by the collapsing steam is what sucked steam through the turbines. To combat flooding from a source uncertain to them, it is expected the crew attempted to isolate various seawater piping (27:29). Through Rule's 2017 book, we find the SOSUS ocean surveillance system recorded the Main Coolant Pumps' fluctuating in speed during the casualty (27:29). The Court records released do not mention these fluctuations. Possibly these fluctuations happened because of disruptions in steam flow as the crew attempted to isolate seawater systems. The Main Coolant Pumps stopped at 0911 on the day of the casualty. A reactor scram (i.e. a shutdown of the core) could happen automatically if Main Coolant Pumps were providing insufficient flow through the core (26:10). On Thresher, a scram may have been initiated automatically in response to diminished spinning of the fast-speed Main Coolant Pumps. Main Coolant Pumps in slow speed and powered by a more reliable source of electricity may in this case have prevented such a scram (37:50). Please note a scram may also have occurred for other reasons, such as damage to or flooding of the ship's electrical distribution system, or because of other electrical problems/water intrusion into reactor control equipment. Procedures in place aboard Thresher at the time meant steam was shut off to the Engine Room following a scram (24:16). This shutoff imposes a grave delay in any subsequent restarting of the steam plant (38:44). A reactor scram leaves the hot core still fizzing and popping from the residual decay of fission products (32:55). The decay heat from these fission products would have created sufficient steam to drive Thresher to the surface. Rickover generously offered the Court an emergency fast reactor restart procedure, already in place aboard the submarine USS George Washington (33:52), that likely would have saved Thresher but the Admiral also used his testimony to do his "Rickover magic" to defend nuke boats and his Naval Reactor program from critics by diverting attention from matters related to the reactor and nuclear propulsion, a subject of paramount importance to him and to the Cold War security of the United States. Rickover may even have concocted a story (40:21) the Main Coolant Pumps were running in slow speed rather than fast. His statements about the speed of the Main Coolant Pumps may at the time of the hearing not yet have been directly contradicted by available acoustic evidence from the SOSUS surveillance system. --------------------------------------- Continued in my next comments post. .
Long overdue discussion by experts regarding the released documents. Other than a single pipe bearing the inscription "593 boat" recovered by the "Trieste", which other materials and components of "Thresher" have been recovered for study? Where are they archived today? AFAIK, "Thresher" was last visited in 1986. How often, if ever, are "Thresher" and "Scorpion" visited for study? What has been recovered from these boats?
I believe that the sites are regularly visited, to monitor for radiation (as the reactors are still down there), and to make sure nobody else has been poking around the sites.
@@PRR5406 Nice choice in locomotives! :-) Anyhow...to best of my knowledge, they really haven't recovered very much...a bunch of O-rings, a rubber bootie, and--most crucially--a piece of pipe that had "593 boat" inscribed on it, which essentially confirmed that the wreck was indeed the Thresher. At 8,500 feet down, recovering anything of any size becomes a Herculean task.
I do not know anything about submarines however to me Thresher was part of a experiment in saving money spent on maintenance . Can we run thresher on a shoestring and get the same performance . Economies of scale admiral .....answer is no a big no . Thresher always on patrol Brave men
When reading the report, I thought it was believed thresher was between test and crush depth not sitting on the bottom besides hearing 37 mainframe pings no mistaking that for anything other than a sub.
I hope when they do deep dive testing they do it in water of limited depth. It's only logical your max test depth would be 100' shallower than crush depth, with a soft bottom. Doing deep dive testing in 8000' depth is foolish.
This presentation would be greatly improved by a redo of the synopsis which runs from roughly the 6.5 minute point to 42.5 minutes. With all due respect to the presenter and his laudable naval service, the narration suffers from inarticulation, sounding throughout as if it was being read for the first time. I found myself often pausing the narration to simply read and absorb the bullet points, undistracted by the halting, repetitious, and at times too rapid voiceover. This presentation might be improved by sufficient pre-recorded rehearsal and/or a different narrator.
No, those men were not still alive. It ended very fast for the crew, in a flash of combustion too quick for the mind to become aware. When Thresher was testing, Navy doctrine on trimming the ship (setting its buoyancy) basically said, "The nuclear reactor gives you whatever speed you need to drive out of any situation, so enjoy it!" How liberated we felt! We had mastered the ocean depths! But this was in celebration of our improvements over our WWII Diesel-electric subs that went down only as deep as 400 feet, where they poked along at 8 or 9 knots on their batteries. Now, in the 1960s, submerged subs pushed 30-knots at over a thousand feet, but the Navy, grown supremely comfortable and confident with those old fleet Diesel boats, simply hadn't considered sufficiently a new array of risks: Too fast and even a tiny error could flick a nuclear submarine far deeper than test depth, endangering the ship from pressure or even smacking it into the bottom. Too slow and a 440 pounds of sea pressure per square foot could turn a small leak into a raging flood so fast there wouldn't be time to order up a fast bell before the ship filled with too much water to do anything about it. Why did Thresher sink? Because the Navy's failure to grasp the risks of a surprisingly narrow operating envelope of speed+depth+trim boxed Thresher into an operating region where all it took were a few small things to go wrong to doom a ship. And then, on April 10th of '63, a random selection of things did just that. This is the reason we in submarines consider the details of the Thresher casualty--the leak size, location, blow rates, procedural variances--to be something of a quibble. I'm not making light of them; I'm saying we had our plate full of deficiencies to correct. *All* of those failure points had to be studied and improved, so we dismantled our creation and examined its details and came down hard on our own inattention and trained harder on all of it. But the biggest takeaway, I think, is we had to reevaluate our plunge into an entirely new operating environment. We expected the ocean to treat us as it had in Fleet Diesel-electric boats. Our expectations were disastrously ill-suited to the deeper sea and the realities of nuclear subs, and we got bitten in the ass by them. After Thresher, we became a lot more persnickety about how we trim our nuclear submarines. We know better now. But the claims Aaron Amick makes in his "37 pings" video defy all our present sense of engineering and physics and run contrary to how subs function. As a submariner, he should know better. it is a difficult and precise operation to hover a submarine with no propulsion. (See the terrific new video about this at ruclips.net/video/XFJnWp1tAdU/видео.html ) I've been on a submarine when someone made a single error with the system used to do such a hovering trick and the result was not pretty. Those events prompted my COB (Chief of the Boat) to forcibly proclaim afterward: "There's a lesson here! A SUBMERGED SUBMARINE WITHOUT PROPULSION... SINKS!" There is no logical mechanism by which a disabled sub could remain positioned in anywhere near such a manner as Amick claims occurred with Thresher. It can't happen. The Thresher is sacred to those of us in the submarine community, and to Amick, too, I'm sure, but its survival, hanging in the ocean for over a day, is impossible, no matter how strongly Amick loses control of his sense of outrage. He goes so far off the rails that he's convinced he's seeing Thresher's somehow hovering for a day and a half rather than imploding abruptly and totally, and he's so wound up about what he imagines he can't bring himself back to basic submarine logic. This is Amick's fault, alone, for misreading the report, jumping to conclusions, and then compounding his errors by not retracting his video. He is the sole source of claims the crew lived beyond the morning of 10 April. These bogus claims are not the fault of Seawolf; to his immense credit, the C.O. of Seawolf is just reporting what sounds his crew heard. He is not concluding they emanated from Thresher. Many other sound sources were operating in the search area as well that day, and there was so much noise and interference Seawolf was having major trouble hearing clearly over all the sonar noise in the area from other vessels engaged in the search. Seawolf could not even communicate reliably with Sea Owl. Beyond that, Skylark and SOSUS both heard the implosion of Thresher moments after the last UQC transmission. Bruce Rule, the top Navy acoustics expert, who testified at the Thresher Board of Inquiry, said this about Amick's allegations: “This RUclips video is false, the Seawolf report the presenter is reading from is correct, but the final report certified it was false readings. Seawolf was confused by the active sonar and noise created by the destroyers and the diesel submarine Sea Owl searching for Thresher on 11 April 1963, the day after she was lost. She mistook all sounds from the searching ships as banging on the hull and sonar pings from the Thresher. It was a mistake.” It's sad our emotional ties to one of our lost boats seem to have got Aaron so riled-up that this pile of nonsense resulted. So many people are now writing "OMG! THE THRESHER CREW LIVED FOR DAYS!" that this mess has taken on a life of its own. I feel awful for the poor families of those who died on that ship, having to hear and and wonder about these made-up horrors. As though their loss didn't already hurt enough. It falls to us in the submarines community to stand in opposition to the rising tide of dumb loosed by the "37 pings" video. Please help stop the spreading of baseless, hurtful rumours. Thanks.
there has been a disregard for the risks ordinary service people experience . The practice of requiring a submarine to operate at the extreem limits of its design needlessly put people at risk...this should only be done in extreem wartime circumstances... ALL other types of engineering have a "safe working load" for example which is much less that the "breaking strain" of a piece of rope or mechanical engine...
The Navy did they right thing telling us they died instantly. If you think otherwise, you clearly don't know anything about what it takes to serve in a Navy.
I viewed another video on youtube that was highly critical of the Navy handling of USS Seawolf recovery. The title was "37 Pings Death throes of the USS Thresher where it was strongly supported that their were survivors aboard the Thresher at the time of discover and location. This was supported by what was claimed as Official Navy investigation and narratives, would someone please let us know, what is the truth. It goes on to suggest that the survivors might have been saved, and this was covered up?
Except the report never concludes the _Thresher_ was still operating nor the crew were alive. They picked up false positives which is why the Navy dismissed it.
@@peterson7082 what makes the 'pings' and other banging/noises automatically be called 'false positives? what if the source of the 'implosion' was a false positive?
@@angusncmo3268 When the active output is at the same of similar frequency as yours. Especially as _Seawolf's_ sonar was the same type found in the _Thresher._ Also prop noise can create interference making your own returns distorted.
You're asking about the Auxiliary Machine Space, I presume, about 2/3 of the way aft, where the diametre of the pressure hull is smaller to allow for Main Ballast Tanks, electrical equipment, and some deck gear. The answer is no, that imparts no weakness. Smaller diametre pressure vessels are stronger, not weaker. As I think I recall from reading the declassified reports, those tapers are massively overbuilt to strengthen the transition, and that strengthening is more for resistance against flexing than against sea pressure. Every part of the pressure hull has the cross section of a nearly perfect circle; that circularity is the correct defense against sea pressure. All else being equal, necking is stronger, not weaker. The large, open space of the middle of the Engine Room is the weakest section of the hull--but there's always going to be *some* section of the hull that is the weakest section. The ship was designed to go as deep as it was designed to go. Period. Not to the depth it went to. It's not exactly the same thing, but corrugated cylinders as pressure vessels are stronger than flat-walled cylinders, so one might, perhaps, think of this as a very large corrugation. The 593 was much less-crushable than the newer, larger, less-partitioned 688s built of the same HY-80 steel. (Does not include Albany and Toledo, which are built of HY-100.)
@@consubandon Yea that's the area I have always thought that changes in hull dia resulted in stress raiser and while such areas are normally made from heavier gauge plate and see a reduced frame spacing they should be avoided
This is a bunch of conjecture, I want to know exactly what happened and why it happened on the USS Threshers last dive. We should recover all of the pieces and examine them to determine the exact cause of the loss. Was there a leak and if so what? Did the reactor scram, were the stern planes jammed, why was it considered to be a minor difficulty, why did 120 seconds of ballast tank blow not bring her to the surface or at least a shallower depth and why did she go down so fast? What was the sound of bulkheads collapsing heard on the underwater telephone? Was that her imploding? We need to know every minute detail so somebody needs to raise the wreck and figure it out. We can do it, we raised the K-129 so we can raise both the Thresher and the Scorpion so we will have answers.
Wellll.... technically not a 'tear drop', that's true. It was longer than Skipjack, so yes it had a significant length that was 'straight'. But that term could apply since it did have the rounded nose and not the 'fleet boat bow'.
Declassified Thresher documents record that it took two days for Thresher to pass crush depth 🤦🇺🇲🛠️🇷🇺 Go to Sub Brief channel for a video. Edit : I'm not saying this video here isn't important, I'm saying there's a new report released Monday 12 July 2021.
Exactly wrong. The recently released material corresponds with the classified briefing I received at Nuclear Power School in the 1980s, and does not contradict the facts made public over the years. The public material merely omitted the Navy's undersea surveillance capabilities, the operational limits on our submarines, and any information about Naval Nuclear Propulsion, a topic which is still designated in its entirety as classified.
MEGALODON destroyed the Thresher, Scorpion and others, including the Russian submarine K-129 which part of it was dredged up from the bottom of the Pacific ocean, using the Glomar Explorer which was conducted by a covert CIA operation! Megalodon can reach a length of over 100 ft and can travel at speeds of 50 plus knots and can outrun, outdive and destroy any submarine in a heartbeat! Megalodon has come back to life because of the melting Arctic ice, where they were in suspended animation, called cryogenics, meaning Frozen, until now! There are others that weren't Frozen! Every submarine, from every nation, is fair game to Megalodon! Megalodon views submarines as a threat! Your government won't tell you what happened, it's all been covered up, now you know! Megalodon! The Submarine San Juan disappeared on November 15th, 2017 with all hands on board! The wreckage was found and it was obliterated! More submarines will be destroyed and the cover-up will continue!
Imagine if admiral rickover had care more about alive's of the men on those boats than he did his nuclear program perhaps they wouldn't have died. Never make the mistake of thinking that Rickover was nothing more than a political scuzzbucket who did the same thing they all do!
Inaccurate! Rickover was obsessive about the safety and quality of the sub designs; he’s famous for testing the equipment vendors wanted to put on his subs by taking the vendor and their equipment sample to the rooftop of his office, dropping the equipment over the side onto concrete, then dragging the vendor downstairs to see if it passed the test. He knew his shit and designed some amazing things.
It's all a lie! The details of the USS Thresher have just become unclassified and they lied to us all these years. The crew was alive for more than 2 days and sent 37 pings requesting help.
They were trying to save families grief. They couldn't do anything for the Thresher at that depth and the DSRV program (and programs like subsafe) were built in response to the disaster. However had they had the DSRV's built before the disaster there would possibility of saving the crew of the boat and had the proper programs been in place to ensure quality of submarine parts and construction techniques this disaster could have been avoided completely.
@@The31stcenturyfox I highly doubt that was their primary motivation, you don't classify things for 50 years to spare people grief. More likely they classified it because it showed up some weaknesses in the sub fleet that the enemy could exploit.
Why do submarines not have a marine equivalent of the Flight Data Recorders and Cockpit Voice Recorders installed on commercial passenger aircraft? Unlike the majority of aircraft wreck sites which are accessible to Aircraft Accident Investigators, submarine wreck sites invariably lay beyond the vessel's certified maximum depth, making anything other than ROV video footage and images of any debris field and imploded and broken up wreckage all there is to see. Because no ROV videos and images can ever provide the information necessary to identify the sequence of events that occurred on board which led to the emergency situation or to the actual loss of the vessel itself, Investigators are never able to determine the actual cause of the loss! Surely it is technically possible to create a Data Recorder which will work on submarines, I believe that there are such systems already fitted to commercial marine transport and passenger vessels (like the one fitted to 'El Faro', which was recovered from the sea floor amid the debris field). Irrespective of the financial loss of this tragedy, the human loss should make the fitting of such a system a priority, to help future Crew members avoid a similar fate.
@@TheJaxxJackson If only Top Secret, highly encrypted data transmissions were possible, perhaps like the systems already developed and used by the US submarine fleet, people like Jack wouldn't make such remarkably stupid and ignorant comments...
@@felixcat9318 you are the ignorant one sir. You would be completely stupid to think our enemies would not have some sort of means to eventually hack into that data and learn our secrets. You are clueless and I am concerned that you actually think in such a manner.
@@felixcat9318 You are the one who is incapable of realizing that this is real life. It’s not the “movies” were data and encrypted material is 100% safe. The Chinese, Russians, etc will eventually break the code and have access to all of the data.
Great to see you again Admiral. Likely you don't remember me but we served together on SEA DEVIL. You were the weps and a Lt. and I was an STS1. I was happy to see you had such a great career. Admittedly, I wasn't surprised! Seen a couple interviews you did. I think your contributions to keeping Naval history alive and current is wonderful. Certainly qualified as "subject matter expert". Fair winds and following seas, Sir! I was proud to have served with you!
I corresponded with Bruce Rule for several years while investigating the Scorpion. An amazing man. RIP to Bruce, who gave all of these men from both submarines an opportunity to tell their story. His diagnosis allows historians to put failures/accomplishments into perspective.
Godspeed to all.
I gave Admiral Rickover a haircut while he was on sea trials for the USS Jacksonville (SSN 699). I was the ships designated barber as a Reactor Operator. It was an honor. He tipped me a silver dollar. I still have it. Those little one-week schools the Navy offered were valuable.
My Dad was a very Proud Submariner. He served aboard the USS REDFIN (SSR-272). Aboard the REDFIN, one of my Dad's best friends was another Sailor that Dad always referred to as "Doc" Gallant. Doc Gallant & Dad were up for transfer & Doc Gallant was sent to the USS THRESHER. Dad was sent to another school (I was quite young & don't remember which school). Anyway, I can remember coming home as white as a sheet & him telling Mom that he had heard that the THRESHER was gone. I know Dad mourned the loss of one of his best friends/Shipmates for a long time..... Although Mom was a good "Navy Wife" & I can never remember her ever complaining about our Duty Stations & Dad's Deployments, I do remember her asking Dad to leave Subs. Dad didn't argue & agreed. In fact, he cross-rated from RM-C (SS) to CT-C (SS). Until his death, Dad rarely mentioned Doc Gallant, as it would send him into a bit of a "depression".
Thank You for posting this video. I wish my Dad had lived long enough to view this.....
Very interesting. I was on the commissioning crew of the USS Flasher SSN 613. Flasher was on the building ways at EB when Thresher went down. She was launched in June of 1963 and tied up and all the plans were reviewed. There was discussion about scrapping her and the remaining boats on the ways at one point. The commissioning crew was disbanded. Later it was decided to fram her and add 13'9" midsip and a second crew was started to be put together but that was also disbanded. When it was decided to make her the first constructed boat with the new SUBSAFE plans were finalized and a third Pre Commisioning crew was formed. I reported aboard in Feb 1965 as the first non rated man. We had our fast cruise alongside the EB pier and as I remember it, it was 5 days. Later our sea trial was coming up and we pulled out with Adm Rickover aboard. We started down but after a few hundred feet the gland seal on a periscope failed and water was coming in all over Control. We surfaced and went back to EB. Next days we went out and 50 feet at a time dove the boat. When we reached test depth the hull a screaming and shrieking at us. The sound of pop rivets was failing was almost like popcorn. We actually overshot the depth target by a bit and then started back doing the same thing. Later trials we tested the SUBSAFE system and what a wild ride!
Personal opinion here, I have always felt renaming the class was a slap in the face to the men who died on Thresher! I've always been proud to tell people I sailed a "Thresher Class" sub!
In the German film "Das Boot" the sub dove to beyond safe death-rivets on the hull started popping off as the hull contracted-always believe this was fiction-but you experienced it.
@@genekelly8467 These were internal Pop Rivets holding the internal floating cabin structure together. The hull compression put stress on the internal free standing habitat. Pop rivets just like you can get a Home Depot. Nothing structural as that was all welded and X-rayed for defects.
Thank you sir and all who served, our country is free today, because of those who served. God Bless the U.S.A.
Love hearing first hand stories from servicemen. Thanks for sharing, and risking your life (especially in the early days of the nuclear subs), in the service of our country. My brother served on the George Washington SSBN 598, although it was close to 40 years after before he would tell me what sub he served on. He still won't talk about anything they did, patrols etc... He took (and still does) the term "Silent Service" quite literally!
@@gayprepperz6862 Tell your Brother that the "Actual Sail" of the GW is on permanent display at the HS Nautilus site in Groton Conn. God Bless Submariners.
I am an old FBM sailor from the early '70s. My boat was SSBN 600 (Theodore Roosevelt). I loved her, but I had tremendous respect for her too.
My shipmates and I didn't talk much about the Thresher or Scorpion, and I can only speak for myself, but I think all of us would have liked to know a little more about what had happened to those boats. I sincerely believe that our crew we were mature enough and strong enough to have known more than we were told. It certainly would not have affected my personal performance, which earned a Cammanding Officer's Commendation on my first patrol.
Our COB was a plank owner on the Nautilus, starting out as a mess cook.
I used to ask him, as well as my "A Division" Senior Chief, about the loss of the two boats.
Neither of them said much, probably for good reason.
One vivid memory I have is looking at our blow system, the Marotta valves, piping, etc., and wondering what actually froze up during Thresher's attempt to emergency blow. I would scour my piping tabs to intimately comprehend our blow systems.
Now, knocking on 70 years of age, I understand more than ever before after watching this video.
This algorithm suggested video was a tremendous gift for me.
Thanks to all for your efforts in making this information easily accessible to us.
I plan to consume every video on your website!
Again, thanks sincerely!
Thank you for your service Robert.
This Is fantastic stuff!
Look up "37 pings" by the "sub brief" youtube channel [link: ruclips.net/video/HV5FGTxIU4Q/видео.html]. 600 documents relating to the thresher was released on July 9th. Be warned it's very sad
hi Robert. I was 38A on the holland and a couple others, including the McKee on the west coast. I worked on a lot of old boomers and diesel boats like the bonefish. I would go back and forth between the tenders and the USS Alamogordo ARDM-2. yes I'm a girl. went in in the early 80s and they didn't make it easy. but I just showed up and did my job. snorkel mast clamps, no problem even though I only weighed 100lbs and each half of the clamp was 80lbs there bouts. I loved everything about the subs. sucked that I was a girl but I went to a bunch of specialty schools like an bra-24 in philly, O2 school to certify the sub guys once a year on their own equipment like the O2 generators, lol, you'll laugh at this but i went to Fairbanks Morris school at great lakes.
I am the nephew of LCDR John Wesley Harvey. I found this video on Memorial day thinking about my uncle and his crew. Also I am retired Navy and submarine qualified Quartermaster Senior Chief Petty Officer. The Thresher has been a major milestone in my family's history since I was five years old. I never discussed my relationship to the Thresher while I served on the boats. What I found listening to this report was the discussion about the MCP's (Main Coolant Pumps) it was brought up that the first CO testified that he always ran the MCP's in fast speed at depth early in his testimony and then changed in later testimony that he ran the MCP's in slow speed at depth. The Captain in this discussion felt that someone may have influenced the testimony to cover CDR Axene's butt. I wonder that if during the turnover of CDR Axene and LCDR Harvey, if Axene didn't tell Harvey that he found in practice that it was in his opinion proper procedure on Thresher to run the MCP's in fast speed at depth? This is something I heard for the first time tonight. Wow!
As is often the case with youtube, I found this presentation by accident. You did a great job on this. I am a retired senior engineer from NAVSEA. It was my great honor to serve as one of the managers of the SUBSAFE Program from 87 - 98. Beside my desk was a safe that contained much of the original documents from the Thresher inquiry along with the early submarine safety investigations. Also, there was a copy of the 200 or so black and white photos taken by Trieste. I would occasionally get questions from other activities as to why we have a certain requirement (e.g. the flooding casualty sequence that the EMBT system design is based on). I was pretty diligent in diving into the safe and researching the background for current requirements. Those documents, through several office moves and changes in management, are likely scattered to the four winds by now. Good to see my friend Steve Walsh is still making valuable contributions to the cause.
Adm Foggo phenomenal Lt. back in the early 80's and no doubt has gotten better over time. It was my pleasure serving with you on the USS SEA DEVIL (SSN-664). That boat helped to mold the careers of so many men who achieved so much for so long. Many Master Chief, one MCPON, a number of later Commanding Officers and flag officers such as yourself. Adm. Mies is a man I will hold tremendous respect for as his leadership was key to the highly successful missions we conducted and the careers of men who contributed so much to the force.
I remember reading a story about the "kindly old gentleman" Adm. Rickover telling a young serviceman (officer?), that there wasn't anything the serviceman could do that would get him upset, and he challenged the serviceman to try his best (I'm paraphrasing a bit here). The serviceman then stepped up to the Admiral's desk and with both hands, wiped everything on the desk and on to the floor! I laugh every time I think of that story.
They weren't alive. They were gone pretty quickly. Skylark and SOSUS both logged an implosion not long after the last contact with Skylark. The depth there was 8400 feet. The crush depth was "estimated" to be a 1,950 feet( test depth plus half. Test depth being 1,300ft). At the rate of descent the sound of the implosion was determined to be at around 2,400 ft( or 730 meters).
The "37 pings" was probably sound interference from another submarine not on communication with seawolf, and the other surface vessels involved in the search. And the so called metal on metal contact asked thresher to hit the hull with a hammer could be any kind of sound interference. The point is, those men never had a chance of survival and that's the sad part. Thank goodness that the loss gave birth to the 'SUBSAFE' program.
RIP brave men. You will never be forgotten
A fine review now that I'm forty-six minutes in. The "sense of urgency" may well relate to intelligence (or possible intelligence) the United States had at the time with Soviet ICBM's in Cuba. I was a young teenager living in Crestwood, NY at the time both THRESHER went down and when the Cuban missile crisis took place. My father, the late Captain Andrew McKane, MC (USN), had left the Navy in mid-1961 where we had been living on Oahu. My dad was a nuclear submariner. All five members of my immediate family felt terribly over Thresher's loss. I'm delighted to see this video, as nothing can be learned if those who need to know don't know the true facts about incidents of the past. Great work, as always, Navy! Thank you very much. Andy McKane, 12 September 2022, Maunaloa, Molokai, Hawaii.
As a Naval nuclear submariner 626 and 644 Gold both crews my heart cries. Whatever mistakes made... Rest your oars shipmates.
As a naval historian, I was intrigued by Admiral Rickover's omnipresence, like a protective parent, on the scene with Thresher, of course. But what caught my attention was Rickover's signature driving agenda to change the character of the U.S. submarine as a weapon altogether; into its full technological potential as much as any surface vessel or land based system and to formalize and straighten out the outlaw nature of submariners; e.g., subs changing from early, passive, random, occasional ambush to aggressive anti ship aggressor by WW2 to a nuclear-sustained strategic weapon launch platform, then too to even antisubmarine hunter.
Like General Curtis LeMay up-dated and professionalized the newly-created U.S. Air Force's Strategic Air Command into the aerospace part of the nuclear triad, his naval counterpart, Admiral Rickover steadfastly and almost single handedly designed our nuclear submarine strategic weapon response capabilities for submarines and submariners. Thresher and Scorpion's twin loss show the speed to deploy new national defense weapons now coupled with the exponentially-increasing costs of the Vietnam war then too were biting into America's defense budget, affecting the quality controls of weapon production at the height of the Cold War that got the better of us. Their sudden shocking losses were a wake-up call like the Columbia and Challenger were to NASA too, famously showing NO such losses since, with BIG responsive developments and changes coming from these agonizing surprise losses' post mortem investigations.
With Thresher and Scorpion sudden surprising losses too, overnight, many heartbroken and bewildered Goldstar family members all over America lost their personal knights in shining armor to the cruel sea - 50 years ago! The shock and grief were then and remain colossal.
As someone not fortunate enough to have served in the US Navy or on board submarines I have always been fascinated by their technology. Growing up and learning about the monumental technical feats of the Nautilus, evolution of hull shapes and loss of the Scorpion and Thresher gave me a sense of awe, pride and appreciation for the folks who made it happen and lost their lives.
It was interesting to hear how Admiral Rickover was not only a demanding genius/perfectionist (definitely what you needed with the stakes) but looked for a certain character type to command nuclear submarines. I always assumed existing submariners were given updated training and automatically grandfathered in to the nuclear navy? To hear Admiral Rickover wanted officers that were less likely to take risks and even excluded those who were considered heroes during WWII, was very interesting. Definitely a different character profile than the test pilots of the day. This must have been the early beginings of industrial, workplace psychological suitability, character and occupational screening?
To all the men who lost their lives and families who supported them in making the ultimate sacrifice to advance US Naval Submarine technology and help keep the peace thank you so much.
To the presenters and facilitators, thank you for your service to the country and work to put this presentation together.
Retired MMN1(SS) here. It's an example of not asking the grunts what they think because politics were more important. Not as bad in my time as I stopped a 688 from going to sea as a 2nd class due to a yard QA violation. Just MHO, but zeros tend to forget the blue shirts not only run the boats, but know them far better than the zeros and in fact TRAINED YOU ALL AT SEA
ABE2 (AW) here, Nailed it Shipmate Nailed it.
I nod thanks to the O-gangers for coordinating our days at sea even as we blueshirts trained them, and I remain aware the submarine is a unique sort of vessel, a ship fought and operated through the single mind of her commissioned Commanding Officer, a good C.O.'s being as close to a god-like presence as any blueshirt ever admired--and, hey, sub C.O.s aren't born; they're made from somewhere, right? meaning there will probably be an assortment of less-than-fully-baked officers lurking around--but The Blue Droids are the system experts and will be heard, aye.
ET2(SS), nuke
Friend of mine was an EDO (Engineering Duty Officer.) He went to the Captain to ask to tag along on the Thresher voyage. While in the ante-room he overheard the Captain and another officer laughing and saying anyone who wanted to go along as getting a joy ride. Friend, a CDR, was upset that he would be seen in a negative light so he left the office......He wound up being on the liaison team for the families.
While qualifying (SS) on a Lafayette class boomer, I learned one thing very early. We owed our lives to the sacrifice these men gave to make it so much safer for me to go under the sea in a boat. I'm eternally grateful for their sacrifice. Along with Scorpion these 2 crews prove that you can't just send them to sea without being sure they are safe,or as close to it as humanly possible. Making leaps in technology requires small careful steps and should not be rushed to make someones idea a reality. Mistakes at sea get paid for eventually with someones life.
As much as it would be nice, it seems the reality is that it requires brave people to sacrifice themselves to develop technologies. It's no different with air travel. Every time there is a crash we learn something, and make changes to make it safer. It's literally impossible to dorsee every problem that might occur. So, it is what it is
I read about the Thresher in 1987 for the first time. I was shocked with the tragedy in my tiny 12 years of age. Now i know those men had a swift merciless end. Peace to their souls and respect for the families. Cold war was never fought in practical terms but full of casualties nevertheless.
Some of you will not believe me my father is one of the survivors.He was kicked off the boat on April 9th to see my brother born on the 10th.My dad worked for singer librascope and was the lead engineer for the mark 13 fire control system and he is very alive.Amen
I'm a little disappointed that the retired Naval gentleman basically regurgitated the Navy's original timeline for the Thresher's sinking, when by the documentation released a few months ago that he refers to very plainly shows the USS Thresher was still alive/ afloat over 24 hours based on the patrol logs of the 4 dives of the USS Seawolf while conducting SAR. That....is very discouraging that that retired officer still seems to be protecting the Navy over 58 years later. I'm a Medically retired Veteran with over 31 years of service and multiple combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. I've seen this same attitude in the Army unfortunately, entirely too many times.
Kicked off the boat? He was forced to go ashore?
@@dehoedisc7247 Yes because my mom was due with my brother.
@@dehoedisc7247 Do you want to talk to him?
@@markbuterbuagh4971 Just to say that it's fortunate that he survived in such a tragic situation. And may the others Rest In Peace.
I was one of the very early crew, so early we were assigned to Sup-Ships for a period. We joined in on any testing relating to accepting whatever was being offered by the yard to the navy. I had as much authority, (accept or deny) as the navy inspector. I was called to join the testing team to approve or deny the reinstallation of the hydraulic actuator for the hull isolation of the actuator that had originally failed. I had already seen the valve with no actuator and thought this one could be a problem because the operation stem for the ball was square, meaning it could match up in any of the 90-degree positions; it could be open when indication at the operator showed shut, I also listened to the flow sound. I rejected the test and told them to pull the operator and reinstall after placing the ball in the same position as the light indicated in the operations. It was a simple thing but it was my life as well. If the yard wants to sell you anything from install to operation my plan was "prove it to me".
I'm not a Navy vet, just an interested party. I was 13 watts hen Thresher was lost. The story was stunning. SubBrief's video was my introduction to all this. Even SubBrief stated that he needed to look more at the materials he'd received.
Who else came here after the info dropped today about the 37 pings. These poor men were still alive.
I most certainly did. All of these documentaries and talks about the false story put forth by the Navy are going to have to be changed.
The only one ship that heard any pings and that was Sea Wolf, SOSUS didn’t hear it Sky Lark didn’t hear it, none of the dd’s heard it, and it’s happens to be a harmonic of the Fathometer’s being used.
There’s was already a debris field found prior to the mystery pings.
The sound conditions were poor with active sonar, DDs running around, Fathometer reading all over the place and Sea Wolf only barely able to detect anything. Multiple times there are qualifiers in the report, may be this, intermittent that, triple echo of something. The sea was alive with sound. To me to this is a sub crew that is hearing something to be sure, it’s just not what they think they are hearing.
Im sorry but you need to ignore quite a bit of other evidence and only believe the Sea Wolf to believe that anyone was alive after SOSUS on several sensors heard the implosion. I’m going to need more than one ships record, which are contradicted by a SOSUS report and the records of a dozen other ships before I start believing this thing.
Alive at approx 1000 feet for 24 hours or so
@@scottl9660 the thermal layer was strong enough that sea wolf was having a tough time communicating through it on multiple occasions. Stands to reason the ships above the layer would have a difficult time hearing anything below it. Also they were picking up not only the mainframe sonar active pings but also the emergency beacons as well as hull banging and garbaled underwater telephone transmission. Some of those might have been misidentified, but all of them? I truly hope for the sailors' sakes they all went without knowing what hit them, but it sure seems like some poor souls were stuck down there in the dark deep cold water trying very hard to be found.
@@chrise2621 well said sir.
Bruce Rule has stated there was no broadband noise on SOSUS detected that would indicate flooding. At only 1000 feet, the sea pressure would be 440 PSI and if there was a leak, impingement of the inrush of water against metal surfaces would be expected to have generated a lot of noise. This was not accounted for or explained in this discussion.
10:24 this man sounds a lot like John Craven, which is quite a coincidence given the subject matter.
This report is an indictment of US Navy procedures and leadership (up and down the chain of command) at that time.
fyi.. My background: US Navy 1968-74. I was engine room supervisor (ERS) and ELT (radcon, reactor radio chemistry) aboard USS Patrick Henry, SSBN-599.
ELTs are the top of all Nuclear Operators. And a big part of your job is you get to play with cool chemicals and radioactive chit. To this day I can spot yellow a mile away.
I spent about a third of my naval career in the Special Communications program, and my main duty throughout was training. The criticality of doing it properly and if sufficient TIME is devoted to it is mission critical, without a doubt. Questioning the training level of the crew is not blaming them; it is more a condemnation of those responsible for making sure it was done.
God Bless America !
My mother’s fiancé was on USS Scorpion. I would love any guidance on best places for research. Losing him changed the her whole life and took a big part of her happiness.
My wife lived 2 houses from a fiance of a man on Thresher who babysat her often. She was beautiful , then suddenly stricken and moved away.
Hey, just declassified documents show that they heard banging and attempts to communicate for at least a day after the incident.
That video that talks about it is 9;11 truther level stuff, its bullshit.
No, those men were not still alive. It ended very fast for the crew, in a flash of combustion too quick for the mind to become aware.
When Thresher was testing, Navy doctrine on trimming the ship (setting its buoyancy) basically said, "The nuclear reactor gives you whatever speed you need to drive out of any situation, so enjoy it!" How liberated we felt! We had mastered the ocean depths! But this was in celebration of our improvements over our WWII Diesel-electric subs that went down only as deep as 400 feet, where they poked along at 8 or 9 knots on their batteries. Now, in the 1960s, submerged subs pushed 30-knots at over a thousand feet, but the Navy, grown supremely comfortable and confident with those old fleet Diesel boats, simply hadn't considered sufficiently a new array of risks: Too fast and even a tiny error could flick a nuclear submarine far deeper than test depth, endangering the ship from pressure or even smacking it into the bottom. Too slow and a 440 pounds of sea pressure per square foot could turn a small leak into a raging flood so fast there wouldn't be time to order up a fast bell before the ship filled with too much water to do anything about it.
Why did Thresher sink? Because the Navy's failure to grasp the risks of a surprisingly narrow operating envelope of speed+depth+trim boxed Thresher into an operating region where all it took were a few small things to go wrong to doom a ship. And then, on April 10th of '63, a random selection of things did just that. This is the reason we in submarines consider the details of the Thresher casualty--the leak size, location, blow rates, procedural variances--to be something of a quibble. I'm not making light of them; I'm saying we had our plate full of deficiencies to correct. *All* of those failure points had to be studied and improved, so we dismantled our creation and examined its details and came down hard on our own inattention and trained harder on all of it. But the biggest takeaway, I think, is we had to reevaluate our plunge into an entirely new operating environment. We expected the ocean to treat us as it had in Fleet Diesel-electric boats. Our expectations were disastrously ill-suited to the deeper sea and the realities of nuclear subs, and we got bitten in the ass by them. After Thresher, we became a lot more persnickety about how we trim our nuclear submarines. We know better now.
But the claims Aaron Amick makes in his "37 pings" video defy all our present sense of engineering and physics and run contrary to how subs function. As a submariner, he should know better. it is a difficult and precise operation to hover a submarine with no propulsion. (See the terrific new video about this at ruclips.net/video/XFJnWp1tAdU/видео.html ) I've been on a submarine when someone made a single error with the system used to do such a hovering trick and the result was not pretty. Those events prompted my COB (Chief of the Boat) to forcibly proclaim afterward: "There's a lesson here! A SUBMERGED SUBMARINE WITHOUT PROPULSION... SINKS!" There is no logical mechanism by which a disabled sub could remain positioned in anywhere near such a manner as Amick claims occurred with Thresher. It can't happen.
The Thresher is sacred to those of us in the submarine community, and to Amick, too, I'm sure, but its survival, hanging in the ocean for over a day, is impossible, no matter how strongly Amick loses control of his sense of outrage. He goes so far off the rails that he's convinced he's seeing Thresher's somehow hovering for a day and a half rather than imploding abruptly and totally, and he's so wound up about what he imagines he can't bring himself back to basic submarine logic.
This is Amick's fault, alone, for misreading the report, jumping to conclusions, and then compounding his errors by not retracting his video. He is the sole source of claims the crew lived beyond the morning of 10 April. These bogus claims are not the fault of Seawolf; to his immense credit, the C.O. of Seawolf is just reporting what sounds his crew heard. He is not concluding they emanated from Thresher. Many other sound sources were operating in the search area as well that day, and there was so much noise and interference Seawolf was having major trouble hearing clearly over all the sonar noise in the area from other vessels engaged in the search. Seawolf could not even communicate reliably with Sea Owl. Beyond that, Skylark and SOSUS both heard the implosion of Thresher moments after the last UQC transmission.
Bruce Rule, the top Navy acoustics expert, who testified at the Thresher Board of Inquiry, said this about Amick's allegations: “This RUclips video is false, the Seawolf report the presenter is reading from is correct, but the final report certified it was false readings. Seawolf was confused by the active sonar and noise created by the destroyers and the diesel submarine Sea Owl searching for Thresher on 11 April 1963, the day after she was lost. She mistook all sounds from the searching ships as banging on the hull and sonar pings from the Thresher. It was a mistake.”
It's sad our emotional ties to one of our lost boats seem to have got Aaron so riled-up that this pile of nonsense resulted. So many people are now writing "OMG! THE THRESHER CREW LIVED FOR DAYS!" that this mess has taken on a life of its own. I feel awful for the poor families of those who died on that ship, having to hear and and wonder about these made-up horrors. As though their loss didn't already hurt enough.
It falls to us in the submarines community to stand in opposition to the rising tide of dumb loosed by the "37 pings" video. Please help stop the spreading of baseless, hurtful rumours.
If you want to do right by the U. S. Submarine Service, you could do worse than to edit your top-level comment with a note to the effect Bruce Rule and others in the submarine community who study the sinking of Thresher entirely reject Amick's conclusions.
Thanks.
May they rest in peace
Thank you for your service gentlemen
I agree absolutely : I SHALL watch this video again WITH A NOTE PAD AND MY NOTE RECORDER .
Fascinating, as a submariner that got his dolphins in 1983 I appreciated the content.
Kudos to the board member who pointed out that the men of the Thresher are indeed casualties of a war. For them, and for our sub community, the Cold War was a real, pressing war, and they treated it as such---to include taking life-imperiling risks.
Cuban Missile Crisis 6 mos prior put an extra measure of urgency on all Cold War defensive/offensive programs. In other words, things were rushed.
God bless all of my shipmates who served onboard subs, but like I told my recruiter, there's NEVER a good time to abandon ship on a submarine. I happily served onboard the USS Forrestal with VA-85.
RIP to all the men of the USS Thresher & the USS Scorpion. Fair winds & following seas shipmates. God bless you all. 🙏♥️🙏♥️🙏♥️ 🫡 🇺🇸
Nothing but respect for your service.
Great material, and a very robust in-dept analysis. Just one suggestion based upon experience: when you present these, it helps a lot to have a script prepared in advance, so your speech flows better.
As a fish boat sailer I understand the sacrifice of the loss ,I will say as a young sailer coming out of overhaul there was only two who trained us on how to operate the machine, and they were very short ,if different personality were present we would have been screwed
I was on the USS Tinosa SSN 606 in 1986 in San Diego, I loved that boat...
Closing main steam valves on rx scram was a crime the minute it was conceived. Lot's of residual heat (thermal mass) in steam generators, rx coolant loops, core decay heat. Enough possibly to push the boat up to a shallower depth and help mitigate flooding.
*Closing main steam valves: I understand reasoning, thermal shock/brittle fracture of rx vessel. However, an intact rx vessel in 8,000 feet of ocean is no good to anybody.
Continued from my previous comment:
PART 2 of 2:
(42:40) Adm. Masso introduces panel Q&A: Capt. Bryant; Stephen Walsh, NAVSEA nuclear engineer; Norman Friedman, author.
(43:00) What surprises were in the documents?
Walsh: Fewer recovery-from-depth calculations had been done in advance than expected.
Friedman: The overhaul was very extensive, without sufficient time to train on it. Crew members in key positions had been changed. Significant Navy pressures existed to get the sub at sea.
Bryant: They could have allocated more time to testing the silver-brazed joints in the seawater piping. By comparison, they allocated a lot of time and manpower to the installation of the PUFFS hydrophones.
(49:30) Should family or others have been involved in the 1963 panel?
A brother of one crewman did testify; the Court did not investigate training weaknesses.
(52:40) Shipbuilding schedules were under intense national security and political urgency. Thoughts?
Yes, it was true.
(57:22) Why did SSTGs lose speed?
Condenser vacuum would have caused the slow changes seen in evidence. We don't know why the pumps weren't shifted to slow speed to prevent a scram.
(58:58) Was the official story of a seawater spray from a leak in the AMS compartment some kind of a cover-up?
Walsh: Evidence from the wreck seems to indicate the leak was from the AMS but the Court's report was released before the wreckage was examined.
Capt. Bryant: Nothing points to any cover-up but we do see protection of stakeholders as is typical in such courts of inquiry.
Walsh: Thresher's Design Superintendent had noted a misaligned pipe in AMS lower level just before the ship sailed.
Bryant: They had underwater telephone communications up until 30 seconds before the implosion, therefore they had AC power. AMSLL could not have been very flooded because it would have stopped availability of AC power because of submergence of the Motor Generator (MG) sets that bring power to the AC buses from the battery.
(1:03:01) Will there be more detailed examination of the wreck?
Likely not. The wreck is being covered rapidly with sediment. Differences in interpretation of the Court's findings do not rate such examination.
(1:07:47) So there's simply tension between the pointing of fingers at training, at the yards, or at the urgency of the Navy. Was the Permit (the next ship in the class) in any way delayed?
No, the next two ships of the class were already in service when Thresher was lost. The first ballistic missile submarines were just under construction at the time and there was tremendous urgency to build, crew, train, and test for those missile boats.
(1:09:50) If the absence of a fast reactor emergency recovery startup procedure was the final thing that doomed Thresher, is the crew taking blame? No, not at all. No factors, there. Who asked for a change of Commanding Officer at such a critical time, just before Thresher's sea trials?
Rickover was very picky about who could be a nuke sub CO. This subject is still ripe for exploration and contention.
(1:13:09) Why was there no emergency bypass capability for the clogging filters of the Main Ballast Tank blow system?
At the time, the MBT blow system was not actually considered operationally as a safety system. Having evolved from similar systems on Diesel submarines, the blow system was used simply to fill the tanks at or near the surface and was known to be useless as a safety measure. The safety emphasis was on availability of propulsion and nuclear power was regarded as highly reliable.
(1:15:42) With so many highly-experienced men involved with Thresher, how could we regard her loss as a training failure?
They were super people who didn't have adequate exposure to operational training.
(1:17:56) Before the sinking, what discussions had there been regarding actions to be taken in flooding casualties accompanied by a reactor scram, such as shutting the Main Engine Throttles or shutting the Main Steam Stop Valves (MS1 & MS2) that supplied steam to the Engine Room?
Bryant: There were many discussions about how to isolate seawater leaks rapidly and avoid overheating the reactor but they focused on shutting off all possible sources of flooding, first, and only then restoring sections of the plant.
Walsh: There had been many changes to the ship's systems during Thresher's overhaul and this worked against quick and effective fighting of the casualty. In summary, the totality of things working against the Thresher stacked so high as to be under-appreciated by the Navy in their allowance for testing and training.
Bryant: I guess if they'd not been in such a rush to stay on their deep dive schedule they might have found and understood the sources of their problems before being killed by them.
(1:21:20) Lessons learned from the declassification?
Bryant & Walsh: More people can now learn from this and work to improve subs without requiring so much access to classified information.
Friedman: The complexity of subs is underscored by these papers. Understanding that complexity is terribly important. The crew were as much casualties of the Cold War as if airmen had been shot down in a U. S. bomber flying over Russia. The Cold War was not a benign experience. People got killed defending this country. The urgency had to do with operational needs. It was not about somebody's ego or some kind of stupid cover-up. This went largely unmentioned in the Court of Inquiry because it was already at the forefront of the minds of those involved.
(1:27:20) Thank-yous.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
There is no great deviation here from the classified briefing I received upon arrival at Nuclear Power School in 1985. I was a nuke subs ET and Reactor Operator.
It is my opinion great efforts were exerted at the time by the Navy and the builders of nuclear submarines to put to rest any doubts in the safety of their ships. I believe these efforts at managing public opinion created a shroud of collateral secrecy that overly aroused suspicions in some members of the public regarding the Thresher inquiry. Having read the declassified material myself, I concur they contain few, if any, major revelations.
.
Excellent evaluation of the video. As a former auxiliary chief and diving officer aboard the USS Haddock SSN621. I see a lot of conversation about training or lack of. However no comments about crew fatigue and stress, we worked long difficult hours trying to get underway. We were free labor and expected to just get it fixed.
What was the status of ship’s trim, was she properly trimmed or expected to maintain control with speed? Control priorities speed, angle, planes. Did she conduct any trim dives after overhaul? Extra people on board couldn’t have helped with trim, during watch change 6 or 7 men moving aft affected trim and had to be compensated. Assumptions of flooding or a leak being the primary casualty could have been compounded by out of trim conditions.
Trim pump piping and alignment was a real nightmare, the sound reduction fittings and extra elbows could have leaked when pumping from trim to sea.
The comments about the 3000 psi reducers and strainers is confusing, my understanding is the original high pressure system was 3000 psi and the reducers were added with the 4500 psi conversion. 3000 psi blow system definitely was not an emergency capable system. Piping was long and small in diameter with one control valve and used only the in service air bank. Air bank control valves are designed to open slowly and close rapidly so bringing on air banks took extra time. Air strainers do not remove moisture from the air which freezes when and where the air expands,
There is definitely room for speculation.
@@edkirk7080 Thank you, Ed, for your kind assessment. The video provides a useful framework on which to hang yet-more-detailed discussions, so I tried to index the key points submariners would want to discuss about the video, describe in-full for general audiences the events leading to and causes of the sinking, whilst omitting any classified information and withholding my own judgement about what was being revealed by the Navy and presented by the video.
With so many personnel exchanged in key positions before her fatal trip, and with so many equipment changes installed in her immediately preceding overhaul, and with so many detailed follow-on policy decisions to be implemented by the ship, we may never know the answers to your questions, such as what adjustments were made for trim on that particular dive. We can be certain such polices became more standardised in the wake of the sinking.
Cheers.
@@consubandon Exactly. As a machinist mate the initial photos of the debris field included packages of o-rings. We always hoarded o-rings because they blew frequently and had to be replaced, labor intensive and time consuming. Intellectuals probably would not see the significance and understand the man hours associated. Nothing like the pop of a blown o-ring to get the raise the heart rate. Capt. Bryant was my XO, I’m sure I affected his heart rate on occasion.
Great stuff. That guy knew those subs.
Served on the Gato (SSN-615) after it was certified sub-safe. Some of this was sort of 'known', but good to hear more of the details.. Always felt that the 'normal MBT' blow (using 3000 psi ship's service air) was not great. Especially that air fed through an orifice before reducer. Of course, we had EB, a much better way to empty MBT.
With so little 3000 psi air used normally, a tiny bit of dirt causes the 3000 psi header to rise and lift the relief. If you've ever been near that relief when it pops, you've jumped out of your skin. So I can understand the 'a-gang' wanted those strainers left in for a while longer. But of course, when you really need a LOT of 3000 psi air flow... that was bad. :(
I just watched this. I am a plankowner on the USS Oklahoma City. Glad to see you and your proud ownership of or boat. TM2/ss at the time.
Very fascinating. Thresher sank about a year before I was born. I did prototype duty at S1W at Idaho NRF, but was involuntarily surfaced to the USS Truxtun as a reactor operator, so my knowledge of submarine specifics is limited. This video provides excellent insight into nuclear submarine operations in my opinion. Well made. I am surprised how much has been declassified.
We're the same age and both went to S1W. I was NNPS-ORL Class 8507. You?
Excellent presentation
I did enjoy this very much
I agree with your comment I finish submarine school that spring in 1983.
I suspect that the CO change was no more than a transfer of an experienced sea trials commander to his next new launch.
Hearing about this story, i have a nagging thought... Did Robert MacNamara's streamlining defense cost, play any roll in Thresher's accident, as well as, the Scorpion's?
BTW, i have no Navel or Engineering experience. Came across the discussion, very insightful. Did grow up in the Portsmouth,NH area. But the Thresher, was before my time.
No. Rickover bypassed the Navy (in many matters) by directly courting the support of Congressmen who controlled the purse strings. Because of their support, the Nuclear Power Program had the budget and the freedom it needed to do the job right and several subs were named after Congressmen and Senators by way of thanks. Rickover often fought the shipyards about cost overruns and what he saw as their fleecing of the American taxpayer, so it was Rickover who was working hardest to control the bottom line where nuke subs were concerned.
I was a Coast Guard Damage Control Petty officer, so this information is interesting to me, my question is, since the navy can't physically touch the submarine and have to rely on tests done on actual equipment,most of which is difficult because similar equipment doesn't exist, why can't they just admit it's all conjecture the vose the book on it , especially since it sounds a little like they are still head hunting for someone to blame it on
An exceptional 👏program. Thank you for the content.
seeing faces really hits heart
This video is long, so here are some timestamps and my summary in separate postings:
PART I of 2:
(1:00) Remarks by Adm. James Foggo. Hoorah for nuclear submarines.
(5:25) Introduction by Adm. Sonny Masso
(6:32) Technical presentation by Capt. Jim Bryant
Diagramme of ship is at 12:50
Bruce Rule wrote a Book in 2017: "Why the Thresher was Lost" (16:39). Rule has been an important player in the drive to get Court of Inquiry documents declassified.
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I'll summarise Bryant's technical presentation in plain language and for simplicity in a sequence different than the video:
Thresher was the first ship in a new class of high-speed, deep-diving submarines intended to hunt Soviet subs. Thresher sank and imploded at a depth of 2,400 feet whilst on sea trials at 0918 on 10 April 1963 with the loss of all hands as well as several additional shipyard personnel; 129 people in all. At the time, Thresher was running near its greatest permissible operating depth (1,300 feet, called "Test Depth") for the purposes of testing its fitness for service after a very involved overhaul.
The Navy has begun to release the declassified findings of the Court of Inquiry. There have been no major surprises or "smoking guns" in the recently released declassified documents (8:17).
A shipboard accident is called a casualty.
Procedures, testing, design, and quality control since judged necessary to the safety of this new generation of deeper-diving ship, were at the time not available to Thresher (8:30, 21:37, 40:42).
At the time of her loss, Thresher was in communication with an escorting surface ship via a distorted, acoustic, underwater telephone system called UQC. The logs of these conversations likely contain several misheard words. Thresher also was recorded by highly secret acoustic surveillance equipment on the sea floor, known as SOSUS (15:50).
Thresher had long runs of high-pressure (up to 600-PSI) seawater piping interior to her pressure hull from which seawater flooding may have arisen (19:09).
Thresher's crew had been insufficiently trained on the constraints of the new systems for this deeper-diving ship (19:19).
Thresher's actual depth at various times in the sequence of events may be not well understood and today remains a subject of speculation. According to Bryant, her initiating casualty may have been a loss of hydraulic control ("jam dive") rather than flooding (29:10).
Thresher attempted to blow Main Ballast Tanks (MBTs) at 0909 that morning and then changed course to parallel that of the escorting surface ship, apparently because Thresher expected to come to the surface (28:14). The rapid and effective use of Thresher's Main Ballast Tank air blowing system to help save the ship was hampered by design assumptions and decisions, by material deficiencies, by construction shortcomings, and by inadequate emergency procedures. The system had been designed for WWII Diesel subs that went only as deep as 400 feet (28:16) and was not designed as an emergency means to surface the ship (1:13:09).
As a result, Thresher found herself in the conditions requiring nuclear propulsion to get her to the surface. Other, backup means of propulsion would not have sufficed (23:42).
Heat from Thresher's reactor was extracted by rapidly moving coolant pushed by Main Coolant Pumps. These pumps are very large and can consume a great deal of electrical power.
Thresher had Main Coolant Pumps capable of running in two speeds, fast or slow (25:50). At the time of the casualty, Thresher was running her power-hungry, fast-speed Main Coolant Pumps (24:58). This fact was not made public by the Navy until the Thresher inquiry was declassified. In fast speed, these pumps could be powered only by the high-capacity, steam-driven electrical generators (called the Ship's Service Turbine Generators or SSTGs). Slow speed pumps, on the other hand (40:29), were more reliable because they could be powered either by the big, steam turbines or alternatively from other, back-up electrical power sources (the ship's battery), all while remaining sufficient to have driven the ship to the surface that day.
The big, steam-powered turbine generators required the steam leaving them to be cooled and collapsed from vapour back to liquid water in the Main Condensers. To maintain steam flow, the Main Condensers were cooled by seawater pipes. The vacuum created in the Main Condensers by the collapsing steam is what sucked steam through the turbines.
To combat flooding from a source uncertain to them, it is expected the crew attempted to isolate various seawater piping (27:29).
Through Rule's 2017 book, we find the SOSUS ocean surveillance system recorded the Main Coolant Pumps' fluctuating in speed during the casualty (27:29). The Court records released do not mention these fluctuations. Possibly these fluctuations happened because of disruptions in steam flow as the crew attempted to isolate seawater systems. The Main Coolant Pumps stopped at 0911 on the day of the casualty.
A reactor scram (i.e. a shutdown of the core) could happen automatically if Main Coolant Pumps were providing insufficient flow through the core (26:10). On Thresher, a scram may have been initiated automatically in response to diminished spinning of the fast-speed Main Coolant Pumps. Main Coolant Pumps in slow speed and powered by a more reliable source of electricity may in this case have prevented such a scram (37:50). Please note a scram may also have occurred for other reasons, such as damage to or flooding of the ship's electrical distribution system, or because of other electrical problems/water intrusion into reactor control equipment.
Procedures in place aboard Thresher at the time meant steam was shut off to the Engine Room following a scram (24:16). This shutoff imposes a grave delay in any subsequent restarting of the steam plant (38:44).
A reactor scram leaves the hot core still fizzing and popping from the residual decay of fission products (32:55). The decay heat from these fission products would have created sufficient steam to drive Thresher to the surface. Rickover generously offered the Court an emergency fast reactor restart procedure, already in place aboard the submarine USS George Washington (33:52), that likely would have saved Thresher but the Admiral also used his testimony to do his "Rickover magic" to defend nuke boats and his Naval Reactor program from critics by diverting attention from matters related to the reactor and nuclear propulsion, a subject of paramount importance to him and to the Cold War security of the United States. Rickover may even have concocted a story (40:21) the Main Coolant Pumps were running in slow speed rather than fast. His statements about the speed of the Main Coolant Pumps may at the time of the hearing not yet have been directly contradicted by available acoustic evidence from the SOSUS surveillance system.
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Continued in my next comments post.
.
Thank you for the written summary!
Thank u for ur effort ! God bless u.
Long overdue discussion by experts regarding the released documents. Other than a single pipe bearing the inscription "593 boat" recovered by the "Trieste", which other materials and components of "Thresher" have been recovered for study? Where are they archived today? AFAIK, "Thresher" was last visited in 1986. How often, if ever, are "Thresher" and "Scorpion" visited for study? What has been recovered from these boats?
I believe that the sites are regularly visited, to monitor for radiation (as the reactors are still down there), and to make sure nobody else has been poking around the sites.
moosecat Any idea on what was recover from the ocean floor, and where is is located today?
@@PRR5406 Nice choice in locomotives! :-)
Anyhow...to best of my knowledge, they really haven't recovered very much...a bunch of O-rings, a rubber bootie, and--most crucially--a piece of pipe that had "593 boat" inscribed on it, which essentially confirmed that the wreck was indeed the Thresher.
At 8,500 feet down, recovering anything of any size becomes a Herculean task.
I do not know anything about submarines however to me Thresher was part of a experiment in saving money spent on maintenance . Can we run thresher on a shoestring and get the same performance . Economies of scale admiral .....answer is no a big no .
Thresher always on patrol
Brave men
The only truths that I know of are: the Apollo 13 and the Space Shuttle accidents. I think the truth is known about those.
Flawlessly is almost correct, Nautilus had that radioactive water released by two sailors and a wrong valve...
STILL MORE QUESTIONS ABOUT THE USS SCORPION
When reading the report, I thought it was believed thresher was between test and crush depth not sitting on the bottom besides hearing 37 mainframe pings no mistaking that for anything other than a sub.
BZ Admiral. 723 Plankowner here. MM2/SS Greenhalgh.
I hope when they do deep dive testing they do it in water of limited depth. It's only logical your max test depth would be 100' shallower than crush depth, with a soft bottom. Doing deep dive testing in 8000' depth is foolish.
This presentation would be greatly improved by a redo of the synopsis which runs from roughly the 6.5 minute point to 42.5 minutes. With all due respect to the presenter and his laudable naval service, the narration suffers from inarticulation, sounding throughout as if it was being read for the first time. I found myself often pausing the narration to simply read and absorb the bullet points, undistracted by the halting, repetitious, and at times too rapid voiceover. This presentation might be improved by sufficient pre-recorded rehearsal and/or a different narrator.
I too agree with this comment. Found it hard to follow the brief. Suggest a redo with a more capable narrator. No offense to the Capt.
Were we too busy building the Saturn V back then?
So this discussion includes the tranche of declassified documents?
If commander Dean L Axene had taken her out and Lt Com John W J Harvey had been xo there would have been a different out come
So what is the deal. When the thresher was found was the section where communication pings are able to be sent in tact?
" MORE THAN LIKELY " IS NOT ACCEPTABLE
Planes have a "black box" to record things going on just in case of an accident. I cant understand why a submarine wouldnt have the same thing
SCRAM = Shutdown Control Rod Axe Man , it was coined by the Italian physicist under the Chicago stadium...
Control rods on ropes. Oh the good ole days.
En Memoriam: Requaescat In Pace ; Crew of the US Submarine Thresher.
--
Kind and Respectful Regards, Uyraell, New Zealand.
search 37 pings to get CURRENT FACTS about this tragedy.
No, those men were not still alive. It ended very fast for the crew, in a flash of combustion too quick for the mind to become aware.
When Thresher was testing, Navy doctrine on trimming the ship (setting its buoyancy) basically said, "The nuclear reactor gives you whatever speed you need to drive out of any situation, so enjoy it!" How liberated we felt! We had mastered the ocean depths! But this was in celebration of our improvements over our WWII Diesel-electric subs that went down only as deep as 400 feet, where they poked along at 8 or 9 knots on their batteries. Now, in the 1960s, submerged subs pushed 30-knots at over a thousand feet, but the Navy, grown supremely comfortable and confident with those old fleet Diesel boats, simply hadn't considered sufficiently a new array of risks: Too fast and even a tiny error could flick a nuclear submarine far deeper than test depth, endangering the ship from pressure or even smacking it into the bottom. Too slow and a 440 pounds of sea pressure per square foot could turn a small leak into a raging flood so fast there wouldn't be time to order up a fast bell before the ship filled with too much water to do anything about it.
Why did Thresher sink? Because the Navy's failure to grasp the risks of a surprisingly narrow operating envelope of speed+depth+trim boxed Thresher into an operating region where all it took were a few small things to go wrong to doom a ship. And then, on April 10th of '63, a random selection of things did just that. This is the reason we in submarines consider the details of the Thresher casualty--the leak size, location, blow rates, procedural variances--to be something of a quibble. I'm not making light of them; I'm saying we had our plate full of deficiencies to correct. *All* of those failure points had to be studied and improved, so we dismantled our creation and examined its details and came down hard on our own inattention and trained harder on all of it. But the biggest takeaway, I think, is we had to reevaluate our plunge into an entirely new operating environment. We expected the ocean to treat us as it had in Fleet Diesel-electric boats. Our expectations were disastrously ill-suited to the deeper sea and the realities of nuclear subs, and we got bitten in the ass by them. After Thresher, we became a lot more persnickety about how we trim our nuclear submarines. We know better now.
But the claims Aaron Amick makes in his "37 pings" video defy all our present sense of engineering and physics and run contrary to how subs function. As a submariner, he should know better. it is a difficult and precise operation to hover a submarine with no propulsion. (See the terrific new video about this at ruclips.net/video/XFJnWp1tAdU/видео.html ) I've been on a submarine when someone made a single error with the system used to do such a hovering trick and the result was not pretty. Those events prompted my COB (Chief of the Boat) to forcibly proclaim afterward: "There's a lesson here! A SUBMERGED SUBMARINE WITHOUT PROPULSION... SINKS!" There is no logical mechanism by which a disabled sub could remain positioned in anywhere near such a manner as Amick claims occurred with Thresher. It can't happen.
The Thresher is sacred to those of us in the submarine community, and to Amick, too, I'm sure, but its survival, hanging in the ocean for over a day, is impossible, no matter how strongly Amick loses control of his sense of outrage. He goes so far off the rails that he's convinced he's seeing Thresher's somehow hovering for a day and a half rather than imploding abruptly and totally, and he's so wound up about what he imagines he can't bring himself back to basic submarine logic.
This is Amick's fault, alone, for misreading the report, jumping to conclusions, and then compounding his errors by not retracting his video. He is the sole source of claims the crew lived beyond the morning of 10 April. These bogus claims are not the fault of Seawolf; to his immense credit, the C.O. of Seawolf is just reporting what sounds his crew heard. He is not concluding they emanated from Thresher. Many other sound sources were operating in the search area as well that day, and there was so much noise and interference Seawolf was having major trouble hearing clearly over all the sonar noise in the area from other vessels engaged in the search. Seawolf could not even communicate reliably with Sea Owl. Beyond that, Skylark and SOSUS both heard the implosion of Thresher moments after the last UQC transmission.
Bruce Rule, the top Navy acoustics expert, who testified at the Thresher Board of Inquiry, said this about Amick's allegations: “This RUclips video is false, the Seawolf report the presenter is reading from is correct, but the final report certified it was false readings. Seawolf was confused by the active sonar and noise created by the destroyers and the diesel submarine Sea Owl searching for Thresher on 11 April 1963, the day after she was lost. She mistook all sounds from the searching ships as banging on the hull and sonar pings from the Thresher. It was a mistake.”
It's sad our emotional ties to one of our lost boats seem to have got Aaron so riled-up that this pile of nonsense resulted. So many people are now writing "OMG! THE THRESHER CREW LIVED FOR DAYS!" that this mess has taken on a life of its own. I feel awful for the poor families of those who died on that ship, having to hear and and wonder about these made-up horrors. As though their loss didn't already hurt enough.
It falls to us in the submarines community to stand in opposition to the rising tide of dumb loosed by the "37 pings" video. Please help stop the spreading of baseless, hurtful rumours.
Thanks.
@40:00 ,. The old guy spends 5 mins repeating himself from the previous 5 mins.
I noticed that, but I think it was so exact that it might have been an editing snafu
give me a ping Vasili, one ping only, please.
Appreciate this. However, the presentation, audio, video, and editing problems make it hard to follow.
Can't the navy salvage some parts of the sub to see what went wrong like the screw of the sub not disturbing the bulk of the sub as a resting place,
The first narrator was poorly chosen. My apologies. I nearly gave up before the panel discussion.
there has been a disregard for the risks ordinary service people experience . The practice of requiring a submarine to operate at the extreem limits of its design needlessly put people at risk...this should only be done in extreem wartime circumstances... ALL other types of engineering have a "safe working load" for example which is much less that the "breaking strain" of a piece of rope or mechanical engine...
The Navy did they right thing telling us they died instantly. If you think otherwise, you clearly don't know anything about what it takes to serve in a Navy.
I viewed another video on youtube that was highly critical of the Navy handling of USS Seawolf recovery. The title was "37 Pings Death throes of the USS Thresher where it was strongly supported that their were survivors aboard the Thresher at the time of discover and location. This was supported by what was claimed as Official Navy investigation and narratives, would someone please let us know, what is the truth. It goes on to suggest that the survivors might have been saved, and this was covered up?
Except the report never concludes the _Thresher_ was still operating nor the crew were alive. They picked up false positives which is why the Navy dismissed it.
@@peterson7082 what makes the 'pings' and other banging/noises automatically be called 'false positives? what if the source of the 'implosion' was a false positive?
@@angusncmo3268 When the active output is at the same of similar frequency as yours. Especially as _Seawolf's_ sonar was the same type found in the _Thresher._ Also prop noise can create interference making your own returns distorted.
Would not the necking of the pressure hull be inherently weak
You're asking about the Auxiliary Machine Space, I presume, about 2/3 of the way aft, where the diametre of the pressure hull is smaller to allow for Main Ballast Tanks, electrical equipment, and some deck gear. The answer is no, that imparts no weakness. Smaller diametre pressure vessels are stronger, not weaker. As I think I recall from reading the declassified reports, those tapers are massively overbuilt to strengthen the transition, and that strengthening is more for resistance against flexing than against sea pressure. Every part of the pressure hull has the cross section of a nearly perfect circle; that circularity is the correct defense against sea pressure. All else being equal, necking is stronger, not weaker. The large, open space of the middle of the Engine Room is the weakest section of the hull--but there's always going to be *some* section of the hull that is the weakest section. The ship was designed to go as deep as it was designed to go. Period. Not to the depth it went to.
It's not exactly the same thing, but corrugated cylinders as pressure vessels are stronger than flat-walled cylinders, so one might, perhaps, think of this as a very large corrugation. The 593 was much less-crushable than the newer, larger, less-partitioned 688s built of the same HY-80 steel. (Does not include Albany and Toledo, which are built of HY-100.)
@@consubandon Yea that's the area I have always thought that changes in hull dia resulted in stress raiser and while such areas are normally made from heavier gauge plate and see a reduced frame spacing they should be avoided
A lot of great information but Captain Bryant presents his portion in a stumbling disjointed manner that’s a little difficult to follow.
This is a bunch of conjecture, I want to know exactly what happened and why it happened on the USS Threshers last dive. We should recover all of the pieces and examine them to determine the exact cause of the loss. Was there a leak and if so what? Did the reactor scram, were the stern planes jammed, why was it considered to be a minor difficulty, why did 120 seconds of ballast tank blow not bring her to the surface or at least a shallower depth and why did she go down so fast? What was the sound of bulkheads collapsing heard on the underwater telephone? Was that her imploding? We need to know every minute detail so somebody needs to raise the wreck and figure it out. We can do it, we raised the K-129 so we can raise both the Thresher and the Scorpion so we will have answers.
So this guy said at time mark 11:21 that they tested the submarine at 'collapse depth' - WTF is he talking about?
Oh they tested the Thresher. Sadly it failed. God Bless all Submariners.
Just one possible correction, Thresher did not have a tear drop hull shape like the Skipjack Class.
Wellll.... technically not a 'tear drop', that's true. It was longer than Skipjack, so yes it had a significant length that was 'straight'. But that term could apply since it did have the rounded nose and not the 'fleet boat bow'.
Declassified Thresher documents record that it took two days for Thresher to pass crush depth 🤦🇺🇲🛠️🇷🇺 Go to Sub Brief channel for a video.
Edit : I'm not saying this video here isn't important, I'm saying there's a new report released Monday 12 July 2021.
NO,she crushed on first day,it was recorded...
I am old now. I remember this accident. I now know that the gov. lies about everything, all the time. DO YOU ALL UNDERSTAND ??
37 pings
Evidence that was rejected at the time and satisfactorily implausible even now.
So the navy lied since 1963 about the actual events that caused the thresher to implode.
Exactly wrong. The recently released material corresponds with the classified briefing I received at Nuclear Power School in the 1980s, and does not contradict the facts made public over the years. The public material merely omitted the Navy's undersea surveillance capabilities, the operational limits on our submarines, and any information about Naval Nuclear Propulsion, a topic which is still designated in its entirety as classified.
MEGALODON destroyed the Thresher, Scorpion and others, including the Russian submarine K-129 which part of it was dredged up from the bottom of the Pacific ocean, using the Glomar Explorer which was conducted by a covert CIA operation! Megalodon can reach a length of over 100 ft and can travel at speeds of 50 plus knots and can outrun, outdive and destroy any submarine in a heartbeat! Megalodon has come back to life because of the melting Arctic ice, where they were in suspended animation, called cryogenics, meaning Frozen, until now! There are others that weren't Frozen! Every submarine, from every nation, is fair game to Megalodon! Megalodon views submarines as a threat! Your government won't tell you what happened, it's all been covered up, now you know! Megalodon! The Submarine San Juan disappeared on November 15th, 2017 with all hands on board! The wreckage was found and it was obliterated! More submarines will be destroyed and the cover-up will continue!
Hell I'd watch that movie.😅
Imagine if admiral rickover had care more about alive's of the men on those boats than he did his nuclear program perhaps they wouldn't have died. Never make the mistake of thinking that Rickover was nothing more than a political scuzzbucket who did the same thing they all do!
Inaccurate! Rickover was obsessive about the safety and quality of the sub designs; he’s famous for testing the equipment vendors wanted to put on his subs by taking the vendor and their equipment sample to the rooftop of his office, dropping the equipment over the side onto concrete, then dragging the vendor downstairs to see if it passed the test. He knew his shit and designed some amazing things.
It's all a lie!
The details of the USS Thresher have just become unclassified and they lied to us all these years.
The crew was alive for more than 2 days and sent 37 pings requesting help.
I just saw Sub Briefs video on that. Heartbreaking and pisses me off.
Just seen the same video. 37 pings. They were still alive.
They were trying to save families grief. They couldn't do anything for the Thresher at that depth and the DSRV program (and programs like subsafe) were built in response to the disaster. However had they had the DSRV's built before the disaster there would possibility of saving the crew of the boat and had the proper programs been in place to ensure quality of submarine parts and construction techniques this disaster could have been avoided completely.
@@The31stcenturyfox
I highly doubt that was their primary motivation, you don't classify things for 50 years to spare people grief.
More likely they classified it because it showed up some weaknesses in the sub fleet that the enemy could exploit.
When your subs hit any sort of trouble you never admit there’s a problem. The information gets classified for 50 years.
And now, you're the laughing stock.
What the fuk is a kilometer? It makes no sense to my American eyes.
Why do submarines not have a marine equivalent of the Flight Data Recorders and Cockpit Voice Recorders installed on commercial passenger aircraft?
Unlike the majority of aircraft wreck sites which are accessible to Aircraft Accident Investigators, submarine wreck sites invariably lay beyond the vessel's certified maximum depth, making anything other than ROV video footage and images of any debris field and imploded and broken up wreckage all there is to see.
Because no ROV videos and images can ever provide the information necessary to identify the sequence of events that occurred on board which led to the emergency situation or to the actual loss of the vessel itself, Investigators are never able to determine the actual cause of the loss!
Surely it is technically possible to create a Data Recorder which will work on submarines, I believe that there are such systems already fitted to commercial marine transport and passenger vessels (like the one fitted to 'El Faro', which was recovered from the sea floor amid the debris field).
Irrespective of the financial loss of this tragedy, the human loss should make the fitting of such a system a priority, to help future Crew members avoid a similar fate.
Let’s see.... submarine goes missing and our enemies all scramble to locate it and obtain our top secret information.
@@TheJaxxJackson If only Top Secret, highly encrypted data transmissions were possible, perhaps like the systems already developed and used by the US submarine fleet, people like Jack wouldn't make such remarkably stupid and ignorant comments...
@@felixcat9318 you are the ignorant one sir. You would be completely stupid to think our enemies would not have some sort of means to eventually hack into that data and learn our secrets. You are clueless and I am concerned that you actually think in such a manner.
@@TheJaxxJackson You make an entirely baseless assumption and then you express concern about it...
@@felixcat9318 You are the one who is incapable of realizing that this is real life. It’s not the “movies” were data and encrypted material is 100% safe.
The Chinese, Russians, etc will eventually break the code and have access to all of the data.
Environmental detriment and does USA pay the price of environmental