MANAMA, Bahrain (AP) – Two U.S. Navy vessels – a submarine and an amphibious ship – collided early Friday in the Strait of Hormuz between Iran and the Arabian peninsula, the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet reported.
The military said in a statement that the collision occurred around 1:00 a.m. local time on Friday (5 p.m. EDT, Thursday).
The USS Hartford, a submarine, collided with an amphibious ship, the USS New Orleans.
According to the Bahrain-based 5th Fleet, 15 soldiers aboard the Hartford were slightly injured but able to return to duty. No injuries were reported aboard the New Orleans.
The New Orleans suffered a ruptured fuel tank, resulting in an oil spill of approximately 25,000 gallons (95,000 liters) of diesel fuel. Damage to both vessels is still being evaluated.
Both ships are currently operating under their own power.
The Navy said both ships were on regularly scheduled deployments to the region and conducting security operations.
CO, XO and OOD, at least, go bye-bye. On that boat, probably the diving officer/COB go down, too. That’s how it should be.
I’ve been out on those waters. It can be a damn tight fit as far as maneuvering space goes, in some spots. And anybody who’s helmed a vessel knows how quickly things can go sideways on you if you’re not paying strict attention.
So do the guys on the surface even know it’s there? Is there some sort of transponder thingie that lets navy vessels know when a sub is nearby? I would guess not (signal could be picked up by enemy, etc).
The sub knows better than anybody, through the sonar suite, where everybody is. It was probably part of some sort of battle group – judging by the fact there was a gator freighter in the flotilla – and operating in close quarters and coordination with the other members of the group. A collision like this can happen pretty quickly, and I don’t know if they were training in some sort of fashion with each other (or who was closing in on whom) or not, but both helms have a certain degree of responsibility for ensuring things like this don’t happen.
Slowguy can speak to the actual conditions at the time, I’m sure.
Sorry, but I don’t have anything other than what you can get in the news, just yet.
I’ll offer the following thoughts.
This incident occured at 0100, when it’s dark, and both crews have been up for an extended period of time.
The Strait of Hormuz is defined as an international strait, for the purposes of legal transit purposes. this means that the HARTFORD would have been within it’s rights and very well could have been transitting submerged (maybe at periscope depth).
The NEW ORLEANS is a brand spanking new ship. I know the CO, and he’s pretty solid.
The SOH is tight, from the perspective of executing any kind of wide maneuvering, but there is plenty of room for inbound and outbound vessels to pass safely, or for one vessel to overtake another safely, so long as traffic permits.
25,000 gallons of fuel is a HUGE amount to spill for a Navy ship.
Probably both CO’s get relieved. There’s a lot of pressure on the surface fleet in particular right now, and not much tolerance for error. If I had to guess, and not knowing anything about the situation other than what’s in the initial report, I’d guess that one or both XOs also get fired, along with the Officers of the Deck (OOD).
If I hear any more that’s interesting but not classified, I’ll pass it along.
Ok, not much new info, but what I’ve seen suggests that HARTFORD was probably at fault, more than NEW ORLEANS. Here’s a photo of the damage to HARTFORD.
If you look closely, you can see NEW ORLEANS pierside further into the picture. Reports are that both made it safely pierside. That’s gonna make for some awkward liberty in Bahrain. On a side note, it appears that the fuel spilled during the incident has disappated. There is no longer any sheen visible on the surface of the water.
It’s the Hartford SSN 768 no stranger to a wee little mishaps. Back in 2003 she ran around and did some damage to the rudders,CO and a two others relieved.
Guess who is coming to Norfolk for work?
A few questions on your first picture - Is that rust? Does stuff really rust that quickly in the ocean, or is it rubbed off the other ship, kind of like swapping paint? And what is the significance of the blue and white tarp/flag? I assume it’s covering something up, but do all subs have a tarp that large on board at all times?
“A few questions on your first picture - Is that rust? Does stuff really rust that quickly in the ocean, or is it rubbed off the other ship, kind of like swapping paint?”
Yes it looks like rust to me. Yes, metal exposed to salt water rusts fast as Hell. As for the tarp, I have no idea if HARTFORD had that aboard or if it was given to them by someone to help cover the damage/minimize internal exposure to the elements.
They really bumped uglies, that’s for sure. And yes, it looks like Hartford’s more at fault in this one than New Orleans. Man…to run that sail into the hull of the 'Orleans. You suppose she was trying a sneak-and-peek and got in too close? If that gator freighter made a sudden course correction, and the sub was still inching in, closure rate would have nailed her before she could submerge or even turn hard away. Unbelievable.
It is really simple 500+ jarheads on gator freighter needing some liberty ;-).It was a block out tack. First to tie up gets the beer. LPD (1) SSN ( 0) bubble heads lose
