The Navy just released its report on the investigation of the grounding of the USS Connecticut, a 353-foot-long, billion-dollar nuclear submarine in the South China Sea last October, finding that “an accumulation of errors” caused it.
The sub’s commanding officer, executive officer and the chief of the boat had already been relieved of their commands “due to a loss of confidence,” the Navy said.
The accident occurred last October 2 when the sub hit an uncharted seamount “while operating submerged in a poorly surveyed area in international waters,” the report said.
The accident ripped off the entire forward sonar dome and caused other unspecified damage. The nuclear power plant was not affected.
But it was not safe to cruise underwater, so the sub traveled for a week on the surface to Guam for repairs. The damage could not be repaired there, so the sub cruised 6,000 miles on the surface to San Diego, arriving on Dec. 12.
The sub held 15 officers and 101 enlisted personnel at the time; 11 crew suffered minor injuries in the grounding.
The new report is heavily redacted, but its Executive Summery said, “This mishap was preventable. It resulted from an accumulation of error and omissions in navigation planning, watch-team execution, and risk management that fell far below U.S. Navy standards. Prudent decision-making and adherence to required procedures in any of these three areas could have prevented the grounding.”
The report noted the poor charting in the area of the grounding, saying that “operations in areas with sparse soundings should only be conducted when required with extreme caution.”
It said that the sub would be out of action “for an extended period of time” but it did not have a better schedule or estimate of the cost of repairs.
The report noted the sub previously hit a pier at the Naval Base Point Loma resulting in “a safety stand-down to address deficiencies noted by a command-level critique.” That accident occurred on April 14, 2021.
The investigating officer’s report of that accident determined that “while this investigation revealed degraded standards in navigation, planning, poor seamanship, and ineffective command and control, it represented an anomalous performance and not a systemic failure.”
Read the report here:
