Submarine Brotherhood

Sub damaged in fatal crash rejoins fleet in S.D.

2009-07-07T08:38:00.003-04:00

By Steve Liewer
Union-Tribune Staff Writer
2:00 a.m. July 5, 2009

Navy Petty Officers Robert Hutson (left) and Andrew Tillman are the only two crewmen who have remained with the submarine San Francisco since its 2005 crash. (Eduardo Contreras / Union-Tribune) - Petty Officer 2nd Class Joseph "Joey" Ashley, 24, was killed in the 2005 submarine accident.

The attack submarine San Francisco was put in dry dock in Guam to assess damage after it hit an undersea mountain in January 2005. The impact crushed the boat's sonar dome and punched holes in the forward ballast tanks. (Mark Allen Leonesio / U.S. Navy)

The reconstructed San Francisco arrived in San Diego, its new home port, in April after repairs that involved removing its front end and replacing it with the bow of a sister sub. (Courtesy photo)

Almost two weeks after the Navy submarine San Francisco struck an undersea mountain, Dan and Vicki Ashley visited a dry dock in Guam to view the shredded bow of the boat on which their 24-year-old son died.

Even in their grief, the couple marveled that a sub so badly damaged could have limped 360 miles back to port.

“We said: 'How did she survive? Why didn't she sink to the bottom?' ” Dan Ashley said last week, reflecting on the Jan. 8, 2005, accident. “I told the admiral, 'We'll see victory when we see that submarine back in service.' ”

The impact tossed most of the San Francisco's 137 crewmen around a cramped interior filled with jagged edges. Ninety-seven were injured, and Petty Officer 2nd Class Joseph “Joey” Ashley – who had stopped for a smoke break in the lower engine room – suffered a fatal skull fracture.
Four and a half years later, the San Francisco has rejoined the fleet in its new home port of San Diego. It took an unprecedented repair that involved cutting off the submarine's front end and transplanting about 50 feet – more than 1 million pounds of metal – from the bow of a retired sister sub, the Honolulu.

The price tag: $134 million to fix a boat that easily could have sunk.

“It's a testament to the robust design,” said Capt. Brett Genoble, commander of San Diego-based Submarine Squadron 11. “It's tough for me to believe you can have a more significant collision than that.”

The San Francisco arrived at Point Loma Naval Base in mid-April, then returned to sea for drills almost immediately. Now it's back pierside while workers upgrade many of the 28-year-old warship's electronics systems.

Nearly all of the crew members who survived the accident have moved on to other posts or left the Navy. But Petty Officers Robert Hutson and Andrew Tillman have stayed with the San Francisco through the tragedy and reconstruction. Both extended their tours so they could return to sea with it.

“I just wanted to see it through,” said Hutson, 34, a petty officer first class from Cleveland.
He and Tillman joined the Navy in 2004 and boarded the sub at its home port in Guam in December of that year, just a few weeks before it left on the ill-fated cruise.

They joined a boat that had suffered a troubled reputation because of subpar inspections before Cmdr. Kevin Mooney took over as skipper in December 2003.

“He came in and kind of turned the boat around,” said Tillman, 29, of Augusta, Ga. “It really put us on the map.”

As a reward, the crew earned a liberty cruise to Brisbane, Australia. The vessel departed Jan. 7, 2005, and headed full speed toward the Caroline Islands southeast of Guam.

At 11:42 a.m. the following day, some of the sailors had begun to line up outside the mess deck for a lunch of hamburgers, french fries and baked beans.

The duty watch had just changed, and Hutson was in the machinery room going over paperwork with a shipmate.

Then the boat hit a bump.

“We had the first little shudder, and then a second one,” Hutson said. “The second hit, I said, 'We're in trouble.' ”

The San Francisco, cruising at 38 mph, ground to a halt, throwing Hutson several feet and slamming him against some machinery. Two officers fell in front of him.

In the control room, Tillman was studying reference manuals on a computer. The impact slammed him into a nearby post as lockers flew open.

“At first I thought it wasn't that big a deal,” Tillman said. “Then I felt my head. It was bloody.”
The impact crushed the San Francisco's sonar dome and punched holes in the forward ballast tanks. But the inner hull, which contained the crew compartment and nuclear reactors, held fast.

The crew initiated an “emergency blow,” which released huge amounts of high-pressure air into the ship's main ballast tanks. After an agonizing pause, the boat slowly rose 525 feet to the surface.

A shipmate took Tillman to the mess deck, where a corpsman and an officer with medical training set up a makeshift aid station amid the blood and debris.

“Food was everywhere, plates, broken dishes,” Tillman said. “I remember seeing people unconscious on the tables.”

One of them was Ashley, a sailor with West Virginia roots who was known as “Cooter,” after a character from television's “Dukes of Hazzard.”

Word quickly spread among the crew that Ashley was in rough shape. Someone plugged in a CD of Hank Williams Jr., Ashley's favorite musician. Tillman, who escaped with a mild concussion, held his shipmate's hand and prayed for him.

The tight quarters made it difficult to get Ashley off the boat to a helicopter that could take him to a hospital in Guam. Crewmen spent the night removing railings and lockers to clear a path to the only hatch considered safe to open.

The next morning, they threaded Ashley's stretcher through small compartments and up narrow ladders, but the bridge hatch wouldn't open far enough to let it out. Some of his shipmates cursed and cried in frustration.

Cooter died without regaining consciousness, 25½ hours after the accident.

It took two days for the San Francisco to crawl back to Guam. There, the crew – and later the Ashleys – first saw the astonishing damage to the ship's outer hull.

After patchwork repairs, the sub eventually went to the naval shipyard in Bremerton, Wash. The Navy resisted scrapping the San Francisco, commissioned in 1981, because its nuclear reactors had finished an expensive midlife refueling process less than three years earlier.

The Naval Sea Systems Command instead decided to scrap the Honolulu, which was four years younger but had not been refueled. It devised the bow transplant, which involved grafting the Honolulu's sonar dome and three ballast tanks onto the front of the San Francisco. Then workers painstakingly connected pipes, cables and control systems before welding the parts together.

A Navy investigation into the crash showed that the San Francisco's crew and the mission's shore-based planners had relied on a single set of charts commonly used by submariners that did not show the mountain. They did not consult other maps that indicated an undefined hazard in the area.

Mooney and five others received reprimands or demotions. Eighteen crewmen received awards for their heroic efforts to save the boat and crew.

For some sailors, the psychological wounds from the near disaster did not heal easily.
“It had a pretty traumatic effect,” Tillman said. “We had some people who thought they were OK. Then we had a drill. They heard all the alarms and they'd be a little twitchy.”

Like Tillman, Hutson decided to stay in the Navy. He said he felt cheated out of a trip Down Under.

“I want to go travel around the world,” Hutson said. “I want to go to Australia – on a boat.”
The Ashleys met Tillman, Hutson and the rest of the crew in April when the Navy flew the couple to San Diego to greet the San Francisco after its voyage from the repair yard in Bremerton.

“I was laughing with joy, having to hide my tears because I didn't want people to see me cry,” Dan Ashley said. “She came in under her own power, standing tall in the water, saying, 'Look at me – I'm good as new.' ”

Standing on the pier, he knew Joey would have wanted him to be there.

“That sub will always be our boat,” he said. “But I wish my son were still on board.”

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Steve Liewer: (619) 498-6632; steve.liewer@uniontrib.com
Steve Liewer: (619) 498-6632;

USS San Francisco 3 years later

2008-01-07T08:37:00.000-05:00

A post on Rontini's BBS (www.messdeck.com/forum) from MM2 Ashley's father, copied here to preserve it.

The events of January 8th, 2005 will forever remain a major turning point in our lives. As we reflect back on the accident involving the USS San Francisco SSN 711 and consider all that has happened since, it has certainly been humbling. We think back to the many doors that the Navy Submarine Force generously opened and have remained open. We think back of all the unending support and kindness of all the SUBVETS. Last year we got to hear our son’s name called out during the “Tolling of the Boats” at the Nautilus Museum. It was such an honor. I personally thank you all for opening your family to me and answering a lot of my sometimes ignorant questions. The way I got it figured, in about ten or twelve more years I’ll be legally qualified to wear my Dolphins. He! He! He!

A couple weeks ago I spoke to the XO of the USS San Francisco and he said the work is going well and right on schedule. I try to keep close tabs. We hope to go out there this fall to see her leave the yards and become seaworthy again. We’re also planning a trip to Kings Bay this summer. Got some special SanFran folks we got to see. We just had a wonderful visit from one of Joey’s shipmates and looking forward to another shipmate who said he would be here about March. Danny Hagar said he will be here this fall. If you here about him missing or possibly being abducted, we are the ones that will have him. He! He! As I’ve said many times, if any of you pass close to Charleston or Parkersburg, W. Va., look us up. We are here in Spencer, W.Va.

Again, thank you my friends for your continued support. God has certainly overflowed the void in our lives with some very special folks.

God Bless all of you, Dan & Vicki Ashley

On Watch

2007-12-24T12:31:00.001-05:00

Figured I should post something here just to let viewers know this is still an active blog. Don't post much, but I still think about MM2 Ashley from time to time as a fallen brother, particularly when I think about my son currently at sea aboard USS Wyoming (a Trident class submarine.)

I know people who care still regularly visit this blog, and you can see many recent posts in the Joseph Ashley guestbook. We hear occasionally from Dan Ashley on the Rontini BBS, so know that his family is getting along OK, though I'm sure Christmas time will be more difficult.

A Christmas prayer for all those currently on patrol and for the families and loved ones of all who have departed on final patrol.

CDR Mooney's Retirement Speech

2006-03-26T20:52:00.000-05:00

Posted by CDR Kevin Mooney, USN (Ret.) on Sat - Mar 25 - 2006

Good Afternoon, before I get into the guts of my remarks I want to spend a few moments acknowledging the people who made this special day possible.

To Laura McNett and Bob Crann at the Fleet Reserve Association – thanks so much for the use of the clubhouse. I cannot think of a more appropriate place to host this event. And don’t worry, I’ve had a few words with the boys and told them to go easy after the ceremony.

To all of my former shipmates, particularly Senior Chief Rob Enquist and Chief Tom Riley, and the rest of today’s ceremony participants. You are my brothers in arms.

To my fellow Veterans, I have reserved a special place in my heart for all of you. I have enjoyed interacting with you throughout my career, and I can never repay the debt of loyalty and support that you extended to me not only in my time of personal crisis, but also as I have worked through the transition to civilian life.

To all my family and friends who traveled great distances to be here today – words cannot do justice to the depth of my gratitude for you making such a monumental effort just to see me say goodbye to the Navy. I look forward to thanking you in a more personal way later today.
There are a few more people who I must mention by name. The two men sitting on the stage with me, Karl Hasslinger and Hass Moyer, and your lovely wives Donna and Katie. You all have taught me more about life, leadership, and friendship than any others. Also, my good friend Andy Hale who has just returned to the mainland from Guam. I’m truly blessed to have you as friends and I know we will continue our close relationships well beyond each others’ Navy years.

And of course, most important of all is my family: My brothers and sisters and my extended family, who are represented here today by two of my sisters, Kathy and Maureen, my Aunt Mary, and a cousin and Navy veteran himself, Neil Gallagher. My second family in Ireland, proudly represented today by the indomitable Joan D’Arcy, better known to the Western World simply as Mum. My Dad, who has cheered my Navy career from the sidelines for the past twenty years. And finally, my ladies, Avril, Laura and Tara. My speech would end abruptly if I even tried to explain out what my wife and kids mean to me. In short, you are my world, so we’ll leave it at that and I’ll get on with it –

I love the United States Navy. From the day I was sworn in as a midshipman with my good friend Bob Benford at the Duke University Navy ROTC program, the Navy has provided me one opportunity after another to lead a rewarding and fulfilling career and personal life. The Navy paid for my education at Duke that otherwise was well beyond my means as the fifth of seven children in a large Irish Catholic family from Long Island. After Duke, the Navy topped off my undergraduate education with its own special form of learning – nuclear power school. I hated it, and was happy to be shipped off to my first boat, USS BREMERTON based in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. The Navy gives, but the Navy expects payback as well. As BREMERTON underwent an extended overhaul in Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard, I processed hundreds of work permits and thousands of tagouts. I think it’s fair to say that I paid back the Navy for all its education and other opportunities.

There’s no place quite like a Navy shipyard. Let me give you one example of the types of serious problems I had to deal with in this environment: Nuclear power safety regulations dictate that we must have a precise status of the reactor plant at all times, so we maintain this large, laminated status board, which stands waist high right behind where the engineering duty officer conducts his daily business in the engine room. On this status board, we keep track of hundreds of valve positions with tiny grease pencil markings: an “x” means the valve is shut, and a “o” means the valve is open. Well, we kept losing status of valve positions and we couldn’t figure out why. We were always very diligent and formal in our communications and operating procedures. Finally, one day we noticed some black grease pencil markings on the backside of one of our more portly officers. Being well-trained in the art of “root cause determination” – Brad Buswell and I soon discovered it was a big butt that was getting us in trouble. I left these experiences much wiser and more astute, and fully ready for future assignments that would call on my problem solving skills.

All joking aside, I did learn a lot during my submarine first assignment. I had a great set of teachers on BREMERTON, including my first skipper, Red Dawg McMacken, who made a special point of spending many hours one-on-one with each of his officers. The effect was contagious, and that crew on BREMERTON was the most knowledgeable of all that I ever served with.

But we really need to look back at history to place my first submarine assignment into context. The Cold War was raging, and our Submarine Force was at its zenith in size and influence. Our exciting and relevant missions played a huge part in the eventual demise of the Soviet Union. I was lucky enough to participate in several of these missions on USS HONOLULU. At this time, submarines were universally acknowledged as one of our nation’s primary assets in the battle against communist tyranny.

So as my first sea tour came to a close, I was faced with the decision to either remain in the Navy or join the rank and file of everyday civilians. As already mentioned, I had repaid my debt to the Navy for the opportunities it had given me. In the end, it was not chasing Soviet submarines that drove my decision to stay in the Navy. It was something else – it was the opportunity to lead great people like the very Sailors who have honored me by showing up today. I came to recognize that I enjoyed leading men to accomplish difficult missions in challenging environments, so I set a new goal for myself: become the Captain of a nuclear submarine.

Next up was a shore assignment on exchange with the Royal Navy, which taught me that there were different, and in fact BETTER, ways of doing business than the US Navy way. During this assignment, I fought in the final stages of the Cold War from a busy headquarters directing US and Royal Navy submarines on special reconnaissance missions. I also managed special programs with our Dutch, Danish and German allies. In my plentiful free time – remember what I said about the Royal Navy having better ways than we Americans - my new wife Avril and I traveled throughout Europe.

Revitalized after two years with the Brits, my next assignment brought me back to Pearl Harbor, this time on a boat fresh from new construction and ready for operations, USS COLUMBUS. First as Combat Systems Officer and then as Engineer, I enjoyed great success with my COLUMBUS shipmates. Thanks to great people like Glenn Robinson, Tom Wieshar, Mike Heck and Tim Sielkop, we discovered how to achieve excellence while still maintaining the focus where it belonged: on the people. After over 3 years on COLUMBUS, I knew that one day the Navy would give me the opportunity to command a nuclear submarine.

However, there were more dues to pay before this would occur. After leaving COLUMBUS, I reported to the Pentagon, where I learned a new combat skill: powerpoint warfare. While in the Pentagon, I was fortunate enough to work in a position where I had access to senior submarine Admirals, who were faced difficult decisions affecting the future of our undersea fleet. Since the Cold War had ended, many submarines fell under the budget axe as part of the so-called “peace dividend.” Despite these hardships, we still won some important battles, such as authorizing a new class of fast attack submarines, known today as the VIRGINIA class, and figuring out what to do with 4 TRIDENT SSBNs that were due for early retirement, which today are being converted to SSGNs. My Pentagon experience challenged me in many new ways, but was valuable primarily in that it brought me into contact with Captain Karl Hasslinger and a slew of other top-notch naval officers.

I soon had my best view of the Pentagon – in my rear view mirror – and Avril and I accomplished yet another cross country move – this time to Bangor, Washington for my first exposure to the ballistic missile submarine community. On USS GEORGIA BLUE with Hass Moyer as my skipper, my XO tour was a blast. Hass patiently let me learn and grow into the job. He laughed off my minor administrative blunders, and set me loose to fix the nagging problem areas while he led from the front with a big stogey in his mouth. Hass always had his priorities straight and taught me look at all issues through the prism of leadership. We had a magical chemistry on that fine ship and GEORGIA BLUE quickly became the assignment of choice for Sailors on the Bangor waterfront.

Avril and I returned to England in 2001, this time for a truly international assignment on a NATO staff. Now some of you may think NATO stands for North Atlantic Treaty Organization - NOT TRUE. We never did settle on what the acronym NATO really denotes, but here were some of the contenders:- Not At The Office- Not After Two O’clock- No Action Talk Only, and my personal favorite:- Need Alcohol To OperateAll accurately describe NATO operations.
My most exciting day in NATO came when I received the phone call informing me of my next assignment: Commanding Officer of the USS City of Corpus Christi, based in Guam. Remember what I said about difficult missions in challenging environments? Well, I got it! And the mission would soon become even more difficult: COMSUBPAC re-directed me, along with several others, to the USS San Francisco.

Despite SAN FRAN’s recent troubles, it soon became clear that I had gotten a great deal. SAN FRAN had a top notch and enthusiastic crew. Sure, there was a lot of work to do, but we dug in our heels and drove forward despite some huge challenges, particularly with the ship’s material condition and the inadequacy of Guam as a submarine home port. In just over a year, we had made remarkable progress. We steamed over 7000 miles from Guam to San Diego replace our propulsion shaft in a submarine drydock unavailable in Guam. We persevered through numerous ship's casualties including several major freon ruptures, a major electrical fire, two hydraulic ruptures, and on and on. Just like the SAN FRAN Creed states, we never gave up. We fixed the material problems, disciplined ourselves to operate efficiently and effectively, and finally went to sea for extended periods to conduct special reconnaissance operations.

Just after being ranked as the best submarine in the Force in engineering readiness, we set off from Guam to Brisbane, Australia in January 2005. You all know how the cruel sea punished us during this journey, so I’ll bypass the details, but please allow me to shed some perspective on the events that followed. After suffering the worst possible shock in the history of nuclear submarine operations, every single Sailor on SAN FRANCISCO – yes, every single one – did his military duty. Some did much more than their duty and acted in truly heroic fashion: Matt Parsons, Craig Litty, Billy Cramer, Danny Hager, Jake Elder, Max Chia, Chris Baumhoff, Doc Akin, Gil Daigle, and more: Key, Miller, Pierce, Powell, Smoot, McDonald. I could go on. But one hero clearly stands above all the others, he was my favorite Sailor, and the one who I miss every day, Petty Officer Joey Ashley.

In the aftermath of our tragic grounding, we, the crew of SAN FRANCISCO, forged bonds that never can be broken: – not by investigations, nor Admiral’s Mast, nor punishments – not by grief, nor anger, nor sadness, and – never by distance, space, or timeWhy, you may ask, are these bonds so strong? Because as Chief Johnny Johnson surely would tell you, THERE ARE NO BONDS STRONGER THAN THOSE FORMED BY MEN WHO HAVE FACED DEATH TOGETHER.

And on a very personal level, there is something even more remarkable: even though it was I who brought harm upon my men through my own shortcomings, today this room is filled with my SAN FRANCISCO brothers. Shipmates, I shall never forget your courage and loyalty and I was proud to serve as your Commanding Officer.

My final year in the Navy was spent under the command, for the second time, of my good friend, Hass Moyer. Hass warmly welcomed me to his staff at the Trident Training Facility, and gave me the freedom to work on a few projects while recovering from the wounds inflicted by that deadly uncharted sea mount. Outside of work, I kayaked among the orcas, became a soccer dad, ran a marathon, and prepared for my next career. In my new job, I will continue doing what I love most: Lead people to accomplish difficult missions in challenging environments. Avril and I hope to settle down after our next move for a long time, and give Laura and Tara some stability through their school years. We intend to be active in our local community, and share our time and talents with those less fortunate than ourselves. But most of all, we intend to love each other and be happy, just like we have done throughout our wonderful 15 years of marriage.
Let me finish now where I started: I love the United States Navy. But now it’s time to move on. Master Chief Sielkop, I am ready to be relieved.

Anniversary Remembrance from Commanding Officer

2006-01-08T19:04:00.000-05:00

Today marks one year since USS SAN FRANCISCO grounded and gives us reason to pause and remember our beloved shipmate, Cooter. We trusted, admired and loved him. After our accident, we did everything humanly possible to save him. Doc and the DCA provided non-stop medical treatment. His fellow A-Gangers innovatively devised a continuous oxygen supply from the ship’s oxygen banks. Other shipmates, some themselves who were seriously injured, took shifts to hold his hand and comfort his soul. The rest of us operated the ship – we fixed what we could, invented new procedures to re-align damaged systems, and determinedly drove the ship towards a rescue rendezvous. Coast Guardsmen, Merchant Seamen, Pilots, Airmen, Doctors, Corpsmen, supporting staff ashore, and countless others contributed to the rescue effort.

All the while, Cooter fought like the brave Sailor he was. Defying the odds, he lived far longer than expected for someone with his injuries. He peacefully left us the under the care of a Navy Doctor who had arrived aboard from a daring helicopter transfer just a few hours earlier. He then entered the realm of the Lord, where he currently awaits us all for our ultimate reunion.

To the whole Ashley family, you have shown the world the power of the true core values: faith, hope and love. While we grieved for our lost shipmate, your Christian hearts reached out and comforted us even though it was you who had lost a son, brother, grandson, nephew, cousin. You have allowed us to move beyond the suffering and find redemption in Joey’s sacrifice and your loving forgiveness. Your family and our crew have become as one.

To Cooter, we miss you buddy. We’ll never forget you. Although thinking of you today brings tears to my eyes, I thank God we had the chance to meet and become shipmates. The impact of your marvelous life will continue to be felt for years to come – just look at your incredible Guest Book! Rest in peace, brother.

CDR Kevin Mooney
(Bremerton, WA )
mooneykav@alumni.duke.edu

Sub crew's training paid off in disaster

2005-05-12T18:19:00.000-05:00

By Katie Worth
Pacific Daily News
12 May 05

When the USS San Francisco slammed into a mountain more than 500 feet below the ocean's surface, 29-year-old medic James Akin was in the bathroom. Machinist Matthew Thurman, 21, was standing in line in the mess hall, waiting for lunch.

Suddenly, things seemed to explode around them. Deafening blasts, crunching noises and groans fulminated from the front of the ship. The vessel lurched, and crew members were thrown through the air, off their beds and against walls, tumbling against each other through the compartments of the submarine.

They had just experienced one of the biggest submarine disasters in the history of any navy.

Akin barely remembers thinking. He just remembers jumping to action, running out of the head and into the hallway. The petty officer was the only medically trained man on ship. Before he knew it, he had dozens of injured people on his hands. Half of the submarine's crew sustained wounds. Thurman was thrown from the lunch line and collided into a wall -- a wall he credits with saving him from far worse injuries. He immediately jumped up and ran toward the propulsion system, to check if there had been any damage.

The San Francisco and its 138 sailors had been in stealth mode, making their way from their home port here in Guam to Brisbane, Australia, for what was supposed to be a routine port visit. The ship made it only about 360 miles southeast of Guam at the time of the Jan. 8 accident, which would leave dozens of crew members injured and one dead.

In the moments after the crash, reports of injured sailors began pouring over the Intercom, crew members who were not wounded were running to their stations, and the submarine immediately conducted an emergency main ballast tank blow -- a procedure that pushes water out of tanks in the hull and causes an immediate, rapid ascent. Within a minute, they rose 500 feet to the surface of the water.

Interviewed yesterday, neither medic Akin nor machinist Thurman could remember even considering the cause of the accident at the time. It almost didn't matter. The moment they had been trained for in drill after drill, year after year, had finally arrived.

They both flew to their duty stations.

"Time just seemed to move slower than it had been; our training just kicked in," Thurman said yesterday, rubbing his hands together as he thought back on it. "And then, everything started to get faster again."

"The Navy invests a lot of time in training for emergencies, and it definitely paid off," he said.

Thurman ran toward the propulsion system, where he worked as a machinist. On his way, he passed injured friends lying in the hallways, unable to move. He began to kneel down to help them, but they waved him on.

"Everyone's only concern was saving the ship. I stopped to help people but they said, 'No, just go ahead, make sure the ship's OK,'" he said.

Meanwhile, Akin began setting up a makeshift infirmary in the enlisted men's mess hall. He alone on the ship had medical education, though he had trained a few men in basic medical treatments in case there was such an emergency.

Dozens of crew members began coming in with injuries -- broken bones, smashed faces, dislocated bones, head trauma, bruises, cuts, lacerations; in all, 70 sailors had sustained wounds.

But by far the worst injury Akin saw was that of Petty Officer 2nd Class Joseph Allen Ashley, he said. Ashley, who worked on the ship for three years, had been on a smoke break in the compartment farthest to the rear of the vessel. He had just left the smoke room and was walking across the next compartment when the accident occurred, Akin said. It sent him flying across the room, slamming him head first into a locker.

Once Akin saw the extent of Ashley's wounds, he evacuated the other injured sailors into another improvised infirmary and kept Ashley, who was still alive but critically injured, in the mess hall.

Hours later, a helicopter would bring a surgeon from Guam to try to treat Ashley, but it was to no avail. Ashley died the next day. It wasn't until several days later, Akin said, that he really had a chance to stop and contemplate the accident as a whole.

The Navy, however, didn't take so long, beginning an investigation into the cause of the accident immediately. Earlier this week, the Navy released the results of that four-month investigation.

The 124-page report determined that the accident possibly could have been avoided had the submarine's crew "complied with requisite procedures and exercised prudent navigation practices."

Though the report stated that nothing more could have been done to save Ashley, it stated that the accident possibly could have been prevented in the first place had the San Francisco's navigation crew heeded a navigation chart that indicated a "navigation hazard in the vicinity of the grounding," the report stated.

The report held the San Francisco's navigation team and leaders responsible for the accident. The vessel's commanding officer, Cmdr. Kevin Mooney, was removed from his post Feb. 12.

Some have questioned how the submariners could not have known the mountain was in front of them, but Navy spokeswoman Lt. Arwen Consaul yesterday explained the submarine had no way to "see" what was around it.

The San Francisco was traveling in stealth mode, using "passive sonar" rather than "active sonar," she said. When a submarine is using active sonar, it "pings" the ocean around it and is able to "view" the vicinity, she explained. But such technologies make noise and can alert other vessels to its presence, she said, so the vessel avoids using it when it's in stealth.

Some things, such as whales or ships, make noise, and the passive sonar system can pick up those noises so the vessel is aware of them. However, since a mountain makes no noise, there was no way to tell it was there, she said.

Without active sonar, the submarine is essentially blind and is completely dependent on charts to determine what is around it, Consaul said.

"It's basically like being on a bus with all the blinds down and driving down Marine Drive, with only your map to guide you," she said, referring to the island's main route. "If someone puts a bypass there and it's not on your map, you're in trouble."

Reconsideration

After the accident, Akin said, he told himself he never wanted to get back on a submerged submarine. Since then, he's reconsidered.

After all, he said, USS San Francisco's accident was the first of its kind for the Navy in decades, and one of the worst submarine accidents in history. Despite that, the hull remained intact. In many ways, it's a testament to the strength and impermeability of the submarine, he said.

Thurman, who's been in the Navy for four years, admitted that the experience was traumatic.

"You're under the surface with 130 of your closest friends, so yes, there's trauma in seeing them all injured. But we performed as required. There's no greater testimony to the dedication and determination of the crew than how we responded to the emergency," he said.

Please Sign Joseph Ashley's Guest Book

2005-04-11T09:35:00.000-05:00

The guest book is still on line at this link. Two thousand have signed thus far, but there are many more "Brothers", and MM2(SS) Ashley's family still reads them all-- it helps to have the support of others.

Navy Faults navigational procedures In crash Of Sub

2005-04-10T02:41:00.000-05:00

San Francisco's Crew Failed To Recognize Warnings, Report Says
By ROBERT A. HAMILTON
Day Staff Writer, Navy/Defense/Electric Boat
Published on 4/9/2005

A Navy report on the submarine that hit a sea mount in the Pacific three months ago will conclude that there was a serious breakdown in navigation procedures that led to the accident, which killed one sailor and injured more than half the crew, Navy sources have told The Day.

The report, which could be released as early as this month, will cite problems with the USS San Francisco's chart preparation methods and, more seriously, the crew's failures to recognize specific warnings that the submarine was headed into trouble.

Soundings showed the bottom was more than 1,200 feet shallower than on the charts that were in use, a difference of more than 20 percent, the sources said. In addition, the ship's fathometer showed the water was shoaling, or getting more shallow with each reading, over an extended period of time, the sources said.

Either one of the warnings should have prompted the crew to slow the submarine down and proceed far more cautiously, the sources said. Instead, the ship plowed into an underwater mountain that was nearly a sheer cliff at a speed of about 30 mph.

In addition, the navigation team was not laying out the ship's projected track far enough ahead of the ship's actual position to determine whether it was sailing into safe water, a particularly dangerous practice in the island-studded area of the Pacific where the San Francisco was operating, the sources said.

One of the sources said he was on a submarine that nearly ran into another uncharted sea mount, but the navigation team recognized and responded to the early warnings and avoided grounding.

•••

The San Francisco left its homeport of Guam on Friday, Jan. 7, headed for Brisbane, Australia. The next day, a little more than 400 miles southeast of Guam, as sailors were sitting down to lunch, it slammed into the sea mount in an area where official Navy charts list 6,000 feet of water.

Three of the four ballast tanks in the bow were shattered, the sonar dome and sonar sphere were smashed, and a bulkhead at the front end of the ship was buckled. But the crew got the ship to the surface and rigged it to make the trip back to Guam.

Machinist Mate 3rd Class Joseph Ashley was killed when he struck his head on a large pump. Almost two dozen others were injured so badly they could not perform their duties, though within days most were treated and released from a hospital in Guam. Most of the crew were treated for some injury.

At an admiral's mast in February, the captain was found guilty of putting the ship into danger and was relieved of command. Last month, six more crewmen were cited for putting the ship into danger or dereliction of duty, and received punishments that included demotions and letters of reprimand.

Almost immediately, attention focused on the fact that the mountain was not on the charts, and even some within the submarine community wondered whether the crew should be held responsible.

But the investigation showed that there were at least five notices to mariners, most recently in 2002, about a large patch of muddy water about three miles south of the sea mount that were not incorporated on the charts the San Francisco was using at the time, the sources said.

If the bottom had been as deep as the 1989 chart indicated, that muddy patch would not have appeared.

Certainly, incorporating notices to mariners on existing charts is arduous. On Feb. 5, for instance, the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, which produces map information for the military, issued a notice to mariners about the sea mount that the San Francisco hit.

That notice is 58 pages long and covers hundreds of changes worldwide, including four — the sea mount, an obstruction and two depth changes — on the specific chart, number 81023, the San Francisco was using when it ran aground. And it is one of 15 notices issued so far this year.

But submariners said no matter how cumbersome, a failure to adequately update the charts with the notices can put the ship in danger, as the San Francisco incident proved.

•••

The Navy has been criticized for not issuing updated charts if it knew of a possible hazard to submarine operations in the area. But updates are expensive and take time. The agency that would make the changes has been kept busy in recent years on other work, such as terrain mapping in Afghanistan and Iraq, where accurate maps are critical to land operations and cruise-missile strikes, the sources said.

There were other problems with the navigation practices on the San Francisco that might not have contributed to the accident, but which indicated a slackness that is unacceptable in the submarine force, the sources said.

The San Francisco was using a chart that showed the area in a large scale, which was convenient for the high-speed transit it was making but did not provide sufficient detail about other dangers in the area, the sources said.

And the submarine crew had not adequately projected the ship's intended track on its charts. One of the sources said it would not have been uncommon to have had the entire track to Brisbane laid out on the charts, and to brief the navigation team daily on the track for the next 24 hours, but the San Francisco had not met either of those standards.

Under submarine-force regulations, the navigation team might prepare the charts, but the captain, executive officer, navigation officer, assistant navigation officer, and senior electronics technician responsible for navigation would have had to review the voyage planning process, and signed the charts as acceptable.

Navy sources said putting your signature on that chart makes you personally liable for its accuracy, a responsibility that naval officers cannot take lightly.

In the crew's defense, it has been noted that the operational orders known as the Subnote, which was issued by Submarine Group 7 in Yokosuka, Japan, arrived at the ship only a short time before it was to leave.

The Subnote provides the submarine with several points where it must be and the time it must be at those points, provides an average speed of the transit and the submarine track. It also provides the submarine with a “moving haven,” an area where no friendly submarines will be operating and where the Navy will not be using subsurface hazards to navigation such as towed sonar arrays.

Having the Subnote get to the ship so late provided the ship little time to prepare, and the Subnote routed the ship through the area of the sea mount.

But that defense was dismissed at the non-judicial proceedings known as the captain's mast where the navigation team was punished, for several reasons, including the fact that if the submarine had insufficient time to prepare adequately, the captain should have asked for more time. And while the track is laid out in the Subnote, the crew must still follow safe navigation practices — if the Subnote called for it to transit an area of heavy boat traffic, for instance, the crew is expected to avoid hitting other craft, one of the sources pointed out.

The captain and navigation team were also held liable because San Francisco was making flank speed, or just about top speed for the submarine, through an area that it should have known was dangerous.

•••

Even more serious than them breakdown in the chart preparation process, the sources said, were the warning signs that were not heeded, particularly the soundings taken by the ship's fathometer. Just minutes before the crash, the San Francisco came to the surface to check its location on the Global Positioning System.

The submarine is also equipped with the sophisticated Ring Laser Gyro Navigator, so it knew its position with a high degree of certainty.

Yet where the charts showed 1,000 fathoms of water, the sounding showed less than 800 fathoms — still a huge safety margin below the keel, but a difference that should have caused the navigation team to recommend proceeding with caution.

In addition, the navigation team had noted for a lengthy period that the water depth was shoaling, or becoming more shallow.

The team apparently believed it was a faulty reading — moving through the water at 30 mph, fathometer readings can be inaccurate — and the team kept hoping that perhaps the next reading would correlate with the chart.

In retrospect, it's clear that the readings were accurate, the water was shoaling, and the San Francisco was heading for what was nearly an underwater cliff.

b.hamilton@theday.com

More on Awards Ceremony

2005-03-30T06:28:00.000-05:00

By ROBERT A. HAMILTON
Day Staff Writer, Navy/Defense/Electric Boat
Published on 3/29/2005

The Navy has presented medals or letters of commendations to 20 crewmen whose actions helped the USS San Francisco make it home after the submarine hit a seamount Jan. 8.

The highest awards, the Navy's Meritorious Service Medal, went to Hospitalman 1st Class James H. Akin, the ship's “doc,” and Lt. j.g. Craig E. Litty for organizing the crew's mess into an emergency trauma center and providing triage to more than 70 injured sailors over two days.

“When initial medical supplies were expended, (they) devised innovative methods to provide continued oxygen and other first aid treatment,” the citation reads. The citation also credited their “accurate diagnoses of injuries and exacting recommendations” for treatment.

Meanwhile, the captain of a submarine being decommissioned at Norfolk (Va.) Naval Shipyard will be transferred to Guam to take command of the San Francisco, Navy sources said.

Cmdr. Kevin Brenton, skipper of the USS Portsmouth during its final Western Pacific deployment in 2003 and 2004 and during its participation in Exercise Northern Edge in the Gulf of Alaska last year, will become the new captain of the San Francisco. He will replace interim commanding officer Cmdr. Andrew Hale, who was deputy commander of Submarine Squadron 15 before he assumed duties as San Francisco's commanding officer after the accident.
The San Francisco was making a trip to Australia when it slammed into a seamount in an area where official Navy charts list 6,000 feet of water. Despite extensive damage to the ship, the crew got it to the surface and kept it floating long enough to limp back to its homeport of Apra Harbor, Guam.

Machinist Mate 3rd Class Joseph Ashley was killed when he was thrown more than 20 feet and struck his head on a large pump. Almost two dozen others were injured so badly they could not perform their duties, though within days most were treated and released from the hospital in Guam. Most of the crew were treated for some injury.

The captain was found guilty of putting the ship in danger at an admiral's mast last month, and relieved of command. Last week, six more crewmen were cited for putting the ship into danger or dereliction of duty, and received punishments that included demotions and letters of reprimand.

The awards ceremony Friday recognized the actions of the crewmen who saved the ship after the accident, including nine men who received the Navy and Marine Corps Commendation Medal. They were:

• Lt. Jeff M. McDonald, cited for a “flawless weapons off-load” in the wake of the accident, including removing two torpedoes that were in the bow tubes and had to be taken out with emergency handling procedures, and later handling the first submarine drydocking in Guam in more than 15 years.

• Senior Chief Machinist's Mate Danny R. Hager, who directed the stabilization of the ship on the surface and, though injured himself, designed a temporary oxygen system from the ship's oxygen banks to provide oxygen to more seriously wounded crewmen. He also was credited with advising the captain on how to operate some of the damaged systems to get the ship back to Guam.

• Sonar Technician 1st Class Christopher L. Baumhoff, cited for recognizing that Ashley's best hope lay in outside medical care, at which point he and Machinist Mate 2nd Class Gilbert L. Daigle, who also was presented with the medal, planned and set up the equipment for a hazardous open ocean personnel transfer.

• Culinary Specialists 2nd Class Jeremy Y. Key and David J. Miller, and Electronics Technicians 2nd Class Scott M. Pierce and 1st Class Bryan C. Powell, and Yeoman 2nd Class Carnell L. Smoot, cited for their work to convert the crew's mess into a trauma center, helping with first aid, and volunteering to assist in getting Ashley off the ship for medical attention.

Four other crewmen were awarded the Navy and Marine Corps Achievement Medal for their actions after the accident: Chief Electronics Technician Maximum L. Chia; Chief Machinist's Jacob M. Elder; and Machinist's Mates 2nd Class Ian P. Cross and Matthew R. Thurman.

A letter of commendation from Rear Adm. David Gove, commander of Submarine Group Seven, went to Electrician's Mate 1st Class Joshua D. Barrow; Machinist's Mate 1st Class Richard T. Bolton; Fire Control Technician 1st Class Scott C. Deranleau; Machinists Mate 1st Class Benjamin J. Sidwell; and Machinist's Mate 2nd Class Joseph D. Anderson.

Sailors Awarded

2005-03-25T07:28:00.000-05:00

Sailors aboard USS San Francisco awarded for bringing damaged ship into port
by Ken Wetmore,
KUAM News
Friday, March 25, 2005

A special ceremony was held earlier today for several sailors of the USS San Francisco. Navy spokesperson Lieutenant Arwen Consaul says 65 sailors received awards for their part in ensuring the fast-attack submarine returned safely to port. Among the awardees, 20 received special recognition awards for actions above and beyond the call of duty.

In addition, a Meritorious Service Medal was awarded to Petty Officer 1st Class James H. Akin. Lt. Consaul says the recognition "is pretty much unheard of for an enlisted sailor to win the medal," noting that it must be signed off on by the President of the United States.

The 20 awardees were as follows. The term (SS) denotes those enlisted personnel who are “submarine warfare qualified” and wear the coveted dolphin designator:

Meritorious Service Medal (citations enclosed)
Lt. j.g. Craig E. Litty
Petty Officer 1st Class (SS) James H. Akin

Navy and Marine Corps Commendation Medal
Lt. Jeff M. McDonald
Senior Chief Petty Officer (SS) Danny R. Hager
Petty Officer 1st Class (SS) Christopher L. Baumhoff
Petty Officer 1st Class (SS) Bryan C. Powell
Petty Officer 2nd Class (SS) Gilbert L. Daigle
Petty Officer 2nd Class (SS) Jeremy Y. Key
Petty Officer 2nd Class (SS) David J. Miller
Petty Officer 2nd Class (SS) Scott M. Pierce
Petty Officer 2nd Class (SS) Carnell L. Smoot

Navy and Marine Corps Achievement Medal
Chief Petty Officer (SS) Maximum L. Chia
Chief Petty Officer (SS) Jacob M. Elder
Petty Officer 2nd Class (SS) Ian P. Cross
Petty Officer 2nd Class (SS) Matthew R. Thurman

Letter of Commendation
Petty Officer 1st Class (SS) Joshua D. Barrow
Petty Officer 1st Class (SS) Richard T. Bolton
Petty Officer 1st Class (SS) Scott C. Deranleau
Petty Officer 1st Class (SS) Benjamin J. Sidwell
Petty Officer 2nd Class (SS) Joseph D. Anderson

"Vigilance ... Saves Us From Putting Thresher and Scorpion 3 Section"

2005-03-25T07:21:00.000-05:00

Posted by Hagar, MMCS(SS) on Fri - Mar 25 - 3:33am, on Rontini:

I am one of the few Senior vocal members online since the mighty San Fran became a rock dart in January. Remember the old addage about mud darts? Rock darts don't work too well....

I can only say that because the healing process works with time, and I must have humor in my life as any self respecting submariner must have. I've been closely watching every discussion that is searchable online and I've been seeing some shifts around that I think are not needed. So, I will say a few general things about the thoughts of the senior leadership of the boat and what in general is happening.

Nothing for the boat has been determined yet, it is still open season for the hardworking crew and they await their new homeport, and shipmates to arrive to help relieve them on their watchbill problem.

The crew has lost alot of men from medical, discipline issues, attrition, and other things, but they are doing a good job at sucking up and saying they love submarining, I'm proud of damn near every man on that boat. She has a good crew.

You must understand, that when a boat has an incident like we had, there are many feelings and many arguments that are tossed around. But at the leadership level of a submarine, we, WE, at that level understand what our responsibilities are, and what we accepted when we took that billet. WE understand what can happen when we loose one of our sailors (god help us if it happens), or injure a sailor, or damage equipment under our orders or instructions. It is OUR responsibility to ensure that it does not happen on our watch. It is our responsibility to provide to the command the watch team backup necessary to ensure that each and every submarine is safe for our junior men. We accept that when we take the watch. People who do not accept that responsibility are the ones you see on a cable news show blaming somebody else.

The Officers and Chiefs gave the Mooney's a goodbye get together last night. It was as outstanding and tightnit as the crew of the boat is. At times it was tear jerking, hugging, and at other times it was laughing and joking about past exploits and ribbing. We are a true submarine family, and that's why we punch holes as a career. Yes, a career, a life. Submarines, GET SOME.

My thoughts on all the messages here are mixed, but I will tell you one thing. Amongst the Seniors on the command, there is no angst, no bitterness, and no looking back. Understand? We had the watch, we accepted what happened, and we will move on with our lives. Nobody wants to lose a sailor, and that saddens our hearts, but we cannot stop the life of a submarine because of that. Ash is getting a memorial on the boat, and at Squadron 15, that will last far longer than anything we can do for his family or the crew. We rejoice that we did not lose more sailors, or the boat, it could have been so much more terrible.

Out of this incident, many things have changed, and will be changed in the future. There is no single point culpable failure here, and it is something that rarely happens. But, as in space, submerged operations remain a dangerous life, we live with a hard woman in the ocean, and she likes to take sailors.

Vigilance is the only thing that saves us from putting the Thresher and Scorpion 3 section. I refuse to die in an accident.

What I ask, is to be wary of disgruntled sailors, we have a few that "gave that sh@t" up, and are on hold, and I don't expect many nice things publicly out of them. They are the few, they are not the norm, and there always are a few, and most of them had issues before this incident.

thanx,
Hagar
711 Tuf

Punishment Meted Out

2005-03-23T07:56:00.000-05:00

March 22, 2005
Punishment meted out to six in grounding of submarine
By William H. McMichael
Navy Times staff writer

At least six crew members of the submarine San Francisco, apparently including three senior leaders, have been punished at a nonjudicial hearing in Guam for their roles in the Jan. 8 underwater grounding that left one sailor dead and seriously injured two dozen more, sources say.

Punished at the March 22 “commodore’s mast” hearings in Guam were six crew members, a combination of enlisted, senior enlisted and officers, according to Lt. Cmdr. Jeff Davis, spokesman for the Pacific Fleet Submarine Force. He said the six each were cited by Capt. Bradley Gehrke, commander of Submarine Squadron 15, for “actions that led to the grounding.”

Davis would not provide the crew members’ names or positions, citing their right to privacy in nonjudicial matters, but said the charges included hazarding a vessel and dereliction of duty, both violations of the Uniform Code of Military Justice. He said the punishments included reductions in rate and punitive letters of reprimand. The latter is considered a career-stopper if not a career-killer.

The submarine’s commanding officer at the time of the mishap, Cmdr. Kevin Mooney, was relieved Feb. 12 by 7th Fleet Commander Vice Adm. Jonathan W. Greenert.

Davis declined to provide more specific information. However, reliable sources told Navy Times that those punished included the heavily damaged submarine’s executive officer, navigator, assistant navigator and three petty officers. The assistant navigator is a senior chief petty officer who had qualified for that duty. Sources also said that the three more junior sailors reportedly each lost a stripe, with one first class petty officer reduced to second class and two second classes reduced to third.

The Navy has not yet released any of its investigations into the mishap but given the initial punishments, it appears that much of the blame has been placed on the submarine’s voyage planning process. In Mooney’s case, Greenert concluded, according to a spokesman, that “several critical navigational and voyage planning procedures were not being implemented aboard San Francisco. By not ensuring these standard procedures were followed, Mooney hazarded his vessel.”

Once a submarine’s superior command orders a sub to deploy and issues a basic track or operating area, the sub’s navigation team is totally responsible for properly planning the route, according to U.S. Submarine Forces in Norfolk. The actual charts and plan are prepared and approved by, in order, the sub’s assistant navigator, navigator, executive officer and commanding officer, according to the Norfolk command.

Davis said the Guam command does not anticipate disciplining any other crewmembers as a result of the mishap.

The San Francisco, a nuclear attack sub, ran into an uncharted sea mount 350 miles southeast of Guam while transiting from Guam to Australia. The collision heavily damaged the bow of the 23-year-old, 362-foot attack submarine, which is being temporarily repaired in a Guam drydock to enable a transit to Hawaii this summer for further damage assessments.

The punishments come on the same week an awards ceremony is being held that includes meritorious awards for San Francisco crewmember actions taken in the wake of the mishap, Davis said. That ceremony is being held March 25 in Guam.

Diving Officer of the Watch Account

2005-03-15T09:35:00.000-05:00

The following is the unedited account of the San Francisco grounding written by the on-watch Diving Officer. The editor of this blog has inserted comments in red to define the jargon or terms that my be unfamiliar to non-submariners.

Copyright 2005 by Danny Hager, All Rights Reserved. Used here by permission.

To say that I've had a bad year so far would be a little short on the tooth I think (understated). Last year was a good one for the boat. After spending 5 months away from home in drydock (Sandy Eggo) we got our second BA (below average) on ORSE (Operational Reactor Safeguards Exam) (bad juju), received the highest score in PacFlt (Pacific Ocean Submarine Force) for a submarine TRE (Tactical Readiness Evaluation, a significant evaluation of the crew's ability to use their weapons systems) inspection, aced (got a high score on) our mine readiness inspection with 4 out of 4 hits, completed 2 outstanding missions (will have to shoot you), and completed a early ORSE just before Christmas with an EXCELLENT.

It was also the first year that Auxiliary Division had a Christmas standown since coming out of the yards in 2002. A-division also took the CSS-15 Red DC award for the second year in a row. My retention has been 100% since I checked on board in Oct 2002 amongst 1st/2nd and turd termers.

We were going to our first true liberty port 2 weeks ago, heading for Brisbane and fun in the sun. As this WOG (a traditional term used by sailors for those who have experienced the crossing the equator, sort of a "right of passage") knows, we were getting ready for our crossing the line ceremony and the crew was really upbeat, and hard charging, we had just completed a great year for the San Fran.

To say the world went to shyte in a hand basket would be an understatement. I would put it closer to a nightmare that becomes reality.

The seamount that is a large part of the discussion the last 2 weeks is un-named. The charts we carried onboard were up to date as far as we can tell. No modern geographic data for this area was available to us onboard as it is a remote area not often traveled by the Navy. We have one of the BEST ANav's (Assistant Navigator) in the fleet onboard, a true quartergasket (quartermaster, the Navy rating that is trained as navigator) that takes pride in his job. We have RLGN's (Ring Laser Gyro Navigation, or, fancy high-end accurate navigation equipment) onboard, when they are running, they are accurate as hell for our position, they also drive Tomahawks (the same cruise missile weapons used in Iraq) .

We knew where we were. All of my depth gauges and digital read the same depths as we changed depth to our SOE (Ship's Operating Envelope, technical specifications for the required minimum or maximum depth for a given speed for a submarine) depth for flank. I can't discuss a lot, because I'm still a participant of at least 2 investigations....LOL.

I was the Diving Officer of the Watch when we grounded. If you read the emails from ComSubPac, you will get some of the details, from flank speed to less than 4 knots in less than 4 seconds. We have it recorded on the RLGN's-those cranky bastages actually stayed up and recorded everything.

For you guys that don't understand that, take a Winnebego full of people milling around and eating, slam it into a concrete wall at about 40mph, and then try to drive the damn thing home and pick up the pieces of the passengers.

As for the actual grounding, I can tell you that it was fortunate that myself and the Chief of the Watch were blessed by somebody. I was standing up, changing the expected soundings for a new depth on the chart (yes, we had just moved into deeper water) leaning against the ship's control panel with a hand grip, and the COW (Chief of the Watch) was leaning down to call the COB on the MJ.

The next thing to cross my mind was why am I pushing myself off of the SCP (Ship's Control Panel, the main instrument and control panel for steering and driving the submarine) and where the hell the air rupture in the control room come from? I didn't know it, but I did a greater than 3g spiderman against the panel, punched a palm through the only plexiglass gauge on the SCP and had my leg crushed by the DOOW (Diving Officer Of the Watch) chair that I had just unbuckled (seatbelts are normally worn at high speeds) from. The DOOW chair was broken loose by the QMOW (QuarterMaster Of the Watch) flying more than 15 feet into it and smashing my leg against a hydraulic valve and the SCP. I don't remember freeing myself from it. If I had been buckled in, I don't think I would be writing this.

The COW (Chief Of the Watch) was slammed against the base of the Ballast Control Panel, and only injured his right arm. He could of destroyed the BCP (Ballast Control Panel), he was a big boy. Everybody else in control, with the exception of the helm, was severely thrown to the deck or other items that were in their way, and at least partially dazed.

Within about 5 seconds of the deceleration! , we blew to the surface, it took that 5 seconds for the COW to climb up the BCP and actuate the EMBT (Emergency Main Ballast Tank) blow.

We prepared to surface right away and got the blower running asap, I didn't know how much damage we had forward but knew it was not good, I wanted that blower running.

I would say that about 80% of the crew was injured in some way, but do not know the number. We grounded in the middle of a meal hour, just after field day, so most of the crew was up. Once we got the boat on the surface and semi-stable with the blower running the rest of the ship conditions started sinking in to our minds.

We were receiving 4MC's (reports over a submarine's emergency-use-only sound-powered phone system) for injured men all over the boat. I was worried that those reports were over whelming any equipment/boat casualties that could make our life worse. I had teams form up of able bodied men to inspect all of the forward elliptical bulkhead, lower level, and tanks below those spaces. I couldn't believe that we did not have flooding, it just didn't fit in. At one point I looked around in the control room, and saw the disaster. The entire control room deck was covered in paper from destroyed binders, and blood. It looked like a slaughterhouse, we had to clean it up.

I knew that Ash (MM2(SS) Joseph Ashley, the only crewmember that did not survive the grounding) was severly injured and brought to the messdecks, he was one of my best men, and one of our best sailors onboard, he was like a son to me. After surfacing I was the control room supervisor, I had a boat to keep on the surface and fight and knew that if I went below to see how he was doing, it would teeter me on the brink of something that the ship did not need, the ship needed somebody who knew her. I have to say that the design engineers at Electric Boat, NavSea and others have designed a submarine that can withstand incredible amounts of damage and survive. We lost no systems, equipment, or anything broke loose during the impact. The damage to our sailors was almost all from them impacting into the equipment.

The crew is a testament to training and watch team backup. When a casualty occurs, you fight like you train, and train like you fight. It kept us alive during that 2+day period.

I've just returned from the honor of escorting my sailor home to his family. God bless them, they are truly good people and patriotic. The Navy is doing everything they can for them and they are learning how submariner's take care of each other. During the memorial and viewing on Saturday, CSS-15 (Commander, Submarine Squadron 15) provided a video from the coast guard of us on the surface and the SEAL/Dr. medical team being helo'd in, the family had this video played on 2 screens in the background. It was a sobering reminder of what a hard woman the ocean can be. We had to call off the helo because of the sea state, it was becoming too dangerous for the aircraft, we almost hit it with the sail a couple of times.

The sea would not allow us to medivac (evacuate people for medical reasons) in our condition and that sea state. I was one of the 23 sent to the hospital that Monday. I was fortunate, my leg was not broken, just trashed/bruised. I walked on that leg for almost 24 hours before it gave out on ! me and they had it splinted. The SEAL made me promise not to walk on it, how do you refuse a SEAL? LOL. So I hopped around on a single leg for awhile, the other chief's were calling me Tiny Tim, LOL. "God bless each and every one! Except you, and you, that guy behind you!". The COB (Chief Of the Boat) threatened to beat my @ss if I walk onboard before my leg is otay, he's about the only man onboard that I'd take that from, hehe.

The crew is doing better, we've lost a few due to the shock of the incident. We will make sure they are taken care of.

The investigation goes on, and I have a new CO. I will only say that the San Fran was the best damn sub in the Navy under CDR Mooney's leadership. We proved that. God bless him and his family no matter what happens in the future, he is truly a good man.

I just need to get my leg healed and get back to fighting my favorite steel bitch (working on his favorite submarine).

Nuclear Sub Missed Warning Signs Before Crash, Navy Says

2005-03-15T08:45:00.000-05:00

By THE NEW YORK TIMES
March 13, 2005

Navy investigators have found that the officers on a nuclear submarine failed to take into account a variety of danger signs before the vessel smashed into an undersea mountain in January, Navy officials said in interviews last week.The officials said crew members on the submarine, the San Francisco, did not look at some navigational charts of the South Pacific that might have prompted more caution. The sailors also should have checked the water depth more frequently and should not have been traveling at high speed, the officials said.

One sailor was killed and 98 were injured on Jan. 8 when the submarine crashed into the mountain 360 miles southeast of Guam. The Navy has said the mountain was not marked on the charts, but investigators found that several charts showed other possible hazards and had inconsistencies that should have made officers more cautious. The findings are part of a report that is likely to be released within several weeks. The submarine's captain, Cmdr. Kevin Mooney, has been replaced, and Navy officials said other officers could be disciplined. The accident crushed the vessel's bow, and repairs could cost $90 million to $100 million. Lt. Cmdr. Jeff A. Davis, a spokesman for the Pacific Fleet, would not comment on the investigation. But he said the Navy had briefed the rest of its submarine captains on maintaining "a skeptical attitude" about the charts.

"Not Guilty In My Book"

2005-02-17T07:55:00.000-05:00

(Posted by the father of MM2(SS) Ashley at this link:)

Attached is a brief letter I sent to CDR Mooney. With support I hope to find the answers to why known hazards were ignored by those resposible for keeping our submarine sailors safe.
CDR Kevin Mooney, We are so sorry to hear the news of the Admirals hearing. Be sure, we still can find no place in our hearts to hold you and the crew responsible. There are those who knew of the hazard but did not change the charts to provide safe "road maps" our fleet requires. In the very near future I will be contacting my appropriate legislators to find out why. Not just for my son Joseph, but for all submarine sailors that depend on this information. Our prayers are with you. Dan & Vicki Ashley, MM2 Joseph Ashley's Parents

Dan Ashley's Comments

2005-02-17T07:50:00.000-05:00

(Posted by Dan Ashley, father of MM2(SS) Joeseph Ashley on Feb 14, 2005 at this link.)

This after noon I recieved a phone call from Admiral Sullivan. My worst suspicions came true. It hurts but facts are facts whether we like it or not. There will be many lessons to be learned from this and they must be applied to each man and his responsabilities. We can't ever allow this to happen again. The moment you take for granite the seriousness of your responsabilities to the submarine and rest of the crew, you open yourselves to the possibility of tragedy. I hate, as you will hate, the facts of the investigation as they are made known. I am eagerly waiting for CDR Mooney to call me and if we ever cross paths again, I will hold him close as though he were my own son. MM2 Joseph Ashley "General Cooter" would want it that way.

CO Found Guilty

2005-02-17T07:46:00.000-05:00

By ROBERT A. HAMILTON
Day Staff Writer, Navy/Defense/Electric Boat
Published on 2/12/2005

The captain of a submarine that hit a seamount Jan. 8 in the western Pacific Ocean, killing one crewman and seriously injuring 23 others, has been found guilty of operating the submarine unsafely and has been issued a letter of reprimand, effectively ending his career.

Cmdr. Kevin Mooney, the captain of the USS San Francisco, was permanently relieved as skipper after an administrative proceeding known as an admiral's mast. The proceeding was convened by an order of the commander of the Seventh Fleet, Vice Adm. Jonathan Greenert.
Cmdr. Ike N. Skelton, a spokesman for the Seventh Fleet in Yokosuka, Japan, said late Friday night that Greenert determined during the investigation that Mooney failed to follow “several critical navigational and voyage planning” standards.

“By not ensuring those standards were followed, Mooney hazarded the vessel,” Skelton said, reading from a statement issued by Greenert.

The mast concluded that Mooney's crew had access to charts that showed there might have been an underwater obstruction in the area, and that a sounding taken just minutes before the accident did not correlate with the charts that were in use at the time, which should have prompted him to be more cautious.

The news stunned several Navy sources who have been following the accident investigation, particularly because Mooney's actions after the accident were characterized as heroic by everyone familiar with the situation. Despite extensive damage to the ship, he and his crew got it to the surface and kept it floating long enough to limp back to its homeport of Apra Harbor, Guam.

The San Francisco was heading to Australia when it came to periscope depth a little more than 400 miles southwest of Guam to fix its position accurately. Minutes after diving, and while traveling at a high rate of speed, the submarine slammed into a seamount in an area where official Navy charts list 6,000 feet of water.

Other charts of the area, however, show muddy water in the area, which normally indicates shallowness, and other government agency charts show evidence of the seamount less than 150 feet below the surface.

The grounding destroyed three of the four ballast tanks in the submarine's bow, shattered the sonar dome and smashed the sonar sphere. In addition, a bulkhead at the front end of the ship was buckled.

Machinist Mate 3rd Class Joseph Ashley was killed when he was thrown more than 20 feet and struck his head on a large pump. Almost two-dozen others were injured so badly they could not perform their duties, though they have all since been treated and released from the hospital in Guam. Seventy-five others received less severe injuries.

The crew saved the ship by constantly running a low pressure blower meant for only intermittent use to force water out of the badly damaged forward ballast tanks, as well as using exhaust from the ship's diesel motor to augment the blower.

Despite the force of the blow, the nuclear reactor and the ship's turbine generators continued to operate normally, and even sensitive electronic and navigation gear continued to function.
On Jan. 20, Mooney was reassigned to Submarine Squadron 15 in Guam, pending the results of an investigation to determine the cause of the sub's grounding. Cmdr. Andrew Hale, the squadron's deputy commander, assumed duties as captain of the San Francisco.

The mast means that Mooney will not face a more serious proceeding known as a court martial, but the letter of reprimand and the decision to relieve him of command “for cause” means that his promising career is over, the Navy sources said.

In a related development, Lt. Cmdr. Jeff A. Davis, a spokesman for the Pacific submarine force commander, said late Friday night that assessment of the damage to the San Francisco is proceeding and that shipyard workers in Guam are planning to make temporary repairs to the bow of the ship so it can be moved under its own power to a shipyard where it can be repaired.
Although the location where it will be repaired has not been determined, Navy sources said it would likely be Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, or Bangor, Wash.

“These temporary repairs will be engineered to ensure a successful transit,” Davis said. “As part of having on-hand materials for potential use in these temporary repairs, a large steel dome about 20 feet high and 20 feet in diameter will be arriving at Guam in the next few days. As of now, no decisions have been made about when USS San Francisco will depart Guam, where it will go, or what her final disposition will be.”

Other Navy sources said that if the assessment determines it makes sense to repair rather than scrap the San Francisco, the Navy will likely use the entire bow section from the recently decommissioned USS Atlanta to replace the badly damaged bow of the San Francisco.

For the Family of Joseph Ashley

2005-01-30T20:41:00.000-05:00

A SUBMARINE HERO

Many brothers share their grief
On these pages in cyberspace
With you, the dear family of the fallen one
Who now resides in permanent grace.

My tears well up as I read the outpouring
From those that you never knew
You know us now better as we try to express
Our loss, knowing how much bigger the loss for you.

Though most of us try, our words cannot bring
Much peace to you and your family
But with you we’ll grieve and remember him
Now a Submarine Hero, Joseph Allen Ashley.

You lost a son, and we lost a brother
But life must still go on
We’re with you in spirit, so keep your chin up,
And trust in the Heavenly Father.

By Steve Collier, a retired submariner in memory of MM2(SS) Joseph Allen Ashley

Request From Captain of USS San Francisco

2005-01-28T10:11:00.000-05:00

From: "Kevin & Avril Mooney"

Subject: Something you can do to help

Date: Fri, 28 Jan 2005 17:21:17 +1000

Dear family and friends,

Let me express my deep appreciation for the outpouring of support from you following the tragic grounding of USS SAN FRANCISCO. I cannot yet recount the details or explain my involvement because the investigation remains in progress. The news stories and recently released photos of the boat indrydock provide a basic description of what happened.

The saddest part of this event was the loss of my shipmate, MM2(SS) Joseph Ashley. This week, I had the pleasure of meeting his parents, who traveled to Guam courtesy of the Navy to meet his shipmates & friends. The Ashley's are wonderful people and their visit was memorable for all of us.

Many of you have offered me help in dealing with this crisis, and I am most appreciative. In addition to your continued prayers, I do have a special request for some help from all of you:

(1) please go to the attached website and send a note of condolence toMM2(SS) Ashley's family

(Click here for Guestbook Website)

(2) please send the attached link to other people, especially submariners, and ask them to do the same

The Ashley family frequently checks this website, and they read and cherish every word. They are honored that it currently stands at 33 pages. After all of you leave messages and continue this string of support, I dare not guess how long it will be. Thank you in advance for your support.

Sincerely,
CDR Kevin Mooney

Oh My God....

2005-01-28T10:00:00.000-05:00

The Los Angeles-class fast-attack submarine USS San Francisco (SSN 711) in dry dock to assess damage sustained after running aground approximately 350 miles south of Guam Jan. 8, 2005

2005-01-28T09:59:00.000-05:00

View from bottom of drydock

2005-01-28T09:58:00.000-05:00

Closeup of 711 Bow This and the next few photos were modified by me from the hi resolution photos so that detail can be seen in a web-compatible file size.

2005-01-28T09:55:00.000-05:00

Another Closeup of 711 bow

2005-01-28T09:54:00.000-05:00

Another closeup

Another Message from Ashley's LCPO

2005-01-28T09:30:00.000-05:00

Posted by Hagar, MMCS(SS) on Thu - Jan 27 - 8:20am:

Today, we hosted the Ashley's, compliments of SubPac who came out with them today.

Last night they arrived on Admiral Fargo's 737, and greeted them.

Today we gave them tours of our boat, the base, and showed them the parts of guam that make this island special.

Almost the entire crew met them at the "top of the mar" club tonight. We had a host dinner, and it was quite the meeting. The COB and CDR Mooney presented a shadow box and Admiral Sullivan had a good speak.

Admiral Sullivan also had a private speak with my boys in Auxiliary Division, and presented coins to every A'gangr. I was humbled.

To say it was a good night just misrepresents the reason we were together, but we were together to remember the reasons that we shared hardship, and heal.

I would say that it was a resounding success....The San Fran is the best boat I've been on in my 20 years of service, and we are not ready to give up.

...hagar

Still Monitoring....

2005-01-27T07:44:00.000-05:00

No real news that is new on the San Francisco accident. I'll post when I find additional info.

Comparison with Titanic

2005-01-20T10:07:00.000-05:00

After just watching a History Channel program about the TITANIC disaster, I can't help but check the Titanic "lessons learned" against USS SAN FRANCISCO's accident.

The TV program stated that one of the most significant mistakes by Titanic's owners/operators was their near complete faith and trust in the technology of the time, that made them believe she was unsinkable.

With the SF, faith and trust in the construction technology (as, in my experience, held by all American submariners) was proved well founded in that SF suffered so severe a crash and lived to tell about it.

Of course, the faith placed in soundings on the charts apparently proved to be a downfall. I have confidence that the smart people in the submarine-driving business will delineate procedures to prevent a recurrence, as the shipbuilding industry did following the loss of Titanic.

(By the way, I am still surprised that SF's accident is still called a "grounding", instead of an underwater "collision" or crash!)

Commanding Officer Relieved

2005-01-20T10:06:00.000-05:00

January 20, 2005
Skipper of submarine San Francisco relieved of command
By William H. McMichael
Times Staff Writer

The skipper of the sub that struck an underwater mountain south of Guam 12 days ago has been relieved of his command, the Navy’s 7th Fleet said. Cmdr. Kevin Mooney was reassigned today to unspecified duties at Guam’s Submarine Squadron 15 by 7th Fleet commander Vice Adm. Jonathan W. Greenert.

Cmdr. Ike Skelton, a spokesman, said Mooney was effectively relieved but that the permanence of the move or any punitive action would depend on how the investigation into the mishap’s cause turns out.

San Francisco’s new commanding officer is Cmdr. Andrew Hale, deputy commander of Submarine Squadron 15.

The Jan. 8 grounding killed one sailor, injured almost half of the 137-man crew and left the attack sub with “extensive” damage to its bow, said Lt. Cmdr. Jeff Davis, Pacific Fleet Submarine Force spokesman. The forward ballast tanks, the sonar dome and sonar sphere all are damaged, he said, while the inner pressure hull “does not appear” to be so. Also undamaged were the sub’s engineering, propulsion and electrical systems, he said.

Davis also said the Navy is planning to put the San Francisco into a floating drydock in Guam to enable technicians to make the most accurate assessment of damages. Still to be determined: if the drydock is nuclear-capable, something the Navy continues to check out. Davis said that’s expected to happen. If it does, the sub could be in drydock in about a week, he said.
No estimate of cost for repairs has been announced.

William H. McMichael is the Hampton Roads bureau chief for Navy Times. Reach him at (757) 223-0096.

Guest Book for our Fallen Shipmate

2005-01-17T19:30:00.000-05:00

At this link you will find an on-line guest book where you may sign to leave a message for the family of our departed shipmate. Please help us to fill up the guest book so the family may know how much we care about MM2(SS) Ashley's service-- bubblehead or not, if the tragedy moves you, please leave a short message for the family.

Thank you.

E-Mail from Crew Member

2005-01-15T18:29:00.000-05:00

The below was post on Rontini Bulletin Board. Don't know how long the link will be good.
____

Posted by RMP588 on Sat - Jan 15 - 1:07pm: This I received this AM (Saturday) from an old family friend who was the guy that got me in the Navy. He himself is a WWII surface vet with quite a bit of combat time.

To All,

I thought that I would put out a note since a lot of you have been calling and writing to find out how things are and if I'm OK and what happened. If you hadn't heard, my boat hit a uncharted submerged sea mount at the highest speed we can go at about 500ft below the surface. There were about 30 of us that were seriously hurt and unfortunately one of my shipmates didn't make it.

First off I am OK. I am pretty beat up with my entire left side and butt as one big bruise. My shoulder is separated and may require surgery. They will evaluate later this week. I am very fortunate that I hit the wall and didn't go down a ladderwell that was right next to where I hit. If I had gone down that, I would have got really messed up. I took a tremendous shot to my left thigh from something. If it had been slightly lower in the knee area it would have been really ugly. But all in all I am in good shape.

We hit it at about noon right after field day (where all of us clean the boat for several hours). Thank God we didn't hit while we were doing this or it would have been much worse. We would have had flying deck plates through the air and such. Not good. As it was, it happened while chow was going on and most people were either sitting and eating or on watch. I don't remember much of the collision. People describe it as like in the movie the Matrix where everything slowed down and levitated and then went flying forward faster that the brain can process. My mind has blanked it out exactly what happened.

Adrenaline kicked in and I have no real memory of how I got down to middle level or what I did immediately following. I helped carry several shipmates to the crew mess deck (adrenaline is a wonderful thing - my shoulder was wrecked and I had no idea until about 4 hours later).

I sat with several of my junior guys that had bad head wounds and talked with them to keep them conscious until doc could see them. It seemed like an eternity but I'm sure wasn't that long.

For those Navy folks that ever wondered why Chief's stomp around and preach "Stow for Sea" This was a perfect example. It definitely saved lives. I am extremely proud of the crew to do damage control, help the wounded and get the boat safely to the surface (for the boat guys we blew the tanks dry on the emergency blow but unbeknownst to us we were missing some ballast tanks/some didn't have integrity).

The ship's control party did every thing exactly right even though they were hurt as well. The Diving Officer of the Watch had just unbuckled his belt to update a status board and hit the Ship's Control Panel hard enough to break some of the gauges. To add insult to injury his chair came up right behind him.

Several people were injured in the Engine Room Lower Level area. Lots of metal and sharp edges in the area as well as that's were the boat's smoking area is at. Several crew members are reevaluating that habit now.

Once again we got lucky in the fact that we had an extra corpsman onboard. One of our officer's was a prior enlisted corpsman that was a Fleet Marine Force medic so he was a Godsend for us. Our Corpsman did an outstanding job getting everyone stabilized and did the best he could for our fallen shipmate. I am surprised that he got him to hold on as long as he did.

Our corpsman is definitely a hero in my book. He didn't sleep for 2 or 3 days. We finally put him down when the SEAL docs helicoptered in to help.

Like I said, I am extremely proud of my crew and how they handled themselves. My Chief of the Boat was an inspiration of what a leader should be and my Captain was as well. My XO took out an EAB manifold with his back but still managed to help coordinate things. No matter what happens later, these men did a superior job under difficult circumstances.

I am humbled by the entire crew's performance from the CO down to the Seaman that I was checking in two days before. For those of you wondering, I am sure there will be an investigation into what happened and no I was not part of the navigation preps for this voyage. I work on the inertial/electronic navigation and interior communications part of my rate and didn't have anything to do with the conventional navigation part of it.

I will be lending support to my comrades who were to help them prepare for the pending investigation. I thank you all for you concern and appreciate your prayers not only for myself, but for my shipmates. We are doing well, we band of brothers and will pull through just fine.

Thanks,
Brian Frie
Chief Electronics Technician Submarines
USS San Francisco SSN 711

Submarine Crash Shows Navy Had Gaps in Mapping System

2005-01-15T17:35:00.000-05:00

By CHRISTOPHER DREW

New York Times
Published: January 15, 2005

Sailors on the San Francisco, a nuclear-powered attack submarine, had just finished cleaning the vessel last Saturday as it sped along 500 feet beneath the surface of the South Pacific.

Submarines run blind, just listening for sounds of danger. And to the captain and other officers relying on undersea navigation charts, everything seemed clear.

Suddenly, there was a horrible screeching. And according to an e-mail message written by a crew member, the inside of the submarine quickly resembled a scene from the movie "The Matrix." He wrote, "Everything slowed down and levitated and then went flying forward faster than the brain can process."

The submarine had crashed head-on into an undersea mountain that was not on the charts. One sailor was killed, and about 60 others were injured. Now, Defense Department officials say they have found a satellite image taken in 1999 that indicates an undersea mountain rising to perhaps within 100 feet below the surface there.

But the older navigation charts provided to the Navy were never updated to show the obstruction, they acknowledge, in part because the agency that creates them has never had the resources to use the satellite data systematically.

The officials said the main chart on the submarine, prepared in 1989 and never revised, did not show any potential obstacles within three miles of the crash. They said the incident happened in such a desolate area - 360 miles southeast of Guam - that updating their depiction of the undersea terrain was never considered a priority.

The new information about the charting flaws also illustrates what many experts say is a broader danger not only to submarines but also to many surface ships. At the same time, it provides a glimpse into the arcane task of plotting an undersea world that in some areas is still more mysterious than the surfaces of Mars or Venus.

A variety of satellite data is now showing that many sea charts, including some that still rely on notations from the days when sailors navigated by the stars, are inaccurate. And some scientists are calling for greater use of satellite data to fix more precisely the location of undersea ridges, islands and even continental boundaries and to chart large, less studied areas of the oceans.

The latest disclosures support the account by the commanding officer of the San Francisco that the charts showed that his track was clear. But former submarine captains said Navy investigators were likely to examine whether it had been prudent to travel at such a high speed, 30 knots, given the age and spottiness of the information.

Officials said the main chart on the submarine was prepared by the Defense Mapping Agency in August 1989. That office was later absorbed into the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, a part of the Defense Department that provides maps, sea charts and other geographic intelligence to the nation's combat forces.

Chris Andreasen, the chief hydrographer for the Office of Global Navigation at the intelligence agency, acknowledged in an interview that on the chart, "there's nothing shown that would be a hazard" at the crash site.

But since the accident, Mr. Andreasen said, his office has examined commercially available images taken by a Landsat satellite in 1999, and at least one image indicates that an undersea mountain could rise to within 100 feet of the surface there. Analysts say variations in water color can sometimes indicate a land mass below.

Mr. Andreasen said his agency had not normally used satellite imagery to update sea charts, though it recently began using the images to help pinpoint the boundaries of islands and other land masses. He and other officials said that the charting office's staff had shrunk in recent years, and that the Navy never asked it to focus on the area south of Guam, where it began basing submarines in 2002.

Current and former Navy officials say the main focus during the cold war was charting areas in the Northern Pacific and in Arctic seas where missile and surveillance submarines guarded against a Soviet attack. Since then, the Navy has been trying to improve charts of shallower coastal waters in the Middle East and other areas where it might have to help battle terrorists.

Mr. Andreasen said that since global positioning satellites came into wide use in the 1980's, Navy and commercial ships had had a much more accurate way to fix the coordinates of islands, undersea volcanoes and other parts of the giant mountain ranges that jut up from the ocean floor.

"G.P.S. is changing the world," he said.

As ships have reported these coordinates, sea-charting offices around the world have found that many islands were "maybe a mile or two out of position" on widely used charts, he said. So over the past year, his agency has been using the Landsat images and other data to update many nations' boundaries.

But Mr. Andreasen and other scientists said that while commercial shipping interests had helped chart the most common transit routes, large areas of the ocean depths remained little charted.

Dr. David T. Sandwell, a geophysics professor at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego, said that about 40 percent of the oceans were "very, very poorly charted, and those areas are mostly in the Southern Hemisphere."

While many sea charts include obstacles and features spotted by commercial vessels, World War II warships and even 19th-century explorers, the best charts are made by survey ships that use sound beams to create detailed pictures of the undersea terrain. The Navy has only seven such ships, however, and scientists say it could take decades to chart the rest of the seas thoroughly.

As a result, Dr. Sandwell and others have suggested that the government make rough chartings of more areas with another type of satellite - one that uses radar to measure variations in the height of the ocean that can signal if mountains are below.

Dr. Sandwell said readings by one such satellite in the mid-1980's also indicated there could be an undersea mountain at the San Francisco's crash site. But he said the margin of error was too large for the studies to be conclusive. And Mr. Andreasen said much of the satellite data was too vague for precise charting.

Mr. Andreasen said the main chart used on the submarine showed that the only concerns were a small area of discolored water that had been noted three miles from the crash site and some coral reefs about 10 miles away.

Notes on the chart indicated that the discolored water was mentioned on a British sea chart in 1963, and Mr. Andreasen said the notation might even go back to World War II. He said the discoloration might have been just a temporary disturbance, or it could have been a sign of the undersea ridge.

Other notes suggest that some ships had reported depths of 5,000 to 6,000 feet nearby. But Mr. Andreasen said few commercial ships used the area, and "it has never been systematically surveyed."

Navy officials declined to comment, saying they are investigating the accident.

The submarine left Guam on Jan. 7 for Brisbane, Australia. The Navy said 23 of the sailors were seriously injured, and at least five had broken bones.

The e-mail message by the sailor was sent to several people involved with submarines, and as it circulated within the submarine community, one person provided a copy to The New York Times.

The sailor wrote that many crew members were eating lunch at the time of the crash, which severely damaged the vessel's bow. He said several sailors suffered "bad head wounds," and men in the engine room smashed against "lots of metal and sharp edges."

Still, he said that the vessel's damage control party "did everything exactly right even though they were hurt as well."

The message also said that the submarine was lucky to have an extra medic on board, and that its main medic, known as a corpsman, did not sleep during the two-day trip back to port.

The Navy has said a machinist's mate second class, Joseph A. Ashley of Akron, Ohio, was knocked unconscious by the crash and died the next day from severe head injuries. The e-mail message said other sailors were surprised that the corpsman "got him to hold on as long as he did."

Crippled Sub Challenged Crew's Skills

2005-01-15T17:25:00.000-05:00

Navy sources shed light on crash, return trip of USS San Francisco

By ROBERT A. HAMILTON
Day Staff Writer, Navy/Defense/Electric Boat
Published on 1/15/2005

New London -- The galley crew had started to serve lunch as the USS San Francisco checked its position against a global positioning system satellite, checked the water depth with its fathometer, and announced that the ship was going to dive, all routine operations aboard an attack submarine.

Four minutes after it submerged, that routine was shattered one week ago today as the San Francisco crashed into an undersea mountain at more than 35 mph, sending sailors crashing into equipment and bulkheads and destroying the bow dome and three of the main ballast tanks at the front of the sub.

The accident released kinetic, or nonradioactive, energy on the scale of the electrical output of the Millstone 2 nuclear reactor, which explains the extensive damage to the ship and the severity of the injuries — one man was killed and more than 60 others were injured, two dozen of them seriously.

But engineers are impressed that despite the violence of the underwater encounter, the ship's reactor, steam turbine generators, electrical distribution network and even its navigation system were unharmed, and the ship was able to limp back to port on its own.

Through dozens of interviews with submariners, active duty and retired, as well as a review of a variety of internal Navy documents, an account of the accident that nearly crippled the San Francisco is beginning to emerge. Because the investigation is still under way, there are few official sources of information, however.

The captain of the San Francisco, Cmdr. Kevin Mooney, has not been relieved of duty, perhaps the most telling evidence that the initial inquiry has found that the sub was following all the correct procedures and had the misfortune to run into an uncharted seamount.

In fact, Rear Adm. Paul Sullivan, commander of the Pacific submarine force, said in an unclassified e-mail obtained by The Day that he was impressed with how the captain and crew dealt with the aftermath of the crash.

“The continuous operation of the propulsion plant, electrical systems and navigation demonstrates the reliability of our equipment and the operational readiness of our crews as a whole,” Sullivan wrote.

“The impressive Joint and Navy team effort which resulted in SFO (San Francisco) returning to port safely says volumes about the ingenuity and resourcefulness of all our armed services. For all who participated in this effort, thank you and your people. We are all eternally grateful to each of you.”

•••

The San Francisco was built at what is now the Northrop Grumman Newport News (Va.) Shipyard, was commissioned in 1981, and was originally homeported at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. After a refueling overhaul completed in 2002, it was assigned to the new submarine base in Guam.

The San Francisco had finished all the post-refueling sea trials and conducted its first two-month deployment last year, arriving back in Guam Dec. 1, 2004. On Friday, Jan. 7, it set sail for Brisbane, Australia, for a port visit. The sailors were probably excited — Australians still recall that the U.S. submarine force kept the Japanese at bay in the Pacific during World War II and generally treat American submariners well.

Saturday morning, soon after breakfast ended at 6 a.m., the ship conducted a “field day,” during which the entire ship is cleaned, top to bottom. All 137 men on board would have been out of their bunks and taking part until just before lunch was served at 11 a.m. They would have removed deck plates to clean bilges and other hard-to-reach spaces.

The chief petty officers on board warned everyone as they finished to “stow for sea” — make sure everything is bolted down or locked up. In the event of a collision, loose objects tend to become unguided missiles. As a result, the ship was probably more tightly stowed than usual, which helped prevent more serious injuries, submariners said.

In late morning, the ship was at periscope depth, checking to make sure it was on course. Everything checked out; the ship was just over 400 miles southeast of Guam, near the Caroline Islands ridge, but the charts showed that there was no water less than about 6,000 feet deep for at least seven miles around the boat, more than enough of a safety margin for submariners, who are known to be cautious.

Some time about 11:30, after running through a safety checklist to make sure the boat was ready to submerge, the officer of the deck gave the order to dive. The San Francisco used the dive to pick up speed, and was soon running at flank speed, something in excess of 30 knots.

Although its destination was to the southwest, it was headed in an easterly direction, probably because it had “cleared its baffles,” or changed direction to check to make sure there were no submarines trailing it in the spot directly behind the ship, where its normal sonar sensors cannot “hear.”

At 11:42 a.m. Guam time, about four minutes after diving, the San Francisco crashed head-on into a nearly vertical wall of stone, a seamount that was not on the charts. In an instant, the submarine's speed dropped from almost 33 knots horizontal to 4 knots almost straight up as the bow whipped up and the ship tried to go over the obstacle — without success.

Crewmen told family and friends that the moment was surreal, so unexpected that it took a moment to realize what had happened: The sub had rammed into something and was out of control. One sailor told a friend it reminded him of the movie “The Matrix,” in which everything slows down and a disaster unfolds in slow motion.

The diving officer of the watch, normally strapped into a chair in the control room, had just unbuckled his belt to update a status board. He struck the control panel so hard that he broke some of the gauges. Some crewmen were tossed 20 feet into bulkheads, several narrowly missing being dropped down through stairways.

A couple of men were smoking in the lower level of the engine room, and more were waiting their turn — it is the only area in the sub where smoking is allowed. The area includes much sharp-edged metal equipment that caused several of the lacerations and broken bones that had to be treated later.

Machinist Mate 2nd Class Joseph Allen Ashley, 24, of Akron, Ohio, who had just re-enlisted for a second four-year term, was in the main seawater bay at the back of the sub. He was thrown forward 20 feet into the propulsion lube oil bay, striking his forehead against a large metal pump. He was knocked out and died the next day without regaining consciousness.

Through the chaos, though, the crew followed the procedures they had drilled on day after day as submariners. Within seconds, one of the crewmen at the helm, his arm broken in the crash, pulled the “chicken switch,” which forces high-pressure air into the main ballast tanks to force the submarine to the surface.

The executive officer suffered a serious back injury when he was thrown onto an emergency air supply pipe, but he was quickly directing damage-control efforts. Injured men were carried to the crew's mess and the wardroom, where the tables were pressed into service as gurneys. The ship's “doc,” an independent duty corpsman trained in emergency medicine, began assessing and treating the injuries.

One of the ship's junior officers was a former enlisted man and was able to help out. Other crewmen were recruited to keep men with head injuries awake until they could be checked out, as the worst cuts were stitched and the worst breaks were set.

When a medical team arrived from Guam via helicopter the next morning, a surgeon, an undersea medical officer and another independent duty corpsmen remarked that the care given to the injured crewmen was outstanding, particularly considering the circumstances.

•••

The submarine force has a policy of “water space management” that would have required Mooney, the skipper, to file a plan showing his expected track and speed through the area to make sure he would not be in the same water as another submarine at the same time. Navy sources said there was nothing on that plan that would have raised any alarm.

In addition, given the charts that showed only deep water in the area, Mooney would not have been expected to do depth soundings more than every 30 minutes, certainly no more than every 15 minutes, which would not have given him enough time to react to the steep seamount. In fact, he might not have been able to avoid grounding even with nearly continuous soundings.
The undersea mountain was so steep that there was damage visible even on the top of the sonar dome, which indicates that the sub hit a virtual wall.

The San Francisco would have picked up the mountain if it was using active sonar, but submariners use that sparingly because it gives the boat's location away. Instead, it would have been using passive sonar — listening for the noises made by other ships and submarines. But seamounts don't make any noise, and even if there were currents swirling around it, the noise would have been lost in the noise the San Francisco was making as it sped through the water near top speed.

Jeff Schweitzer, a research professor in the Physics Department at the University of Connecticut, said the submarine's kinetic energy at 33 knots and 4 knots is easy to calculate — one-half its mass (6.3 million kilograms) times its velocity (16.98 meters per second before the accident, 2.06 meters per second afterward), or 902.4 megajoules before, and 13.3 megajoules afterward. So the accident released just over 889 megajoules of energy.

The Millstone 2 reactor in Waterford is rated at 870 megawatts, so if the ship slowed over a second, it released roughly the same energy in that time as Millstone 2 could generate.

“It would have lit quite a few light bulbs,” Schweitzer said. “It is a lot of energy, which is why the collision cracked rock and dented such strong steel.”

He said it would take much more complex calculations to determine where all that energy went — how much went into bending the steel of the ballast tanks, or even heating the water in the area around the wreck — but the release was enormous.

Physics also explains the injuries, a fundamental principal being that a body in motion tends to stay in motion until something slows it down, whether air friction or a steel bulkhead. If the submarine instantly decelerated from 33 knots to 4 knots, in theory the men aboard would have kept moving forward at 29 knots relative to the rest of the ship until they encountered something hard.

Schweitzer noted, however, that even sitting in a chair or standing on the floor would bleed off part of that speed, and that the ship would have decelerated over a second or so, which would also yield a slight difference.

“So it might not be the same thing as being thrown forward at 29 knots,” Schweitzer said. “But it would have been a lot more comfortable to have been in a seat and belted in.”

At the time, however, no one on the San Francisco was doing the calculations. They were more worried about saving the ship. At almost 550 feet, the water pressure would have been almost 240 pounds per square inch, so even a small leak could have quickly put the ship in danger.

In addition, it quickly became apparent that three of the four forward ballast tanks had uncontrollable leaks, which caused the ship to take on a serious bow-down aspect. That was dangerous for two reasons: any forward movement could quickly drive the ship deeper; and any angle would allow more air to seep out of the ballast tanks, making the ship heavier, increasing the angle even more.

Through the quick use of variable ballast tanks located throughout the ship, the crew was able to get it to the surface, though the back end of the ship was riding about four feet higher than normal, and the bow was so deep the depth markings were out of sight.

The reactor plant, propulsion system and electric distribution gear were all operating normally, however, which allowed the crew to focus on the ballast system.

•••

Immediately, Mooney dispatched a message to Guam, where the Commander of Naval Forces Marianas dispatched the 110-foot, Guam-based Coast Guard cutter Galveston Island and the 906-foot Maritime Sealift Command cargo ship Gy. Sgt. Fred Stockham to intercept the submarine and escort it home, but it would be almost a day before they arrived.

By 4 p.m. Saturday, the commodore of Submarine Squadron 15 on Guam had called together family members to deliver the news and promise regular briefings on the situation.

The front of the ship was so badly deformed, its maneuverability was compromised. In addition, because the bow-down aspect of the sub would force it under at even moderate speeds, the San Francisco was limited to about eight knots on the surface.

Then, poor weather on Sunday forced the captain to bring all his crewmen down from the bridge out of fear that any additional water coming down the hatch would cut further into the sub's limited buoyancy. He had to run the ship from the control room, using radar and radio to make sure it stayed close to the escort ships, but not too close.

The crew continuously operated the low-pressure blower to keep air in the ballast tanks, despite the leaks. The air pump is rated for only intermittent use, but held out for more than 30 hours during the trip back. In addition, the crew quickly implemented an emergency technique to use the exhaust from its massive auxiliary diesel engines to augment the low-pressure blower.

Back in Guam, the Navy was assembling flotation aids and welding gear to do emergency repairs when the San Francisco finally pulled into port. Divers and technical experts were on hand to assess the damage. A team was on its way within hours from Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard, including a structural engineer, a ballast tank expert and an air systems expert, led by Capt. Charles Doty, who commanded the USS Cheyenne in the Pacific until last year. During his time at the helm, the Cheyenne was the first ship to launch missiles in the Iraq war in 2003.

On Monday afternoon, family members lined Sierra Pier at the Guam submarine base, where they waited anxiously for their first sight of the submarine they were assured would be berthed at the pier before long. About 3 p.m., it came into view, nose down, listing visibly to starboard, with a tumultuous bow wake testifying to the damage at the front of the boat.

Submariners from the USS City of Corpus Christi and USS Houston, and the tender USS Frank Cable, which comprise the rest of Squadron 15, waited on the pier as well, ready to help tie up the ship, shut down the nuclear plant, hook up the shore power supply and otherwise aid a crew that had been up for two days straight saving the San Francisco.

Shipmates honor sailor

2005-01-15T16:37:00.000-05:00

Friday, January 14, 2005
By Theresa Merto
Pacific Daily News

Photos courtesy of the U.S. Navy

(Story Link with photos)

Sailors paid tribute in a memorial service yesterday for Petty Officer 2nd Class Joseph Allen Ashley, who died of injuries from the submarine USS San Francisco's recent accident.

During a last man roll call yesterday, all the sailors in the Auxiliary Division of the Engineering Department were present -- except Petty Officer 2nd Class Joseph Allen Ashley.

The "brotherhood," as many submariners call it, gathered yesterday at a memorial service for Ashley, who died from injuries suffered when the nuclear-powered submarine USS San Francisco ran aground Jan. 8 about 350 nautical miles south of Guam.

Ashley, 24, of Akron, Ohio, was known as a great shipmate who loved submarines, and most especially the USS San Francisco, where he belonged for nearly three years and where he lost his life. A Navy official has said the submarine struck a topographical feature underwater and the investigation into the accident continues.

"(Ashley) dedicated himself to San Francisco, our Navy and our great country. By so doing, he earned the love, honor, trust and respect of his shipmates," Cmdr. Kevin Mooney, commanding officer of the USS San Francisco, said in a release. "Although our hearts ache and we miss him, we thank God for the time together. We also thank Petty Officer Ashley's family for sharing their son and brother with us."

Mooney further highlighted Ashley's positive impact on the crew.

"He was my shipmate, my friend and a great submariner. ... He loved his job and life in the Navy so much," Mooney said. "Not only was Petty Officer Ashley happy all the time, he made it his personal business to make sure all his shipmates were happy, including me."

Lt. j.g. Josh Chisholm, who is a chemistry/radiological assistant, said Ashley was a great sailor who "loved submarines and being on the San Francisco, through and through."

"He always brought a smile to everybody's face when he was around," Chisholm said, adding that Ashley always had a positive, upbeat attitude.

"For us, he was somebody we knew we could trust," said Chisholm, who was interviewed after the memorial service. "We knew he would do the right thing in terms of when he was standing watch."

Four sailors from USS San Francisco, along with sailors from Submarine Squadron 15, will escort Ashley's body off island . He will be laid to rest in West Virginia, said Master Chief Petty Officer Bill Cramer, who is the chief of boat on the San Francisco.

"He was one of those guys who was ready to make the Navy and the submarine force a lifelong career because of the tightness. It is like a brotherhood as we refer to it," Cramer said. "We were very close to him -- everybody on board."

Ashley was in charge of the submarine's emergency diesel on board and took great pride in that, Cramer said.

"In our most recent engineering exam, he got the highest grade that someone would get," Cramer said. "He took pride in everything he did ... and was always willing to learn more."

Cramer said the crew has sought some counseling after returning to Guam earlier this week, adding that the experience has been traumatic. He said 23 sailors were brought to Naval Hospital on Monday, and all but three were released the night they were brought there. By Wednesday, the remaining sailors were released from the hospital.

"Most of my sailors, the very next day, were mustering with me on the pier -- which wasn't required -- but they were ready to get back to work," Cramer said. "A lot of the guys that were getting out of the Navy have said, 'the San Francisco brought me home from that, I'm gonna stick around until (it's) seaworthy again."

Ashley enlisted in the Navy in 2001 and reported to USS San Francisco as a machinist's mate in February 2002, according to a Navy release. While serving aboard the Los Angeles-class, fast-attack submarine, he was selected Junior Sailor of the Quarter for the third quarter of 2004, the release said.

Chisholm said since the grounding, the sailors have been relying on each other and their families for support and do not second-guess getting back on the submarine despite the accident.

"We've been through such a difficult situation with the grounding," Chisholm said. "But I think most of us, if it went back to sea today, would go right back and operate that ship, mainly because we've got all of each other there."

Profile of a Submariner

2005-01-15T13:53:00.000-05:00

(Written by Dr. Joyce Brothers following the loss of THRESHER in 1963)

The tragic loss of the submarine Thresher and 129 men had a special kind of an impact on the nation.....a special kind of sadness, mixed with universal admiration for the men who choose this type of work.

One could not mention the Thresher without observing, in the same breath how utterly final and alone the end is when a ship dies at the bottom of the sea....and what a remarkable specimen of man it must be who accepts such a risk.

Most of us might be moved to conclude, too, that a tragedy of this kind would have a damaging effect on the morale of the other men in the submarine service and tend to discourage future enlistment.

Actually, there is no evidence that this is so.

What is it then, that lures men to careers in which they spend so much of their time in cramped quarters, under great psychological stress, with danger lurking all about them? Togetherness is an overworked term, but in no other branch of our military service is it given such full meaning as in the "silent service".

In an undersea craft, each man is totally dependent upon the skill of every other man in the crew, not only for top performance but for actual survival. Each knows that his very life depends on the others and because this is so, there is a bond among them that both challenges and comforts them.

All of this gives the submariner a special feeling of pride, because he is indeed a member of an elite corps.

The risks, then, are an inspiration rather than a deterrent.

The challenge of masculinity is another factor which attracts men to serve on submarines. It certainly is a test of a man's prowess and power to know he can qualify for this highly selective service.

However, it should be emphasized that this desire to prove masculinity is not pathological, as it might be in certain dare-devil pursuits, such as driving a motorcycle through a flaming hoop. There is nothing daredevilish about motivations of the man who decides to dedicate his life to the submarine service.

He does, indeed, take pride in demonstrating that he is quite a man, but he does not do so to practice a form of foolhardy brinkmanship, to see how close he can get to failure and still snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.

On the contrary, the aim in the submarine service is to battle danger, to minimize the risk, to take every measure to make certain that safety, rather than danger, is maintained at all times.

Are the men in the submarine service braver than those in other pursuits where the possibilty of a sudden tragedy is constant? The glib answer would be to say they are. It is more accurate, from a psychological point of view, to say they are not necessarily braver, but that they are men who have a little more insight into themselves and their capabilities.

They know themselves a little better than the next man. This has to be so with men who have a healthy reason to volunteer for a risk. They are generally a cut healthier emotionally than others of the similar age and background because of their willingness to push themselves a little bit farther and not settle for an easier kind of existence.

We all have tremendous capabilities but are rarely straining at the upper level of what we can do; these men are.

This country can be proud and grateful that so many of its sound, young, eager men care enough about their own stature in life and the welfare of their country to pool their skills and match them collectively against the power of the sea.

E-Mail Shows Toll of Crash on Submarine

2005-01-13T17:41:00.000-05:00

By CHRISTOPHER DREW

New York Times
Published: January 12, 2005

The nuclear submarine that ran aground Saturday in the South Pacific hit so "incredibly hard" that about 60 of its 137 crew members were injured and the sailor who died was thrown 20 feet by the impact, according to internal Navy e-mail messages sent by a top admiral.

The messages said the submarine's hull was severely damaged after the head-on crash into what Navy officials believe was an undersea mountain that was not on the navigation charts.

One message said the submarine, the San Francisco, was traveling at high speed, and the impact practically stopped it in its tracks and caused flooding in parts of the bow.

The messages were written by Rear Adm. Paul F. Sullivan, the commander of submarines in the Pacific. They paint a more dire picture of the accident, which occurred 360 miles southeast of Guam, than had previously been disclosed. They also hint at the extensive efforts to steady the vessel and save the sailor who died.

The e-mail indicated that the Navy had tried to evacuate the fatally injured man, Machinist Mate 2nd Class Joseph A. Ashley, within hours after he had been thrown forward and hit his head on a metal pump, which knocked him unconscious.

Petty Officer Ashley's father, Daniel L. Ashley, said in an interview he had been told that as a helicopter hovered over the choppy seas, crew members could not maneuver a stretcher carrying his son through the submarine's hatches before he died.

"They tried numerous times to maneuver him through various hatches," Mr. Ashley said. "But it just didn't happen."

Admiral Sullivan, who is based in Hawaii, sent the e-mail messages to other Navy officials. As the messages circulated within the submarine community, two people provided copies to The New York Times, and Navy officials confirmed their authenticity.

The e-mail also indicated that about 60 crew members had been injured. All the Navy had said publicly was that 23 crew members were treated for broken bones, cuts and bruises.

The messages said those 23 were hurt seriously enough that they were unable to stand their watch duties as the submarine limped back to Guam. Mr. Ashley said the submarine's captain, Cmdr. Kevin Mooney, told him by phone on Monday that among the injured crew members, "there were a lot of broken fingers, broken arms and legs and one fractured back."

Navy officials said yesterday that the rest of the injuries were minor.

The admiral's e-mail also said an outer hull ripped open at the submarine's nose, causing flooding in a dome with sonar sensors and in four of the ballast tanks used to submerge the vessel or take it to the surface.

The flooding caused the submarine to sit deeper in the water and made it hard to maneuver on the trip back to Guam. Sailors had to keep pumping pressurized air into the tanks to prevent the water from rising and to maintain buoyancy.

An inner hull, which surrounds the crew's living and work spaces, held firm, the e-mail said. The nuclear reactor and critical propulsion systems were not damaged.

In the e-mail, Admiral Sullivan did not discuss why the vessel ran aground. The Navy is investigating, and the admiral, who ultimately will have to decide whether to reprimand any of the submarine's crew members, did not respond to requests for comment.

Navy officials have said that the submarine, which was headed for Australia, appeared to have smashed into an undersea mountain that was not on its charts. Mr. Ashley, who lives in Akron, Ohio, said Commander Mooney told him the same thing on Monday.

"He said, 'On the charts we have, this is a clear area all the way through to Australia,' " Mr. Ashley said.

Navy officials said the San Francisco was traveling at 30 knots when it careened off some part of the undersea mountain range. In one of the e-mail messages, Admiral Sullivan wrote that on impact, the vessel made a "nearly instantaneous deacceleration" to about 4 knots.

Mr. Ashley said Commander Mooney told him that his son had just gotten off watch duty in the engine area and was chatting with other sailors when the accident occurred.

Mr. Ashley said his son, who was 24, "loved the Navy and that submarine" and had just re-enlisted.

Mr. Ashley said Commander Mooney, who could not be reached for comment, also told him that his son's condition seemed to worsen as sailors labored to tilt the stretcher through the evacuation hatch.

Mr. Ashley said that at the end of the conversation, Commander Mooney told him that he took full responsibility for the sailor's death. Mr. Ashley said he replied that he had heard all he needed "to know that you and your crew did everything you could do to save my son's life."

Heroics Saved Sub

2005-01-13T11:42:00.000-05:00

Sources Say Crew's Heroics Saved Sub
USS San Francisco reportedly could have sunk following crash

By ROBERT A. HAMILTON, Day Staff Writer, Navy/Defense/Electric Boat

It is increasingly clear that the submarine that hit a seamount in the Pacific Ocean last week came close to being lost and that only the valiant efforts of its crew kept it afloat, Navy sources said Tuesday.

With uncontrolled flooding in its forward ballast tanks, the USS San Francisco had to run a low-pressure air pump for 30 hours straight to maintain buoyancy on its trip home, Navy sources said. The pump is rated for only intermittent use.

In addition, the submarine ran its diesel engines, channeling the exhaust into the forward ballast tanks in an effort to force out more of the water and make the ship lighter.

"Based on the information I've seen so far, they're very lucky this ship didn't sink," said retired Navy Capt. John C. Markowicz. "Only through the heroic efforts of the crew did that ship survive."

The San Francisco, homeported at Guam, was traveling more than 500 feet below the surface at more than 30 knots - about 35 mph - when it slammed into the seamount about 360 miles southeast of Guam.

The New York Times, in its editions today, reports that the submarine hit so "incredibly hard" that about 60 of its 137 crew were injured and that the one sailor who died was thrown 20 feet by the impact, according to internal Navy e-mail messages sent by Rear Adm. Paul F. Sullivan, the commander of submarines in the Pacific.

The messages sent by Sullivan paint a more dire picture of the accident than had previously been disclosed, The Times reported.

The accident came just minutes after the crew had finished a "field day," a cleaning process that involves breaking down a lot of equipment. If the accident had happened an hour earlier, the situation could have been much more serious because the loose equipment hatches and other parts could have become missiles, one source said.

Submariners also noted that if the boat involved had been a newer version of the Los Angeles class, the results could have been catastrophic. The San Francisco, SSN 711, was commissioned in 1981.

Starting with the Groton-based USS Providence, SSN 719, Los Angeles-class submarines have 12 missiles in vertical launch tubes in a compartment just behind the sonar dome. Several submariners acknowledged that such an incident involving a newer boat could have led to a fire in the missile fuel systems, which could have led to a low-order detonation of up to 12,000 pounds of high explosives.

"It could have been a real Kursk-type situation," one Navy source said, referring to the Russian submarine that sank in August 2000 after a fire broke out in its torpedo compartment.

Submariners around the country were poring over charts of the area where the San Francisco hit the seamount and were coming to the same conclusion: The ocean bottom was supposed to be more than a mile below where the San Francisco hit.

In fact, sources said the San Francisco had just submerged from periscope depth and had taken a bottom reading with its Fathometer four minutes before it hit the seamount and that the reading indicated the bottom was 6,000 feet below the keel.

The damage to the submarine, which includes a cracked sonar sphere and severe damage to three of the four ballast tanks near the bow, and some buckling of the forward pressure hull, all argue that the submarine hit something akin to an underwater cliff.

"Going from 6,000 feet to almost nothing in four minutes is a very steep seamount, no question about it," Markowicz said.

The local chapter of U.S. Submarine Veterans has started a fund-raising campaign for the crew of the San Francisco. John Carcioppolo, the local base commander, said the group just finished raising $3,800 for the family of the Canadian submariner killed in a shipboard fire last October, and one of the first pledges has come from the group's counterpart in Canada.

"Before I even announced I was doing fund-raising, I already got a commitment from Buster Brown up in Canada," Carcioppolo said. Brown is the head of the Submarine Association of Canada, Eastern Branch, and a former high-ranking enlisted member of the Canadian Navy. Carcioppolo said he would send any money raised to the captain of the San Francisco, Cmdr. Kevin Mooney, "to be disbursed as he sees fit."

Carcioppolo is a mentor of one of the young enlisted men on the San Francisco, and is acquainted with Mooney as well. "There's been a very strong outpouring of good wishes for Kevin and for everyone on board," Carcioppolo said.

San Francisco was on its way to Brisbane, Australia, just before noon Saturday when it ran into the seamount, crushing the front end of the submarine. At that depth, the water pressure was almost 250 PSI, or about 16 times atmospheric pressure, so the chief concern was to get to the surface as quickly as possible.

The crew executed an "emergency blow," forcing high-pressure air into the ballast tanks to make the submarine rise sharply.Once on the surface, though, the crew realized the ship was experiencing severe flooding into two of the three forward ballast tanks, and had to come up with some type of quick fix.

The low-pressure air system normally used for short periods of time was pressed into continuous service, and the ship started its diesel generators and used the exhaust to augment the blower to keep as much water as possible out of the ballast tanks.

With those emergency procedures in place, the ship limped home to Apra, Guam, where the Navy has rushed flotation devices, underwater engineering gear and technical experts to begin analyzing the damage.

Machinist Mate 2nd Class Joseph A. Ashley, 24, of Akron, Ohio, died from a head wound he sustained when he was thrown against a pump in the machinery spaces. Another machinist mate on duty in the engine room also received a serious head injury and was listed in stable condition Tuesday.

The Navy said 22 other men were injured badly enough to be taken off the submarine, so crew members from the USS City of Corpus Christi and the USS Houston, which are also homeported in Guam, as well as the tender USS Frank Cable, met the ship on its return and took over many of the injured crewmen's functions.

Let Us Remember Him

2005-01-12T22:25:00.000-05:00

In Memory of MM2(SS) Joseph Ashley

What Really Happened?

2005-01-12T08:46:00.000-05:00

The following messages are apparently written by Rear Admiral Paul Sullivan, and copied from Ron Martini's Submarine Bulletin Board here and here. Note there were about 60 total crewmembers injured, while the widely-quoted number of 24 injured were those unable to stand watch- the others remained able to work.

Quote:
___________

Subject: USS SAN FRANCISCO SITREP -1500W/8 Jan 05

Fellow Flag Officers,

I wanted to provide an UNCLASS email on the status of the USS SAN FRANCISCO (SSN 711) in order for all of you to be conversant on what we presently know of the apparent grounding incident in WESTPAC:

USS SAN FRANCISCO (SFO) apparently grounded at 080142Z JAN 05, a approximately 360 NM Southeast of Guam, during submerged transit from Guam to Australia. At the time of the incident, the ship was transiting on an easterly track at high speed in a submerged moving haven. The ship sustained damage to equipment and injuries to personnel. The ship is currently on the surface and stable, transiting to Guam making eight knots.

Approximately 60 of the 137 personnel on board are injured. The primary personnel concern is one crewmember who is in critical condition with head injuries. Another is in serious condition with head and back injuries. Twenty-two additional personnel are injured to an extent they are unable to stand watch. Most of the injuries consist of broken bones and lacerations. A medical doctor from a support vessel vectored to the SAN FRANCISCO was transferred aboard at approximately 081300W to provide medical attention to the injured crewmembers. Transfer of additional medical personnel and MEDEVAC of the critically injured crewmember via HELO will occur when conditions permit.

CSS 15 held a notification briefing for families four hours after the incident and is providing regular updates and counseling. COMSUBPAC is responding directly to AMCROSS inquiries from concerned family members as they arrive.

The nuclear reactor plant, propulsion train and electrical distribution systems were unaffected by the incident. The primary material concern is buoyancy. Main ballast tanks 1A/1B/2B and the sonar sphere are assessed to be partially flooded and compromised, resulting in a slight port list, increased draft and slight down angle. To maintain adequate buoyancy for normal surface transit, the low pressure blower is operating continuously on the forward main ballast tanks. The ship is holding steady at a zero-degree trim angle with a port two-degree list. There is visible damage topside to the sonar dome.

An emergency procedure was developed by NAVSEA and provided to the ship to allow use of the diesel as a blower for the forward ballast tanks in the event the LP blower fails. Diesel crank web deflections are satisfactory.

USS SAN FRANCISCO will return to port Guam for a damage assessment. Buoyancy assist devices, underwater assessment and welding equipment and technical experts are being sent to Guam for this purpose. The ship is making hourly position and status reports to CTF 74, and COMNAVMARIANAS has been designated as the On Scene Commander. The focus remains on treating injured personnel and getting the ship to Guam safely. The situation will continue to be very fluid for several more days. Finally, the fantastic support we have received from the the entire Joint and Navy Team has truly made a difference in this most difficult of circumstances. For those directly involved, I thank you for this support and assistance. I'll keep you updated as the situation continues to unfold.

____________________________

Sent: Mon Jan 10 02:17:01 2005
Subject: USS SAN FRANCISCO SITREP -2100W/9 Jan 05

Fellow Flag Officers this is my second unclas update on the SAN FRANCISCO incident for your situational awareness:

At 10 January 1634 local (100134 EST) the USS SAN FRANCISCO returned safely to Apra Harbor, Guam. The ship moored with her own line handlers in a normal submarine configured mooring (AFT draft is 27'-10'' (normal AFT draft is 32') and FWD Draft is above the draft marks with the waterline at the point the towed array faring begins; 0.8 degree STBD list and 1 degree Down bubble indicating by naval architecture calculations that 1 A/B and 2A/B MBTs are most likely flooded). The severely injured Machinist Mate (Engineroom Upper Level Watch at time of grounding) was evacuated immediately and transferred by ambulance to Naval Hospital Guam where a fully staffed medical team was standing by. He is conscious and in stable condition. Approximately fifteen additional injured personnel requiring medical care subsequently departed the ship and were transported to the hospital after taking a moment to meet with family members.

Crewmembers from the USS CORPUS CHRISTI, HOUSTON and FRANK CABLE assisted in linehandling and various return to port evolutions such as propulsion plant shutdown, shorepower cables, and rig for surface. Standing by on the pier was a full complement of watchstanders from USS CITY OF CORPUS CHRISTI (and SAN FRANCISCO stay-behinds) to satisfy all watchstanding requirements for reactor plant shutdown with follow-on inport forward and aft watchsections.

Following the grounding on 8 January, the ship transited on the surface at 8kts with surface escort, USCGC GALVESTON ISLAND to Apra Harbor, Guam. Due to deteriorated weather conditions on the evening of 9 January, the Commanding Officer shifted bridge watchstations to control and shut bridge access hatches to maximize watertight integrity in light of reserve buoyancy concerns. The ship maintained stability throughout the surface transit with continuous operation of the Low Pressure Blower on the Forward Main Ballast Tanks. SAN FRANCISCO has experienced no reactor plant, propulsion train or electrical system degradations as a result of the grounding. The Commanding Officer shifted the Officer of the Deck's watch to the bridge on 10 January in preparation for piloting into Apra Harbor.

The critically injured Machinist Mate (Auxiliaryman) passed away yesterday afternoon as a result of his injuries. The MM2 was in Aft Main Seawater Bay at the time of the grounding and his body was thrown forward approximately 20 feet into Propulsion Lube Oil Bay. He suffered a severe blow to his forehead and never regained consciousness.

Emergency medical personnel, including a Naval Hospital Guam surgeon, Undersea Medical Officer and Independent Duty Corpsmen, arrived on the ship via helicopter transfer to provide immediate medical care and prepare the crewmember for medical evacuation on the morning of 9 January. Unfortunately, the sailor's condition deteriorated and he died onboard while under the care of the embarked physicians. Just moments prior to the sailors death, I spoke with the Sailor's father in preparation for their pending travel from Ohio to the West Pacific to see their Son. Since then I have passed on to his Dad my condolences on their Son's death and reassured them their Son's remains would be treated with utmost respect and dignity. His father expressed great gratitude for the extraordinary efforts made by the Navy to save his Son's life. He told me his Son loved the Navy, having just reenlisting earlier this year and wanted to make it a career. That when he called home he always talked about the many friendships and the wonderful camaraderie the crew of SFO exhibited. Prior to sailing, he was really excited about the pending ship visit to Australia. The parents are considering traveling to Guam, with Navy support, at some point to meet the crew and partake in a memorial service for his Son.

For the remainder of the transit, the embarked medical trauma team administered medical care to the other injured personnel. Their careful attention and evaluation augments the ship's Independent Duty Corpsman's heroic efforts since the grounding.

Submarine Squadron Fifteen COMMODORE, Captain Brad Gerhke and Captain Paul Bushong, Commanding Officer of the Submarine Tender USS FRANK CABLE have mobilized their assets, staffs, crews and local Navy Community to provide comprehensive support to the SAN FRANCISCO. Professional counselors, medical personnel and Navy Chaplains are scheduled to meet with the entire crew to provide grief counseling and assistance throughout the next several days and as required over the long term. Brad has been meeting frequently with the SFO families and they are doing remarkable well. The entire Navy community in Guam has come to the SFO's families' assistance. I have talked to Kevin Mooney's (SFO Skipper) wife, Ariel. Her state of mind is positive and resolute, with a courageous and upbeat view of the trying days ahead.

The ship's Main Ballast Tank damage and deformation has degraded maneuverability and mandated the use of two tugs to moor in Apra Harbor. A Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard/NAVSEA Material Assessment Team comprised of a structural engineer, MBT vent expert, air systems expert and naval architect arrived in Guam with special ship salvage and recovery equipment to stabilize the ship pierside as soon as possible. The team, led by Captain Charles Doty, commenced a seaworthiness and repair assessment upon the ship's arrival. Once additional buoyancy measures are in place and tested satisfactory, the Low Pressure Blower will be secured to allow divers to enter the water to conduct an inspection. While this grounding is a tragedy, with a through investigation led by Cecil Haney, we will find out all the facts and then ensure we learn from the mistakes. But, I too believe we have much to be thankful for today, and much to be confident in. An operational warship has returned to port on her own power with all but one of its crew after sustaining major hull damage. The survival of the ship after such an incredibly hard grounding (nearly instantaneous deacceleration from Flank Speed to 4 KTS) is a credit to the ship design engineers and our day-to-day engineering and watchstanding practices. The continuous operation of the propulsion plant, electrical systems and navigation demonstrates the reliability of our equipment and the operational readiness of our crews as a whole. The impressive Joint and Navy team effort which resulted in SFO returning to port safely says volumes about the ingenuity and resourcefulness of all our armed services. For all who participated in this effort, thank you and your people. We are all eternally grateful to each of you.

Very Respectfully - Paul Sullivan

A Family View of MM2(SS) Ashley

2005-01-12T07:56:00.000-05:00

I located the article below here with no information as to the original author. It sounds like a newspaper article. If anyone is aware of the proper credit, please let me know so I can post it with the article. In any case, it just seems fitting to post it here.

_______________________

The Dixie song played by Joseph Ashley's green Jeep could be heard whenever he drove it through his neighborhood.

The song came from the car's horn, patterned after his favorite 1980s television show, The Dukes of Hazzard.

"We always knew where he was in Manchester,'' said his father, Dan Ashley.

But since 2001, when Joseph Ashley joined the Navy, those noises have seldom been heard.
A few months ago, Dan Ashley blew the horn to see if it still worked, and people started calling to ask if his son was home.

Joseph Ashley will be flown home this week, but he will be escorted by four to six of his crew members.

The 24-year-old Navy man died Sunday after a submarine accident. The family was told Friday their son hit his head on a pump when the nuclear submarine he was stationed on ran aground about 350 miles from its home port in Guam.

The Navy was preparing to fly Vicki and Dan Ashley to their son's bedside. They knew the injury was serious, but their son was holding on.

On television Friday night, the parents watched and sympathized with the families of six soldiers who were killed in a car bombing in Iraq.

"I said those families would love to be in our position, because at least our son is alive,'' Dan Ashley said.

They went to bed unsettled, but relieved.

Vicki Ashley tossed and turned so much that night she moved to the couch in the living room to try to rest.

"I couldn't sleep, but when I saw a flash of lights from a car pulling into the driveway about 2 a.m., I knew my Joey was gone,'' she said. ``I looked out the window and saw two men dressed in uniform. I ran to tell my husband.''

The men confirmed her fears.

"I nodded to them to go ahead. I already knew what they had to say,'' said Dan Ashley, a former Navy man himself. They stood at attention and announced Machinist's Mate 2nd Class Ashley's death.

It was then the parents learned their son died while medics prepared him for transport to a military hospital. He had never regained consciousness from the accident. The Navy has launched an investigation into the accident, in which 19 other sailors were injured.

His parents will now fly to Guam for a memorial service with his shipmates and commanders. A second memorial service will be held in Canal Fulton, when their son is brought home.

Machinist's Mate 2nd Class Ashley was about 5 feet 11 inches tall with blond hair, blue eyes and a big smile.

"When he had his heart set on something, he would try his best to get it done,'' said his mother. "I always told him to do what he wanted to do in life, but to be the best at it and to always try his hardest.''

He attended Stark State College of Technology for a year and took welding classes, but he couldn't find a welding job after he got certified.

One day he came home and shared his future plans.

"He said, `Mom I passed the Navy test; I'm going to do what daddy did. He always excelled in what he did.' ''

He made rank in minimal time and was named Junior Sailor of the Year for the entire Guam naval base.

"He loved the Navy, and he loved his country. He just signed up for another four years. He said he was young and wanted to make a career out of it,'' she said. He had just completed the fourth year of his original 5-year enlistment.

His father spent eight years in the Navy.

His grandfather, also named Joseph, was in the U.S. Army during World War II. Machinist's Mate 2nd Class Ashley and his grandfather talked often because he was also stationed in the South Pacific during his time in the service.

Machinist's Mate 2nd Class Ashley wasn't afraid to share his feelings with his family. He called at least once a month to share what he was doing and to find out what other families were doing. There was never a time he called that he didn't tell family members how much he loved them.
The family last talked to him on Jan 3. He was excited about coming home in March -- his first visit home in 18 months.

His father had just recently made airplane reservations.

The green Jeep Wrangler was waiting for the young sailor, who graduated from Manchester High School in 1999 and played the drums in the high school band. He played freshman football, then joined the band in his sophomore year.

Family members said he was always happy, wearing a big smile and beating his drums while marching in the band.

His older brother, Dan Jr., also a Dukes of Hazzard fan, sawthe show's impact on his brother.
"He always thought of himself as a good ol' Southern country boy wearing his cowboy hat, a red and black checkered shirt with steel-toed black boots.''

Dan Jr. said his brother sported a Confederate flag and the word ``redneck'' on his Jeep, not because he was a rebel, but because he loved the good ol' boy brothers and their driving tactics on the television show.

"He liked to stand out in a crowd,'' said his younger brother, Benjamin. ``Dan and I are the quiet ones. Joseph would be more likely to do the talking for us both.''

He will be buried at Fox Cemetery near Spencer, W. Va., where the family owns 35 acres and a cabin, a place where he spent many good times.

Machinist's Mate 2nd Class Ashley will be buried next to his great grandfather and namesake, Joseph Ashley, also a veteran.

You can see the cemetery from the crest of the hill of the cabin's property, family members say. They remember the last time their Navy son and brother was on leave.

"One of our last memories is of Joey parked in his Jeep at the crest of the hill playing that Dixie song,'' Dan Ashley said. Family members heard him say: ``Hallelujah, I'm home.''

So family members know what they must now do.

"We will play that horn one more time in his memory at his burial.''

Early Reports....

2005-01-10T20:01:00.000-05:00

Based on some e-mails from third-party family members of crewmembers, the story is shaping up something like this:

High speed submerged transit (30 knots, 500 feet depth), the ship ran into an uncharted sea mount. Front of boat crushed inward (accordian fashion) but pressure hull did not rupture. The rapid deceleration threw all onboard violently forward (just like passengers in a car would be tossed forward in a head-on collision) injuring many.

Damaged equipment threatened the ability of the boat to get to and stay afloat on the surface, but heroic actions by well-trained crewmembers allowed them to save the ship.

It will be interesting to see if the story remains like this as facts are developed; of course, there is still the question of how much official information will be made public.

Message from a USS San Francisco Crewmember

2005-01-10T19:57:00.000-05:00

Post number 955 on this page:

Posted by Dean Adams ET2(SS) USS San Francisco SSN-711 on Mon - Jan 10 - 11:52am:

First off I would like to thank everyone who has offered prayers for us over these past few days. It really means alot to the crew to know that the sub force cares about us.

Second, I know it's human nature to speculate but I have read the previous posts and they are way off.

Third, CDR. Mooney is a Capt in the finest sense of the word. No matter what happens, He is MY Captain!

Fourth, Rest in Peace shipmate to my fallen comrade Cooter. It's hard to type this as I am tearing up just thinking about his passing.

Lastly, I have just been able to go topside to see the extent of the damage and if not for the finest Captain and best crew in the sub force, She would not have brought us home.

HOOOYAH San Francisco!!

Message From MM2(SS) Ashley's LCPO

2005-01-10T10:26:00.000-05:00

Click here to read a tribute to the lost shipmate written by his Leading Chief upon San Francisco's return to port. Moving.

Recovering from the shock...

2005-01-10T10:05:00.000-05:00

OK, I'm settling down here from the shock of tragedy aboard San Francisco, and the typical nuke inquisitiveness is taking over. How could such a thing as this happen? Underwater sea mount? Aren't those waters pretty well charted now that we're deep into the satelite age and 21st century?

I know, investigations, courts of inquiry, etc. will determine all that. I hope they don't keep it too secret too long.

I always knew throughout my 20 career in the sub force that it was dangerous business. But I can not remember anything of this magnitude (nearly a fifth of the crew - 24 - injured) during my service. Some shaky times farting around with soviet boats, the major hydraulic leak in the engine room that filled the air with hydraulic fog, the flooding that turned out to be water that was already in the people tank, not from the sea-- all dangerous moments, but now seems as nothing by comparison with what the crew of the San Francisco must have experienced - in peace time, while heading for a great liberty port!

I guess this is emotion talking. For a bit more level-headed assessment in progress, take a look at the bubblehead blog.

Reflections....

2005-01-09T01:40:00.000-05:00

Its now been nearly 2 days since the news broke about USS San Francisco's grounding, and just hours since the news that the critically injured shipmate died. The early reports indicate that there are 23 other sailors injured with broken bones and lacerations.

As a retired submariner, this news lays heavy on my heart. I have no idea who the injured and dead are, but on the other hand, it seems as if they are all my dear friends because of the tight brotherhood of bubbleheads.

I'm so anxious to learn more of this disaster, but there is little news yet except that the reactor is running and the ship headed for home. Hear are some links to the news stories (though all say pretty much the same thing):

The Star Online Swiss Info CNN China View Turkish Press