The Submarine that Crashed into a Mountain 

playing bumper ships in the Pacific is a time honored tradition in the us navy

"...fully submerged, they( Seawolf class) can displace between 9k and 12k lbs...." FAIL.

I think the take-away here is just knowing that even though we've been braving the oceans for hundreds of years, there are huge parts of it that remain "unknown" as far as oceanographic mapping is concerned. I remember a similar incident near Guam involving the USS San Francisco (SSN 711) maybe 16 or 17 years ago. Again, faulty charts, poor navigation planning resulted in the accident. One crewman died in that accident if I remember correctly. Unlike TV, we do not have bow windows (would be totally useless anyhow) and do not use active sonar for navigation purposes. As one other viewer pointed out, "mountains do not make noise". Sad to read about though. The author had difficulty with the displacement values he was reporting. I served onboard the USS Jacksonville (SSN 699) and she displaced 9600 tons. Seawolf class is larger, which means more water volume displaced. Not sure if his 9000 pounds should have been 9000 tons, but even that number seems low to me.

The first report of this I seen had USS Connecticut off course by a significant margin, straying into an area on the chart clearly marked as a danger to navigation at depth. Though the 'exact' location of the danger was not listed. The ship had had issues brought up in the last two navigation evaluations accomplished. Lack of training or a complete lack of care for their boat. Yes, the Captain, the Exec, and the Chief of the Boat should have gotten sacked. Also the sounder was known to be reading wrong. The day watch notified the conn, but this information was not convened to the next two watches. Because the unit was 'known' to be reading wrong the numbers recorded in the log were an issue for the investigators. I believe the C.O.B. was returned to duty with a letter.

I'm from Guam and remember this incident. Being an Environmental Specialist working with a company that has many contracts with the military, I built a few temporary decontamination units for the personnel working on the submarine. The crumpled nose (sonar) section was comparable to how the front of a vehicle looked after a head-on collision except the metal was in excess of 3 inches thick. If you've never seen a submarine of this size in dry dock, they're much larger than many can imagine. Prayers go out to the crew and the crew member who lost his life. May he rest in paradise 🙏🏼

The San Fran 711 hit a mountain and survived, what the Connecticut actually hit will likely never be disclosed. But it’s a good video and good story.

I was conning in the South China Sea onboard USS Stockdale when this happened. We were sent to covertly escort the Connecticut back to port so as not to alert the Chinese to the situation. Twas one of the coolest and scariest things I’ve been apart of, glad no one was seriously hurt from it.

I am a retired QMC(SS). Your story stated that the CO, XO and CMC (COB) were relieved for cause. If the issue was navigation, why was the Navigator and the ANAV not also relieved? This is a very standard practice when there is a "Navigational Error". QMC(SS) USN (Ret.) 83-04

934 pounds, a paper or plastic submarine, must also be filled with helium.

I was fishing on the Bering Sea on a large factory trawler. The first mate swallowed a sea mount while at the helm. The entire cod end was filled with mud, we drug that that net through the ocean for hours trying to flush it out of the net, It was a mud slick like I have never seen before, even after trying to get it all out, by the time we got it on deck and emptied it, the mix was starfish, cod and a gooey mud. We had to break out the fire hose to wash off the fish and spent hours shoveling and washing the deck. The factory foremen were pissed because the mud got down into the live tanks and ruined many blades in the fillet machinery. That first mate got his ass chewed and was gone as soon as we hit Dutch. The mount was charted and he had the instruments to see the sea floor. He F'ed up, at least no major damage was done, but he was still held accountable for his mistake. I can't imagine how scary a sub hitting one of those at 20 knots would be, I bet the crew was shitting their pants.

I served on the SSN 702 and SSN 705. Submerged displacement for those boats was 6,900 Tons. The SSN 711 ran into a seamount in 2005. Yes, there was one fatality, a MM2 from A Division.

There are more planes in the ocean than submarines in the sky 🤌

The bear was looking for a Klondike bar

1:17.......Fully submerged they can 'display' between 9,000 and 12,000 pounds, depending on the load. Think that should say 'displace' and 9k and 12k tons. These mistakes should not happen. 3:31.......USS Connecticut is mentioned but very old Nautilus film is shown.

This incident sounds like a CFIT on an airplane. In both cases, plane or sub, this is usually due to pilot error and firing the top brass of this sub was the right thing to do. As with CFIT in commercial airplanes a more careful selection of human ressources might have prevented this incident. I wonder if the navy has implemented CRM on their subs. Or if the tendency to operate within a rigid hierarchical command structure has prevented or hampered this. If this is the case the navy better reassess their way of running things on subs.

This was actually kind of an atrocity of incompetence. CO, XO, CoB all relieved.

Ever since I was a kid, I always thought it was amazing how these subs could navigate under water without being able to see

As a former submariner I understand how difficult it would be to put video clips of nuclear powered submarines together for a video or documentary/video. Still I find difficult to watch when the boats on screen have no connection to the boat in question. The USS Nautilus is light years away from USS Seawolf.

The memory of that crash must be ‘Haunting in Connecticut’

I was a steam turbin machinist / mechanical assembler at Westinghouse Marine Division in Sunnyvale, CA from 1982-1994. During those years the SSN21, SSN22, SSN23 Seawolf turbins, gearing and related components were manucafured, Im very proud of the personal time I have invested in those turbines. The stealthy Seawolfs have the most powerful turbins which equals speed, technically advanced weapon systems and are still the most deadly submarines ever put to sea. The truth of the matter is the forward looking navigation radar was malfunctioning in a way the crew could not detect that, and the sub ran into that mountain.

A submerged submarine displaces its volume weight of water. Its actual weight is irrelevant. It's like a 12 vs 16 lbs bowling ball. They're the same size and displace the same amount of water.

@0:46 The ships patch on his uniform is from the USS Nautilus SSN-571.

Subs don't use active sonar they listen. Mountains are silent

@Dark Seas You've got some units messed up here. There's a big difference between pounds and tons. It's Mark 48, not Em Kay

👽"They do exist!"👽~The Polar Bear.... (I'll bet it went home and told all of the other Polar Bears that it nearly got abducted)

good vid. hadn't heard of this mishap. I'm thinking that the san francisco had a similar mishap back in 2005. same story over command, procedures weren't followed etc...

A couple of thoughts... Like USS San Francisco and USS Nathaniel Green both of whom ran into a charted seamount. Seamounts are usually charted. In both of those cases, the seamounts were on the charts but were improperly annotated or were ignored the watch standing team. I have to assume the that the same is true for Connecticut. The fact is the ocean is extremely well charted. The fault lies primarily with the watch standing team. THE PEOPLE FAILED! As for damage to the ship, unlike San Francisco, that had to have the bow compartment cut off and then replaced by the one from USS Honolulu, Connecticuts damage was minimal. The important thing to remember is in all of these cases none of these ships were lost. While the loss of life on San Fransisco is sad, it wasn't any worse.

I thought it was human error that caused the crash. I was led to believe that the sonar was on the wrong setting leading to the sonar not picking up the ocean floor.

I served aboard submarines for 22 years! TMC/SS. This wasn't a sonar system malfunction! Simple dereliction of duty by watch standers over hours of operation of an important evolution! Given the punishments and firings handed out, that lets you know it wasn't the submarine! This crew was unsatisfactory in training before they went to sea and shouldn't have been put to sea on this mission. And there were recommendations to not allow them to go from training officers. Soundings is the key word! Soundings determine how far the bottom is from the bottom of the submarine.! Nobody over a period of several watches were updating that important evolution. The OOD's weren't noticing it. Finally it was realized too late. I commend the crew for saving themselves and the submarine!

At the moment it said there was classified and unclassified info that differed, all details I heard I assumed were wrong. Still a great story as I listen to while eating lunch.

It wasn’t a sonar malfunction. Submarines use passive listening sonar. Do your diligence in research. The problem was out of date and bad maps as they navigated by DR.

@ 6:08 You mentioned the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard in Guam. PSNS is in Bremerton Washington. I worked there for 5 years and lived overlooking it. Otherwise. Thanks for the video. I always enjoy these!

"Just the tip" That's what she said...

9000lbs wow that's more than my truck lol

Newsflash, these waters are def not UNKNOWN to US SUBS, they transit those waters more than one would think. ITs also an area prone to huge earthquakes.😊

Not being Navy, I still cannot believe that no one on the crew wasn't concerned with how the ship was acting. Nope, don't believe it.

3.5 billion and they have someone of questionable ability commanding it? Ffs

In the late 80s, I was stationed on a submarine tender. Occasionally a boat would return in a different condition then when it left. We didn't ask, they didn't tell. I recall one with a scope trying to be an allen wrench and another with it's towed array on deck.

Wow the USS Connecticut has about the same amount of water. displacement as a Ford F350 driven into a canal!!! I wonder how they managed to do that!!! The US military is truly amazing!!!

Sub brief has a video explaining what happened in detail.

It can dive deep under water and hit a under water mountain.. happened a couple of times

U.S. ballistic submarine suffers polar bear attack. Wait, what?

Surprisingly, only about 20% of the sea floor is mapped.

Did anyone interview the mountain for it's side of the story?

This video got a bit confusing, as it appears different subs were featured. 🤷‍♂

Around 3:30 mark there is a picture of sub 571. Isn't that the USS Nautilus? I met a former officer from it this summer. I also met the former Commodore of the Pacific Attack subs, one of whose subs, USS_San_Francisco_(SSN-711), hit an under water mountain. His story was basically the same as what is in Wikipedia with a little more detail.

Did you mean 9000 tons?? 👍🙋‍♂️🖖🏻

Malfunction or not..... The Captain got hung out to dry😒!!!!

I wasn’t on a Seawolf class but that section removed is “just the tip”. It’s called the sonar sphere and it’s a free flood area.

God I love our government. "Sub it a mountain it needs 13 million in repairs." Congress well here is 50 million

Let's not all be so critical. Only a few dollars involved. Look at how many Submarines we have cruising around 24/7 functioning solely on electronics to get around. No windows like Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea. Remember that 1960s ?

Yeah just a spare nuclear sub dome lying around like custum ordered exclusive military naval components and parts like a surplus warehouse.

"Just the Tip" . . . . giggity.

“Single shaft” but all of the b-roll footage are dual shaft submarines. I served abroad a submarine that hit an underwater mountain years before I came aboard. The damage to the hull caused it to corkscrew in the water at flank speed.

It is videos like this that make me thankful I chose to go the surface fleet direction instead of becoming a submariner when I was in the Navy.

3 months prior to this incident, she hit a pier while in San Diego. And it'll take at least FIVE YEARS for her to be repaired. The Navy has a huge backlog of repairs, while the Chinese and Russian Navy is more than prepared to inflict severe losses on naval vessels. And look at the U.S.S. Bonhomme Richard. She was tied up and had access to every type of fire suppression systems available, yet she was a total loss... Why ???.. Piss poor leadership, an undertrained crew, etc. The U.S. Navy IS NOT prepared for a major naval engagement on any level....

I was working with a guy who'd just rotated off that boat and we saw the message traffic come in about it as it happened. He confirmed the command climate was so terrible he left the sub community for ours.

It could be the first DUI on an atomic sub.

9000 tons, not pounds.

That title is how a professional does clickbait. Holy cow. I've never tapped any link so hard. Cool story, too. Thank you!

I've got the impression that you maby should release less videos, and instead pay more attention to proof of contents and credibility. 👍

“Fully submerged she can display between 9000-12000 pounds” you mean fully submerged she can displace 9000-12000 *tons* . Almost every video on this channel has inaccuracies like this.

I keep hearing pounds when you refer to displacement. Do you mean tons?

Uncertainties abound in an accident, but the one constant remains unshakable: The Navy Always Lies.

This highlights the fact that service members face significant risks, even during "peace time".

How could a malfunctioning sonar not being detected by the modern "self-diagnostic" advanced electronics on board? There should have been at least two such "highly-classified" sonars installed, and not left to chance.

While stationed in Charleston 1977, there was an SSN that also hit a mountain. Really messed up the front.

its a good thing we had an extra sonar dome hanging around , that was the last spare part of any kind for the seawolf

There’s also what’s going on in Hawaii on the island of Oahu with the water contamination at the Red hill jet fuel storage tanks effecting the water at the military housing.

Just the tip....... 🤣🤣🤣🤣

Can you do a recap of what happened to the the Japanese training ship Ehime Maru .

I remember the first time I heard about a Seawolf class, was in the movie Down periscope, where Kelsey grammar's character at the end was given a sea wolf class instead of the Los Angeles.

They really pissed off that polar bear

This ain't the only one. There are many more that one would expect!

Dude I like your videos. Your research is excellent. But having imagery that is directly relevant to the commentary is important for authenticity and credibility. For example, at the beginning your talking about the Seawolf development but then your showing stock images from old docos from the 1950s. Then at 7:13 your talking about the US Navy investigation but showing some random stock footage from a NATO meeting with Jens Stoltenberg which is nothing to do with subs. I would rather you make and show less videos but get all the imagery right.

Would have been nice if oyu included metric figures into your video. As I have stated before: it sucks to always pause the video and grab the calculator to transform this infamous imperial figures into someting understandable. Oh, and: the displacement of a ship is given in tons, not pounds!

USS Ray. Sub Squadron 4. Charleston. Fondly known as Ricochet Ray.

a military case of Costa Concordia class of sea accident...

Always interesting and informative content. Thank you.

I think the officers of this sub were sacrificed. You don’t get a captain billet in a nuke sub out or a cereal box. He was fully trained. I think something was broken or faulty and they got the blame for it.

Polar Bear went back home and told his buddies "Yeah, so I was out walking around this thing just popped up out of nowhere!!" His buddies didn't believe he'd seen a USO

That would have been nice to tell us when their ship was going to be recommissioned

I hope we are developing underwater drones to assist subs in navigation and tracking of enemy vessels.

Suddenly a mountain jumped out in front of me. - Pilot

“dum dum dee dum dee doo dee doo dee dum de- ** whump **……………. ……. 🤷‍♂️…. dum dum dee doo dee…”

The Seawolf was the first sub to achieve 50 knots. It only lasted a few minutes, due to a piece of the superstructure ripping off and damaging the screw.. But it is the fastest sub ever built.

The excellent narrative is diminished by the out of date video illustrations.

Always enjoy your work...however you included near the beginning images of WW2 subs

You repeated state the weight in pounds when it should be in tons. Quite a big difference there. LOL

No way they are going to let that boat retire. It has certain capabilities that would cost too much to implement on a different one. ... and naturally cheaper is better

💥💥 GREAT channel, thank you Sir

gotta love the suits all happy about the occasion

I'm about to go spend another shift on the White Sands. I think often of the Sailors, Marines, and vessels that were raised on that dock during the war.

Assume that 1 or 2 foreign countries are out there picking up the classified pieces of sonar equipment that was left out there

Good video but I’m surprised you didn’t reference the USS San Francisco grounding as it was caused by the same series of issues. Love your Dark channels especially Dark Sea; however, here are some finer points for future reference: - No one in the Silent Service says “MK” torpedo. It’s spoken “Mark 48” - It was just the “tip” of the hull that was removed. The SONAR dome is a one piece unit of glass reinforced plastic sometimes booted in rubber. Once damaged to a point it’s unsafe to navigate with it attached, it must be removed in whole. The bulkhead visible in the video looks like the forward bulkhead of the forward main ballast tank group. It's likely the spherical array, hemispherical array and forward portion of the hull array were lost or crushed but those all exist in the free flood section well forward of the pressure hull AKA "People Tank". - Please don’t say, “Boat Chief” the title is “Chief of the Boat” and it’s inappropriate to adjust the title’s structure as it is a hard-earned position many strive their entire career to achieve. It is appropriate to abbreviate the title to “COB” spoken “cob” like corn on the cob.

San Francisco here let’s talk Teddy Roosevelt carried 16 big sticks still couldn’t beat the bottom of ocean Lots of boats have hit “things”!! I wonder if any boats have hit shipping containers that have fallen off ships and achieved neutral buoyancy or slowly sinking. Maybe the fiberglass nose is our 5knot federally mandated bumper 601 & 665 Power & Light Dept

This is a propaganda video to distract viewers from the anomalous events that have and are happening to submarines the world over. These things as described do occur, but it is always curious to me how the other TOTALLY unexplainable things never see the light of day. I was a submariner for several decades. The oceans are ALOT stranger than the world knows. Explain a crash or bump in the middle of an ocean that's several miles deep... You'll never see the completely unexplainable events logically talked about openly. The bottom line is that there is something in the oceans we can't or won't admit to publicly.

They spent less than half a percent of the build cost for maintenance that’s pretty darn good. Compare that to your Prius

Well commentaded

They absolutely knew the Sonar wasn't operating as they were scheduled to have a part installed at their next port call to make the necessary repairs. It was poor reporting by the Sonarmen, inadequate/negligent charting practices by the Quartermasters and a lack of adequate supervision by the Captain that caused this whole mess to happen as per the Navy's own incident report.