Submarine not missing

By Bull Nav

It appears that there were indications last night that USS SAN JUAN (SSN751) may have been in trouble

NORFOLK (NNS) -- During the early evening of March 13, units of the USS Enterprise Carrier Strike Group (CSG) received a series of indications that USS San Juan (SSN 751), a Los Angeles class submarine conducting pre-deployment training with the Enterprise CSG, was in distress.

However, the excitement was short-lived

Fortunately, the submarine established communications in the early morning hours of March 14, and indicated that there were no problems; hence, units were able to stand down from the search and rescue that was already well underway.

There are certain things a submarine can do to indicate it is in trouble. Shooting a red flare is one of them.

Losses of communications, followed by the reported sighting of a red flare, are distress indicators. These indicators, combined with establishing communications with only two of the three submarines operating with the Enterprise CSG, was sufficient information to activate missing submarine procedures.

Navy News has the whole statement. Once again we see that even during exercises, there is no room for error and that we take enormous risks every time we go to sea. The last time we lost a submarine was in 1968. I will have a cold one for those guys tonight...

UPDATE:The Sub Report has links to a lot of the articles out there about this issue.

UPDATE TWO: CBS News reported that a SUBSUNK message was sent at about 0330 this morning. That is significant because it meant the families were notified.
The timeline appears to be: 1930 - red flare sighted. Attempts made to contact all three subs. Two were contacted. The SJ was not. 2200 - SJ does not communicate per a previously agreed upon plan. 0530 - SJ communicates when it thought it was supposed to. It will be interesting to see what the investigation finds.

March 14, 2007 08:15 AM Navy ~ Submarine Warfare

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Comments

heh, I'm sure they'll be delighted to know that you're drinking in their honor BN.

John · March 14, 2007 09:03 AM

ps - how many people do you think were woken up last night?

Betcha a buffalo nickel that it went all the way up to (at minimum) the SECDEF level.

John · March 14, 2007 07:18 PM

In fact, according to this morning's Virginian Pilot (VA Beach), SECDEF was informed in the wee hours of the morning. So were the families...

bullnav · March 15, 2007 01:43 AM

I really, really hope this is all disinformation.

Arcs · March 15, 2007 06:56 AM

Arcs - I am sure it is not. I suspect that COMSUBLANT issued their press release yesterday because they got to the point in the missing submarine procedure where the families were notified. Once that happened, it would only be a matter of time before someone called the New London Day and told them...

bullnav · March 15, 2007 08:05 AM

Just the thought sends chills through my body - not being a Navy man, I'm terrified of the ocean!

GregS · March 15, 2007 09:38 AM

Yep, that was kinda crazy to hear... From my experience, I'm pretty sure of what happened. As far as the family members being notified... that was messed up.

FormerSTS2 · March 17, 2007 11:21 AM

I am glad that didn't happen when I was riding that pig. I do believe my mother would have had a heart attack.

FormerEM2 USS SAN JUAN · March 21, 2007 09:15 PM

I know exactly how you feel, FormerEM2! One time, we weren't back a whole day yet, and the XO relayed a message to me from Group 2 that they weren't amused that my Mom didn't understand why they couldn't compromise the classified nature of a Trident submarine's alert patrol schedule to tell her when I was going to be back. She would have freaked right out if she got a call like that. Probably no good way for them to handle it, though - you either make the calls like they did this time and take the heat for the false alarm, or you wait, and take the heat for not putting out the info you have, when you have it.

f'n nuc to you coner · March 23, 2007 01:59 PM

sounds like the good ol san juan was doin her job if no one could find her...way to go..maby they got to pull into florida to get a spankin.. or least get tore up drunk...when i was the captain well least i thought i was the captain at the time.we got into a fender bender and all we got was a dry dock period and sent to the med for six months.....but hey we still got tore up drunk afterwards.........a gangers rule

a gangers rule · April 5, 2007 09:30 PM