In 2011, the writer published WHY THE USS SCORPION (SSN-589) WAS LOST based exclusively on analyses of acoustic defection of collapse of the pressure-hull by a single hydrophone in the Canary Islands. That analysis established the disaster occurred because of the explosion of hydrogen out-gassed by the main battery and not - as maintained by the Court of inquiry (COI) - because of "the explosion of a large charge weight external to the pressure hull" - as if such explosive objects were just freely floating around in the east-central Atlantic and SCORPION just happened to run into one. The COI's assessment made no sense and analysis confirmed it was wrong.
Lurking in the back of my mind was the loss of the USS THRESHER (SSN-593) and my analysis of HMCS Shelburne (FOX array) detections of the event which I provided in testimony before the THRESHER COI.
The event lurked in my mind because - in 2009 - refined analysis of the collapse signal confirmed the event had occurred at a depth of 2400-feet and there had been no prior flooding - contrary to the COI assertion that flooding had occurred at test-depth (1300-feet) and was the cause of the disaster, conclusions already posted on this site.
That refined analysis also confirmed THRESHER was heavy at test-depth (out of trim). She sank 1100-feet in 9.5 minutes for an average sink-rate of 120 feet a minute when there had been no flooding. The only possible explanation for that extraordinary sink-rate with no flooding was failure to adjust trim for hull compression with depth. If you don't pump enough water overboard to compensate for volume lost because of hull compression with depth, you effectively gain 1000 pounds for every 100 feet of increased depth.
The implication that arise from that conclusion was something I was not ready to tackle in any book until I found Opinion 49 in the THRESHER COI Report which reads: (quote) Yet, in conscience, the Court must report that there are causes in the personnel field which may well have contributed to the loss of THRESHER, and which deserve earliest attention at the highest level. (end quote).
So, even without knowing that hull collapse occurred at a depth of 2400-feet and the sink-rate to that depth had been at an average of 120 feet per minute, the THRESHER COI - in 1963 - suspected that what they very obliquely called "causes in the personnel field" had contributed to the loss of THRESHER.
Work on the other shoe (WHY THE USS THRESHER (SSN-593) WAS LOST) now continues.
Dear Mr. Rule,
I’m the guy that wrote awhile back asking you about how a person could find the original hydrophone data from Las Palmas in reference to the sinking of the USS Scorpion. You replied that the data charts had been maintained by Mr. McMillin, who passed away several years ago. I think you put out enough information in your “Why the USS Scorpion was Lost” book on the 13th and 14th pages (collapse acoustics and hydrophone A readings) whereby anyone could see what happened to the sub.
Anyway, I had a question concerning the Precursor Event on the third line (2 events), time 1837:41.3Z from Hydrophone A.
I’m not certain whether or not anyone has a hydrophone reading and any hydro-acoustic signatures of a battery exploding inside the pressure hull of a nuclear submarine (sound recorded outside without a so-called “bubble pulse”).
However, my question for you, sir: what did you use as a model that pointed you toward a battery explosion inside the submerged hull of the USS Scorpion?
I will be looking forward to anything you may publish on the USS Thresher. I remember reading about the USS Thresher loss during 1972 in a book called The Death of the Thresher.
