BULLETIN 33

THE HARTFORD INCIDENT

The following description is paraphrased from the lead article in the Navy Times, dated 19, July 2004. While it is not the custom of SRC to reprint already-distributed information, the Hartford Incident is so painfully amazing that it is offered here for those who do not have easy access to the Navy Times. Old diesel sailors can take heart that their primitive methods would have come in handy on the Hartford.

The USS Hartford (SSN-768) is a nuclear powered fast attack submarine. Its navigation equipment uses a global positioning system backed up with both military and civilian portable global positioning systems as well as an inertial navigation system. The most used and most depended upon system for piloting is the AN/BPS-15 radar system with Voyage Management. This is a computer with radar input that automatically plots ship's course and speed. The DRT is electronic and plots a running own-ship's position using a varietry of inputs. It is located on the starboard side of the control room. Backing up the basic navigation equipment and sophisticated satellite positioning system are radar, sonar, and fathometer information. The information available to the plotting party is varied and abundant.

The navigation plotting party is made up of the navigator (an officer), the assistant navigator and secondary plot supervisor (both chief electronic technicians) and two plotters who are petty officers. The executive officer is in control where he supervises the plotting party.

On the bridge (on this particular day) was the commanding officer, the officer of the deck, junior officer of the deck, two telephone talkers, a lookout, a gunner and the squadron commander who was riding the Hartford as an evaluator of performance. It was a windy day, with clear skies. The channel sea condition was calm. The bridge was crowded as the commanding officer split his energies between keeping the squadron commander conversationally happy and overseeing the officer of the deck. Communication with control was via the telephone talker and a hand-held walkie-talkie between C.O. and exec. in control. The wind necessitated the captain kneeling to shield his voice from the wind when giving orders via the telephone talker. Walkie-talkie communication was even more difficult. There were various small boats in the channel, some making nuisances of themselves by darting across the boat's bow.

The channel is the entrance to Maddalena, Sardinia where the Navy has a base and the tender, Emory S. Land. This particular installation offers a pilot in an accompanying tug to escort submarines in and out of the tricky channel.

As is the case with all accidents there occurred on the morning of October 25, 2003 a series of simultaneous failures any one of which by itself would not be a significant problem.

1. The AN/BPS-15 gave spurious indications just as the boat got underway. This displays a digital electronic plot of ship's course and speed. The display failed to properly generate.

2. After the plotting party realized that the DRT wasn't giving accurate information, it attempted to quickly switch to traditional charts, but the area of the channel involving one of four critical turns happened to be at the edge of the chart necessitating using two charts simultaneously. Because the plotting party had not recently used piloting charts its members argued about basics.. This took place as the Hartford was making nine knots through restricted waters.

3. The executive officer became accutely aware that the plotting party was in disarray. One of the officers had a panic attack and had to be removed by the doctor. This situation was aggravated by the departure of the assistant navigator and secondary plot supervisor who left to try and determine the cause of the AN/BPS-15 failure.

4. The navigation advisor, who was on the accompanying tug believed that the squadron commander would assist with navigation and so ordered the tug to shear away and return to the pier. The squadron commander believed the responsibility rested with the navigation advisor and so offered no advice.

The sum of these factors was that the commanding officer on the bridge relied on his executive officer in control to navigate the boat through the difficult passage, the executive officer depended on the plotting party to keep track of the ship's position and the squadron commander inserted himself into a complicated situation by distracting the commanding officer and at one point countermanding his orders for a speed change.

Rather than proceeding slowly to give the plotting party time to keep up, the commanding officer increased speed through the channel (at the behest of the squadron commander). This meant that the next critical turn would have to be made early. He estimated the correction, but was distracted by small boats and failed to give the course change on time.

In control the executive officer attempted to assist the fumbling navigation team, but by this time it was too late. Fourteen minutes had gone by without the plotting party knowing where the Hartford was. During this time GPS waypoint 25 was incorrectly set at waypoint 24. The fathometer operator called out that the sounding was 100 feet, then again as the instrument showed 83 feet. The soundings were decreasing rapidly, but the executive officer dismissed these warnings as possible instrument malfunctions. The fathometer red-lighted at 20 under the keel and the operator yelled this to the plotting party. His warning fell on deaf ears as the plotting party was lost in confusion.

Three minutes after the fathometer operator made his red-light report the boat struck a submerged rock. The commanding officer immediately ordered a back full bell only to be countermanded by the squadron commander who ordered ahead full. The Hartford which had bounced back from the impact now drove herself into the rock with renewed force.

The damage amounted to 9.3 million dollars in repair. The commanding officer, squadron commander, (who were both immediately relieved of command) executive officer and a couple of enlisted men in the plotting party received punitive letters of reprimand. This ended their careers in the Navy.

A simple crew's mess conversation could tell exactly what caused this incident:

1. Too much reliance on electronics and computers
2. Too complicated and too fluid a submarine command structure
3. Too little honesty in getting the word to the commanding officer that things were out of control