55 Years After Thresher Disaster, Navy Still Keeps Secrets on Sub Loss

PO1 Tony Holland Thresher was even a little before my time in the Navy, but also a huge mystery is the 1968 USS Scorpion SSN-589 sinking with the loss of all hands. I was in the Navy at that time and there has been a lot of scuttlebutt about that incident, which is also a very secret report.

My initial response would be, we are called the silent service for a reason. But seriously, I view it this way. Although it was a tragic loss, it was the catalyst for the Subsafe/Level 1 program that would be backfitted or designed into all submarines that have since been built and in my estimation, saved many lives and submarines. I do believe there was some sort of casualty that required an emergency blow and when initiated, there was excessive dew point in the compressed air, which allowed the moisture to freeze in the emergency blow valves that stopped the air flow, thus not allowing enough air into the ballast tanks to create positive buoyancy. They now have very stringent dew point criteria that must be met and has oversight from the Squadron and IMA level. Another aspect of design change was the emergency flood control system, which was a separate hydraulic system that in the event of normal hydraulic failure, this system would shut all hull valves. Design error? Flooding? Not sure. But the result, a very improved safety systems.

Great share Tony, thank you.