4 Theories of the USS SCORPION

in 1968 after completing a clandestine mission in the Atlantic us submarine scorpion checks in with its Command Center and charts a course for Hope 5 days later the family of the crew Waits on the dock for the submarine to arrive home it never [Music] does the USA scorpion was a skipjack class nuclear powered submarine that served in the United States Navy in the 1960s it was the first of its class to combine nuclear propulsion with the advanced Hull design of a diesel powered submarine skip Jacks were the fastest attack submarines of their time with speeds up to 33 knots it was quick maneuverable and could dive as deep as 220 M although the skip Jacks demonstrated Superior speed and handling they were also loud propulsion and Machinery noises transferred directly through the hull the low frequency sounds could be recorded by the new sosus array of sound surveillance systems developed by the US Navy sosus consists of a network of acoustic sensors or hydrophone arrays that use a sound channel to detect submarines and other underwater acoustic events at distances of hundreds of miles by listening to the low frequency sounds they generate the sound channel is a horizontal layer of water in the ocean sound waves emitted underwater bounce between the upper and lower lower layer in the channel allowing low frequency sound to travel great distances with minimal loss of energy the low frequency sound picked up by the hydrophone arrays are recorded and transmitted to a Shore station for analysis the source of the signal can be triangulated using three or more hydrophone arrays in different locations the early warning surveillance system led to the development of the quieter larger and deeper diving thresher and permit class submarines this new class submarine had sound deadening technology to make it stealthy along with other improvements unfortunately the skip Jacks couldn't be modified or upgraded with Advanced siling features they had a 65 ton TLX 53a main storage battery manufactured by G National Battery Incorporated the battery released more hydrogen when charged compared to its predecessor the TLX 53 used by a diesel submarine but that was an acceptable compromise because the skipjack nuclear submarine only used one battery and had the ability to eliminate the gas the diesel submarine like the Grayback class used four TLX 53 batteries another Innovation on the skip Jacks were the combination of the conning tower control room and attack Center in one space combining the functions in the operations compartment made it possible to use push button ballast control the push button electrical system system operated the valves hydraulically from the control room the overall layout made coordination of the weapons and ship Control Systems easier during combat operations for weapons the skip Jacks were equipped with Mark 37 Torpedoes with 150 kg Warhead and a homing sonar to automatically seek out targets their hell was incredibly strong and made from hy80 high strength steel with a crush depth of 550 M meaning they could dive to 550 M before they implode after the loss of the USS Thresher in April 1963 the Navy created the subsafe submarine safety program to correct maintain and build a safe and effective nuclear powered submarine Fleet under this program the Scorpion was set to receive two new Safety Systems during its full overhaul starting in June 1963 the first is an emergency seawater shut off valve and an emergency blow system but this was deferred until its next scheduled overhaul in 1967 with the onset of the Cold War and the ongoing war in Vietnam the military's resources were stretched to the limits to complicate things a naval sea systems command study revealed that 40% of the submarine's time was spent in the dry dock leaving only 60% of its time in active duty this worried the Navy leadership who felt that politicians may not support the nuclear submarine program if it were inefficient so the Navy created an experimental planned or reduced availability overhaul Concept in the submarine Fleet the program's aim was to save on the repair costs and increase the submarine's time on Act of Duty the Scorpion was one of those entered into the program on the 1st of February 1967 the Scorpion began its reduced availability overhaul scorpion sailed out of the dry dock on the 6th of October after having the cheapest submarine overhaul in the US Navy's history out of the $3.2 million spent on the Scorpion during its 8mon overhaul $2.3 million went into refueling and altering its reactor this is 84% less than the standard submarine overhaul of this class which lasted almost 2 years and cost more than $20 million the Scorpion had 109 incomplete work orders including a new latch on the trash disposal unit the two safety system upgrades and repairs to the hydraulic Stern and sail ples on the 23rd of March 1968 Commander Slattery drafted an emergency request for repairs he cited the poor state of the hull which had 3177 internal well defects and a series of leaking valves that restricted Scorpion's operating depth to 91 M which is 61 M shallower than the new subsafe regulations this earned the submarine the nickname USS scrap iron the first quarter of 1968 is eventful for the world's navies Israel France and the Soviets have each lost a submarine in mysterious circumstances the most recent is the Soviet ballistic missile submarine the k129 which has vanished in the Pacific this is at the height of the Cold War and the US is trying to gather information on its adversaries the USS PUO is seized by the North Korean Navy somewhere near the territorial Waters of the Korean Peninsula the Spy ship is fully equipped with surveillance and monitoring instruments including the US Navy's encoding device the tsac kw7 on the 15th of February 1968 the USS scorpion completes its refresher training with a new commanding officer Commander Francis slaty and its crew of 100 men set off for a Mediterranean Sea deployment in the Mediterranean the Scorpion completes two NATO Naval exercises and trains again with the US Navy's sixth Fleet during the long deployment the Scorpion suffers various mechanical malfunctions including a Freon leak from the cooling system and an electrical fire in an escape trunk when a water leak shorts out the connection to shore power after completing its Mediterranean deployments in May the Scorpion heads West through the med on its way to the Atlantic as it transits through the Mediterranean one man on board feels ill and another another man has a family emergency at home which is reported to command a Slattery the Scorpion passes through the Straits of jalter and then heads to Naval Station rot in Spain on the night of the 16th of May the Scorpion transfers the two men to another vessel outside the Breakwater at naval station rter on the 17th of May the commander of the US submarine Force Atlantic vice admiral Arnold F sharder who's based in Virginia takes operational control of the Scorpion this is the Cold War and the crew of scorpion have two more jobs to do before they return home to Norfolk the first job is easy us and Allied ballistic missile submarines operate from naval station rotto they come in for supplies and repairs then go back out on patrol the Soviets know this Soviet submarines try to follow Allied submarines as they leave rter while the Scorpion is at rter there are Soviet hunter killer submarines at spy ship waiting outside the base the first job for the Scorpion is to provide noise cover for the USS John C Calhoun on its way out of Naval Station rter noise cover is when a submarine creates noise to cover up the sounds of another submarine so it can go undetected early in the day both submarines depart for the Atlantic the USS John C Calhoun slips stealthily into the Atlantic armed with nuclear warheads the Scorpion makes a more obvious entry into the sea on a path towards home scorpion now has a far more difficult dangerous and complicated task there's a Soviet Naval task force operating somewhere near the azor's archipelago and the Scorpion is ordered to infiltrate the Soviet Fleet and gather intelligence there will almost certainly be Soviet fast attack submarines guarding the task force from submarines like the Scorpion they sail the Scorpion as silently as possible while they hunt for enemy submarines the torpedo crew loads the Mark 37 homing Torpedoes ready to fire if needed after the Scorpion heads off towards the aors its movements become unclear during the operation an order is given to keep electronic silence except for a few particular circumstances there's little if any communication with the Scorpion until it's away from the Soviets and it's a classified operation all we know is that the Scorpion sails towards the Soviet tot Force Naval Station rter to the aors is about 1100 Mi and with the Scorpion capable of traveling over 30 m per hour it probably takes over 30 hours to get there leaving R early on the 17th would put the Scorpion around the aors between morning and lunchtime on the 18th it probably spent 2 days spying on the Soviet task force then from just before midnight on the 20th of May until sometime after midnight Commander slaty tries to get through to naval station rter on the radio he can't reach radio operators at rter but he gets through to a Navy communication station in Greece operators there forward Commander slat's message to vice admiral Sharda the commander of the US submarine Force Atlantic in Virginia in reply he assigns the Scorpion a route back to its Home Port in Norfolk Virginia and asks Commander slat to provide an ETA on the 21st of May at 23 54 Slattery gives a planned course of 290° and a speed of 18 knots with an ETA of 1,700 on the 27th of May they've finished their mission and are now heading home and that's the last time anyone hears from scorion between the 22nd and the 29th of May the US Navy broadcast nine messages to the Scorpion three messages specifically request a reply but none come on the 27th the families of those on board are anticipating the arrival of their loved ones the Scorpion still doesn't radio into base as it should before it comes in the submarine doesn't arrive home from the 28th to the 30th of May the US Navy Atlantic Fleet launches a sea and air search 55 ships and 35 search aircraft take part they don't find any signs of the Scorpion on the 5th of June the Scorpion is presumed lock lost on the 30th of June its name is Struck from the US Naval vessel register the Scorpion becomes another mystery and several theories begin to formulate about what has happened to the Scorpion of course the Scorpion was spying on the Soviet Fleet and so it seems logical that the Soviet navy sank the Scorpion the US Navy is aware of the encoding device falling into the hands of the Soviets during the USS Pueblo incident during the Cold War it's possible that state secrets were sold that would allow the Soviets to decode messages about Scorpion's location 11 weeks earlier the Soviets lost a ballistic missile submarine the k129 under suspicious circumstances it's possible the Soviets believe the US is behind the sinking and retaliates on the Scorpion as the Scorpion monitors the Soviet task force it's ambushed by a Soviet submarine the Scorpion takes a hit from a torpedo and six these theories were later turned into fiction books with Fantastic action scenes and plots involving spies and secrets the lead investigator on The Incident John Craven develops his own theories to investigate around the Scorpion's Torpedoes his first theory is that the Scorpion's Mark 37 torpedo accidentally arms and begins running in its launch tube which has happened before perhaps Commander slaty orders the torpedo to be launched to prevent it firing inside the submarine as the torpedo exits the submarine its homing device looks for the nearest Target which is the Scorpion itself as the torpedo strikes the Scorpion's bow the damage causes the bow of the submarine to fill with water the water drags submarine front first towards the bottom of the ocean and at Crush depth the rest of the submarine implodes Craven's second theory to investigate is that the battery inside a Mark 37 top ruptures and overheats creating enough heat for a torpedo to explode as it explodes inside the bow the front hatch is blown off this floods the Torpedo Room dragging the Scorpion down to crush depth months after scorpion disappears the Navy releases the sosus recordings with the sound of the destruction of Scorpion on the 22nd of May at 1837 a hydrophone array at leama island in the Canary Islands records two sharp short signals half a second apart the strength of the signal is consistent with two explosions equivalent to 9 kg of TNT but these two bursts of energy are so small that nobody sees them in the data 21 minutes later at 1859 Lea picks up a signal equivalent to a 6.6 kiloton explosion of TNT at A depth of 466 M this powerful signal is followed by more than 14 sharp major acoustic signals over a period of almost 3 minutes these strong accoustic signals are also picked up by two other sosus hydrophone arrays in the grand Banks area of newfinland the first two small explosions aren't noticed yet but the larger acoustic signals are interpreted as a major implosion followed by several smaller implosions what the sources recordings don't show are the sound of any other submarines in the area which suggests that the Soviets weren't involved and a Mark 37 torpedo has 150 kg of explosives which doesn't show up in the Souris recordings so the torpedo theories don't seem to stand up either another theory about the trash disposal unit develops the Scorpion ascends to Periscope depth to blow out sewage and dump rubbish the latch on the trash disposal unit malfunctions and allows water in which FL The Vessel this should have been repaired but was one of the work orders left out during the reduced maintenance schedule with no emergency seawater shutter F in place a safety feature not installed during the reduced maintenance program floods and sinks the V the Navy uses the recordings from sources to locate the Scorpion similar to how they located the USS Thresher acoustic signals are collected from the different sosus stations and the position of scorpion is triangular ated the Navy Combs a Target area of 10 to 12 nautical miles searching for the Scorpion they use a camera that can photograph an area 9 M wide to search the ocean floor 3,000 M deep in poor visibility late in October 1968 the Navy's oceanographic researcher The Miser finds the Scorpion inside an ancient undersea volcanic crater about 400 nautical miles Southwest of the aour the the stern section with the engine room has collapsed and it's been sucked forward into the reactor compartment area the main shaft with the propeller still attached is separated from the stern section lying in the debris field of the Rec site the middle section where the operations compartment is located has completely disintegrated the bow where the torpedo room is located is deformed by the incredible water pressure 3,384 M deeper the submarine is broken apart on the silty ocean floor the sail of the submarine is sheared off the bow section is embedded deep in the silt in an upright position the stern section rests on its starbard side the submersible vessel TS2 documents the wreckage of Scorpion and investigators start to compare the sosus data with what they can see TS2 also recovers pieces of the wreckage from the Scorpion with its robotic arm the submersible crew cre noticed there's a lot of main battery debris in the operations compartment they recover a section of the main battery cover with the robotic arm then they see a body in coveralls from the nuclear power crew midway between the bow and AR section the wreck shows no sign of torpedo damage which supports the idea that the Soviets weren't involved nor that one of Scorpion's Torpedoes exploded and the extent of the implosion shows that the wreck wasn't flooded when it sank if it had flooded then the water inside the submarine would prevent it from imploding implosion only happens when there's an air pocket that's compressed by the pressure of the water so what really happened on the 31st of January 1969 the Scorpion Court of inquiry released the findings of the investigation they rule out sabotage but the report says it can't pinpoint the cause of the accident a Navy task force continues it own investigation with experts in the field of Submarine design submarine structures and the effects of underwater explosions in January 1970 the Scorpion structural analysis group delivered their findings they proposed that hydrogen gas caused an explosion in the main battery storage the main battery cover recovered from the wreck is deformed from the inside and it's got battery fragments embedded so deep that it must have come from a high velocity explosion like like fragments flying through the air and not through water which would slow them down the batteries dry during the explosion meaning the compartment isn't flooded the Scorpion courts of inquiry dismiss their battery explosion Theory the court leans more towards Craven's theory of a torpedo explosion inside the hill but there isn't enough evidence to paint a clear picture either way and so the investigation stalls with no new evidence and starts to gather dust 44 years after the incident old evidence with the help of new technology starts to shed some light on what actually happened in 2011 Bruce rule the lead acoustic Analyst at the Office of Naval intelligence publishes a technical report using evidence from the structural analysis task force and a 3-minute tape recording of acoustic signals recorded by sosus in laa the two short sharp explosions that went undetected for 40 years of course this is still a theory that can't be proven but it's the one that makes the most sense to me the Scorpion is at Periscope depth the crew follows the old procedure in diesel submarines known as condition Baker they close hatches and close ventilation ducts known as Flappers in the battery compartment to prevent the battery flooding if they collide with a ship at the surface in nuclear submarines batteries can be charged even when the submarine is fully submerged the battery charging generates hyd hren gas which builds up and can be flammable or explosive at high enough concentrations to prevent a build up the crew normally circulates the gas throughout the submarine which dilutes the concentration and a scrubber absorbs and processes the gas during conditioned Baker the battery room is sealed and air can't circulate so hydrogen builds up quickly to dangerous levels while the batteries are charging under conditioned Baker a crew working inside the battery compartment triggers a static electricity spark that ignites the hydrogen two explosions occur half a second apart the strength of the explosions are equivalent to 9 kg of TNT the pressure from the explosion inside the hill is between 10 and 14 bar not enough to rupture the hull of the Scorpion but 3 and 1/2 bars of pressure is enough to kill anyone in the nearest compartments the explosion instantly kills or incapacitates the crew in the operation compartment and destroys the submarine's controls including the ballast control fire breaks out and water slowly leaks through the damaged valves and hell not enough to flood the vessel only enough to add weight so it slowly sinks at the spaces after of the reactor compartment the blast is weaker and the crew possibly survived there's nothing they can do but wait at 1842 21 minutes after the battery explosion the main Hull of the Scorpion implodes at a depth of 466 M with a force equivalent to 6.6 kilotons of TNT more than 14 smaller acoustic forces are recorded over 3 minutes as different compartments implode all of the 99 crew are lost after the tragedy the Navy quietly dropped the reduced availability maintenance program in an article published by the Houston Chronicle the naval sea systems command said it had no record of any such maintenance program it reads the success of this major minor overhaul concept depends essentially on the results of our first case at hand scorpion the US naval ships command issued a change in the navy ships technical manual 10 months after the USS scorpion was lost related to submarine storage batteries the March 1969 Edition says do not enter the battery well of ships having open tank ventilation systems while a charge is in progress it goes on to say experience has shown that all individual battery cell explosions have occurred while Personnel were working in the battery tank during charge after 45 years the Navy hadn't released conclusive findings on the USS scorpion in November 2012 the US submarine veterans and organization with over 13,800 members asked the US Navy to reopen the investigation of the sinking of the USS scorpion the Navy rejected the request [Music]

Channel: Waterline Stories

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Length: 24min 11sec (1451 seconds)

Published: Sat Jul 06 2024