July 18, 2020

Near Ship-Submarine Collision long ago: Another Actual Collision This Week

1. Hot news of a near Ship-Submarine collision - that was publically reported in mid July 2020, but note that the actual incident occurred on November 6, 2018

"Statement from the [UK Royal Navy] Chief Inspector of Marine Accidents: Published July 16, 2020

"On 6 November 2018, the lookout on board the ferry Stena Superfast VII spotted a [UK Royal Navy] submarine’s periscope close ahead. The [ferry's] officer of the watch then took immediate and effective action, turning the ferry to avoid a genuine risk of collision with a submerged submarine. The incident happened because the submarine’s control room team had underestimated the ferry’s speed and overestimated its range, resulting in safety-critical decisions being made based on inaccurate information.
Although there was no collision, this was the third accident or incident between a dived Royal Navy submarine and a surface vessel in 4 years,"
 Ferry's "eye view" of very close UK submarine periscope.
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Such is secrecy, keeping near collision quiet for 19 Months!!
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2. Then an actual collision on the other side of the world, which occurred July 15, 2020
https://www.maritimebulletin.net/2020/07/17/norwegian-car-carrier-collided-with-korean-submarine/

"On Jul 17 [2020] Korean media reported minor collision between car carrier HOEGH LONDON and Korean Navy submarine, which took place at around 0500 UTC Jul 15 [2020] southeast of Gadeokdo island, Busan [aka Pusan] area [South Korea].

Car carrier had just left Masan port, E of Busan, and was under way, en route to China. Submarine reportedly was under way too, surfaced. Car carrier bow suffered 0.5 meter long gash, submarine reportedly, suffered minor damages. Car carrier interrupted her voyage and anchored in [South] Korean waters, for investigation." 

Peter Comment

Goes to show submarine operations, even in peacetime, are dangerous.

 And that lengthy official enquiries may serve to cover-up mistakes. 

2 comments:

Lee McCurtayne said...

These incidents are increasing, but what are the projected incident rates when 2050 comes and 59% of the worlds submarines are in the Asia-Pacific region.

Pete said...

Thanks Lee

And submarine collisions become much more serious if the sub has a nuclear reactor aboard. For example America's West Coast SSBNs are based only around 30 km from the central city-port Seattle (with millions of people).

Also it may be that the UK sub that nearly collided with a 30,000 ton ship "ferry" was a UK Vanguard class SSBN with around 12 bomb grade radioactive Trident II missiles aboard- see http://gentleseas.blogspot.com/2020/07/uk-submarine-in-near-collision-was.html

Cheers

Pete