![]() Some of the improvements included better welding techniques, and the main ballast tank blow system that helps a submarine reach the surface was made more effective. One submarine has sunk since then, the USS Scorpion in 1968, and it was not SUBSAFE-certified, the Navy said. If there was a silver lining, it was that the tragedy so shook the Navy that it accelerated safety improvements and created a program called SUBSAFE, an extensive series of design modifications, training and other improvements. ![]() Eventually, more than 1,000 pages of documents will be released. ![]() The coronavirus pandemic delayed the review of the documents. The sub sank in April of 1963, killing the entire crew.Ī judge in February ordered the Navy to release the documents. Nuclear-powered submarine the 'USS Thresher' steers through the sea, early 1960s. Not some smoke screen from the Navy," he said Wednesday from St. "I want to know the truth, the whole truth. His suspicion is that the Navy was pushing the limits and placing personnel at risk during the Cold War. Michael Shafer, whose father and uncle both died on the Thresher, said some of the families need to review the documents to see for themselves and fully understand what happened. He thinks there's more to be learned from the documents, most of them classified. James Bryant, commander of a Thresher-class submarine, requested the documents under the federal Freedom of Information Act and ultimately went to court to demand the documents' release. Not everyone was satisfied with the Navy's conclusions. Ballard used his 1985 discovery of the RMS Titanic as a Cold War cover for surveying the Thresher. Resting on the ocean floor at a depth of 8,500 feet, the Thresher looks as though it went through a "shredding machine" and is spread out over a mile, University of Rhode Island oceanographer Robert Ballard told The Associated Press in 2013. The brazed joints in pipes were a special concern, and many electrical panels were not adequately protected from sea water in the event of a leak, the report said. In the documents, the Navy said it believes an interior pipe burst and caused electrical problems that caused an emergency shutdown of the nuclear reactor. "Complete answers as to why they happened may never come." "All the events of that morning may never be known," Rather said. On March 4, 1964, nearly a year after the disaster, CBS aired a segment on the Thresher, which was reported by Dan Rather. ![]() The Navy inquiry found weaknesses in the design and construction of the first-in-class nuclear-powered submarine, which had been built at Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in Kittery, Maine, and based in Groton, Connecticut. Underwater photograph shows a portion of the sunken nuclear-powered submarine 'USS Thresher,' September 1963. The crew of an accompanying rescue ship heard something about the "test depth." Then the sailors listened as the sub disintegrated under the crushing pressure of the sea. The crew indicated it was attempting to empty ballast tanks in an effort to surface. The first sign of trouble was a garbled message about a "minor difficulty" after the 279-foot submarine descended to more than 800 feet. On April 10, 1963, the Thresher had undergone sea trials and was back in the ocean for deep-dive testing about 220 miles off Massachusetts' Cape Cod. ![]()
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