OT - Aussie sub nearly lost!
 

AN Australian submarine carrying 55 sailors was seconds from sinking to the bottom of the Indian Ocean following a catastrophic on-board flood off the coast of Perth.

The near-tragedy has forced the navy to permanently reduce the diving depth of its fleet of six Collins-class submarines for safety reasons - a move that has weakened their military capability.
An investigation by The Weekend Australian has revealed that an accident on board HMAS Dechaineux on February 12, 2003, was more serious than the navy has publicly admitted.

"I don't think there was anybody on our boat who wasn't ****-scared that day," said Able Seaman Geordie Bunting, who almost drowned in the flood and who has now spoken about it for the first time.


"Another five seconds and we would have been in big trouble ... another 10 and you have got to question whether we could have surfaced."

Mike Deeks, the then commander of the navy's submarine force, said: "We were talking seconds, not minutes. It was a very serious, significant flood."

The depth at which the accident occurred and the maximum depth to which the submarine fleet is now capable of diving is classified information. All operational details about the vessel are classified because they could aid an enemy.

The accident happened about 40 nautical miles off Perth when a sea water hose in the lower engine room failed just as the Dechaineux, the fourth of the navy's six Collins-class submarines, was at its deepest diving depth.

"There was a loud bang and something hard flew past my head," Seaman Bunting said. "Then the water flooded in and I got tossed around like in a washing machine. It was coming in so fast I thought it was all over."

Two sailors rushed to rescue Seaman Bunting from the flooded engine room as Dechaineux's captain Peter Scott and his crew tried desperately to stem the flow of sea water and make the stricken submarine climb.

The crew succeeded in stopping the flood but the submarine had taken so much water it did not respond immediately to the emergency commands.

"It was pretty bloody close, mate. There would have been a lot of people frozen in the moment," Seaman Bunting said.

Lieutenant Commander Geoff Wadley, who was in the control room when the flood occurred, said: "There was a period before the submarine reacted and there was a lot of tension in the air."

Able Seaman Greg Sullivan, who saved Seaman Bunting's life by fishing him out of the flooded room, said: "I was thinking we could be in trouble. You knew it was taking longer than it should (to start to surface)."

If the flood had not been stopped in time, Dechaineux and its crew would have sunk and been crushed by water pressure before hitting the seabed.

"It would have been like crushing an empty Coke can in your hand," Seaman Bunting said. "We were too deep to hit the bottom alive."

Senior naval sources estimate that if the flood had continued for another 15-25 seconds, Dechaineux would have become too heavy to climb back to the surface.

Asked by The Weekend Australian to confirm if Dechaineux was about 20 seconds from disaster, the navy said: "All floods in submarines are serious and time is clearly a critical factor."

At the time of the accident, the navy admitted Dechaineux had taken on water but hid the true gravity of the situation. It would have been Australia's worst military disaster since the 1964 HMAS Voyager tragedy near Jervis Bay on the New South Wales South Coast, which left 82 sailors dead.

The navy responded to the crisis by ordering the submarine fleet back to port and conducting exhaustive tests on the hose that failed.

However, it was never able to find a fault with the hoses, which are still used.

Instead, the navy has reduced the diving depth of the submarines, and as a result the pressure placed on the seawater hoses. There has not been a major flooding incident since.

Despite teething problems, the six Collins submarines have performed above expectation in operations, becoming one of the nation's most valuable military assets.

Captain Scott nominated two of his crew for bravery awards. But more than two years later, those medals have still not been presented.

"We all had a pretty good idea how completely catastrophic it could have been," said a senior crew member who asked not to be named. "If it had been any worse, we wouldn't have got up, and if our propulsion system had failed we wouldn't have made it. We were probably only 20 seconds away (from sinking)."

Seaman Bunting said the accident changed his life. "I'm still nervous about it. It's the closest I'd like to come to death."

Wrong - All hoses have been upgraded and the Collins class in back to normal Dive Ops.

Poor Quality hoses that were not up to Mil spec have all been removed and replaced at the contractors expence.

Glad those Aussies overcame that one.

Per "hoses" in the engine room. !!!! Are we talking rubber or braided hose here? I am thinking over-engineer it. ALWAYS.

Stinking cheap skate contractors, the govenrment was stupid to contract out maintanence for the Australian military, but what else can you expect from penny pinching governments these days.
When this sort of maintanence was carried out by uniformed personell, these sort of accidents never occurred, as with the 1,000,000 accident free flying hours for the RAAF's C130 fleet.

Sounds to me like they need to get of their cans and give those boys their medals. They're bonafide heros in my book!

Reminds me of the US sub that hit the sea mount. They came real close to losing that boat, too. Anyone see the pictures? What a nightmare.

I never liked going on subs. Give me an ejection seat any day.

Subs aren't as dangerous as these news articles would have you believe. Sub accidents are rare (and is why they are so newsworthy). I served on three different boats, and nothing ever happened.
That's not to say that accidents can't happen, and there is the possibility of never coming back up every time a sub dives. But the same can be said for getting on an airliner, or climbing into the family car; in either case you might not come home..

That's one thing i liked about being a Paratrooper. If the plane is going to crash i have my own way of making it safely down to the ground.

Agreed. What goes up must come down...but it doesn't work that way vice versa :lol:

Even the EP-3 had/has parachutes.

Newsworthy!!! I haven't even heard about it til I read it here and I live in Adelaide where they were built... :hmm:

LOL

:rotfl:

those guys who think that being above the clouds with a parachute, is a safer deal, than being in a sub at depth, are operating under a false sense of safety...

try parachuting out of a c-130 or c-141 at traveling cruise :lol:

much less, getting the doors open if it's pressurized...

even trying to get to the doors, if the plane is spinning, is going to be next to impossible...


the sub story was hairraising... glad it turned out to be a tale of survival, as opposed to the alternative.

--Mike

That's why I'm such a big fan of the ejection seat ;)

Takes care of it for you :up:

Now I know why I didn't hear about it.......That story was from a long time ago in a galaxy far away... Nah really this was ancient news....Stop scary me about my Saussie built subs.

Mate, have you seen pics of the German airborne invasion of Crete? There are burning JU52 Junkers transport planes on fire (they only had 2 engines) hurtling to earth with paratroops 'with their own way of making it safely tot he ground' jumping out all the way down, some just moments before impact. :o

Hmmm....