An
older article from the New London Day.
By ROBERT A.
HAMILTON, Day Staff Writer
Groton - During
a just-ended repair period, the USS Providence became the sixth U.S.
Navy submarine equipped to use new survival gear that can bring a sailor
up 600 feet or more from a disabled boat. On Friday, Cmdr. Scott B.
Bawden watched as the last 17 members of his crew were trained to use
the suits.
As he watched
them bobbing in fluorescent orange suits in the 90-degree water of the
dive training pool in Momsen Hall at the Naval Submarine Base, Bawden,
the captain of the Providence, compared it to training men to fire
Tomahawk missiles or torpedoes - you hope you will never have to use the
skills.
"There's a
lot of parts of this job that people don't want to dwell on.
But you can't deny that there are risks in what we do, and we
have to be prepared," said Bawden. "Survivability is very
important these days, because we're spending a lot more time in shallow
water."
By 2007, all
attack and missile submarines are expected to have the Submarine Escape
and Immersion Equipment. The Navy is planning to adapt its escape
trainers at the base to the new standards by 2002, and construct a
50-foot dive tower on the base for training in the suits by 2006 or '07.
In addition, the
Navy is considering designating a commando team to specialize in
submarine rescue, and putting an aircraft on constant standby with
rafts, medical supplies, food, and other equipment that could be rushed
to the scene of any submarine disaster.
Instructors made
each of the men don one of the practice suits and get into a life raft.
Machinist Mate Second-Class Roger M. Squires got hung up a little when
his raft was flipped by one of the instructors, but quickly got it
righted and climbed back in.
"I've done
some kayaking, and I've flipped in them, so that's what I thought about
when it was happening," Squires said. He said the survival gear is
considerably better than the Steinke hoods that are being replaced, and
the training is a lot better as well - when he was trained as a
submariner he got to don a Steinke hood in a classroom, not a pool.
"If it was
shallow water in a warm place, it wouldn't be too bad,"
Squires said. But he added with a grin, "if it was cold,
deep water, I wouldn't want to leave the boat too early."
Boatswain's Mate
Second-Class Robert T. Sandoval, who taught Friday's class agreed that
the new suits should only be used as a last resort, if there is no
chance the crew can survive until a rescue can be mounted, but he said
the suits increase the chances that a crew will survive.
But he also
noted that of 170 peacetime submarine sinkings since 1910, 19 out of
every 20 involved accidents in water that was shallow enough for the
submarine to survive the descent. But escape, even from relatively
shallow depths, is dangerous.
In August 1988
the Peruvian submarine Pacocha, the former USS Atule, sank in less than
140 feet of water. Of 22 crewman trapped on board, 20 suffered
decompression problems, and two more were killed, when they tried a free
ascent.
Steinke hoods provide a covering for a sailor's head only , but they could easily be filled with water if the sailor became inverted, and they provided no protection against hypothermia, a real concern in the northern Atlantic waters that submarines frequent, because water chills 24 times faster than air the same temperature. "The Steinke hood was designed to get you to the surface, and it worked," Bawden said. "But once you got there, you had to find your own way to survive."
The new gear,
which folds into a pouch smaller than the backpacks carried on most high
school campuses, contains a bright yellow thermal suit worn under
the
orange exterior garb, and a one-man inflatable life raft attached to the
left leg.
Sandoval warned
the sailors they have to exit the escape trunk quickly, because they can
get the bends, which is always painful and is potentially fatal, if they
ascend too quickly after being pressurized for even a short time. At 600
feet, you have about 30 seconds from the time you start pressurizing the
escape trunk until you have to be on your way to the surface, he said.
"Don't hold
your breath - breath normally, relax, and enjoy the ride - it's going to
be the best one you ever had," Sandoval said. Since the suits are
inflated, sailors bob to the surface at a rate of about 725 feet per
minute.
"It feels
unnatural for a diver," said Hull Technician Second-Class Travis
Swink, one of the instructors who tried out the suits in a 100-foot dive
tower in Great Britain. "Our whole career we're taught to follow a
certain feet-per-minute ascent rate, and with this thing you're just
screaming to the surface."
One advantage of
the SEIE gear, said Chief Boatswain's Mate Barry Hurst, is that they can
be used as long as the hatch from the escape trunk isn't in the mud.
Some of the rescue vehicles in use today cannot hook up to a submarine
that is at a sharp angle on the bottom.
"If the
hatch can be opened, you can make an escape," Hurst said. "The
angle is almost irrelevant."
After an escape,
he said, crew members should tie their rafts together, the instructors
said. "Keep in big groups and you're easier to spot from the
air," Sandoval said. And, when the pickup arrives, whether a ship
or a plane, use the deflation plug, a knife, teeth, or anything you can
to send the raft to the bottom.
"We don't
want any advertisements out there for any foreign services that we have
a downed submarine," Sandoval said. "If you can't take it on
board with you, scuttle it."
Sandoval said
it's important that submariners become as comfortable as possible with
the gear, so they don't panic when the time comes. But no matter how
much they prepare, he said, they're bound to be nervous the first time.
"The first time?" asked one of his students. "You think
there's going to be a second time?"
"Hopefully, this is a waste of time, and you'll never need it" Sandoval said. "But it works, I can't stress enough that this is a great system."