Nuclear submarine FAQ's

Nuclear Submarine Safety

Is it safe aboard nuclear submarines?

The common person does not know much about nuclear submarines, so the issue of safety is in the dark. The navy exclaims its victorious journey through time and sea safely, but all tales are not told. Sure everyone has been informed of the Japanese fishing boat that was destroyed, and the other submarine wrecks, but they are rare. Does anything happen underwater? Are submarines safe? Usually, when we are not ignoring the nuclear submarine safety rules.

One member of my crew spoke of a time that his boat sunk at the pier. Though that is awful, it is not as scary as the things that occur while the submarine is underwater. I was attached to the USS Dallas (SSN 700) for just over 3 years. While I was there, one crew member gave a navy seal the bends and almost killed him due to negligence. Another shipmate incorrectly preformed a valve lineup and we lost propulsion. People told me we were going to die on my first underway. I did not know they were joking, and that messed me up for a while. Some still tell me I am abnormal...

One kid was sleeping in the torpedo room while shipmates were playing around. A shipmate dropped something in a crevice and asked the torpedo room watch to ignore the submarine safety rules. To make a long story short, the sleeping person woke up to the sound of his foot breaking by way of hydraulics.

There are safeguards and quality assurance programs in place to maintain nuclear submarine safety, yet they are regularly ignored. There is a navy bulletin called FLASH (Factual Lines About Submarine Hazards.) Frequently they would post statements of blatant negligence and the outcome of said incidents. Most of the flaws were associated with not following electrical safety, as I have only seen the electrical division leading chief do so a couple times before my eyes (what's a few hundred volts between friends). The bothersome part about their reports are how we ignore whatever is necessary to maintain status quo.

I have a rather tall and skinny face, so I could not usually get a good seal on my face mask. If there was a fire, I was probably going to die. On a submarine a fire can consume the entire sub and diminish visibility to zero faster than some people wake. This is why we frequently ran fire drills to ensure submarine safety could be maintained. We did not upgrade the beds that were older than I am for safety concerns, yet the bed covers which were specifically pointed out as flammable and not allowed remained on the USS Dallas long after I left. Only if this article you are reading comes to light will that situation change. I know that may not seem important, but it only scrapes the surface of the negligence submarine commanders of the USS Dallas routinely operate by.

A nuclear submarine is not a safe workplace. We know that when we sign up, it is a risk we take. Some risks are tolerable as they are a necessity, and others are just a shame. The biggest problem I had is when people above me directly risked my life for their career. I will point out a few frightening examples that I am sure occur more commonly than people admit. Just before I arrived onboard a critical pump was not operating properly, it was not operating. The boat was required to have this pump to go to sea and operate safely, but that requirement was ignored. If the boat would have encountered flooding, one of the first lines of defense were gone and so could have been the crew. Did those crew members want to risk their lives for the captains career in peace time? I was not part of the crew then, but I would like to think no is the answer.

There will soon be a quick nuclear power tutorial. You do not need to understand nuclear power or even enthalpy and entropy to know that steam has a large amount of energy. On submarines one of the greatest fears is a steam line rupture, where high energy steam fills the engine room. A severe steam line rupture could kill half of, or the entire crew. While I was onboard the USS Dallas we started up with a steam leak. I was told we lied to squadron and told them that it developed while we were underway. The leak was so bad that we ported ventilation to condense the escaping steam and even set up a drain collection apparatus to deliver this water to a drainage system. I am sure many submarines are not this negligent when it comes to nuclear submarine safety, but some are.

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I had been informed when some of my former shipmates arrived back from the most recent deployment that something bad happened. The ship encountered a sea water leak that was very close to flooding. They isolated the leak properly, and then restored the submarine to normal service. The problem is that they used a temporary boundary that was rated for less than 3 days for over a week, over a month, and for the rest of that underway. On multiple port stops the mechanical division leading chief petty officer asked for permission to properly fix the system, and was told no. At any given time during the last month of the underway, that submarine could have sank because the captain and engineer refused to take input from the system experts. Again lives were needlessly risked for the advancement of a few individuals.

In a dynamic world, it is nice to see that some things do not change.

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