Fire on nuke-powered sub at Maine shipyard hurts 6

[Lex]

Navy decides to repair sub that suffered $400M damage in fire

The Los Angeles-class nuclear-powered submarine USS Miami surfaces in the North Arabian Sea during an anti-submarine warfare exercise.
Scott Miller/Courtesy U.S. NavyThe U.S. Navy intends to repair a nuclear-powered attack submarine that was severely damaged by a fire while in dry dock and then return it to the fleet, Navy officials Friday.

While engineering assessments are ongoing, the Navy has decided to repair the USS Miami and is committed to doing so, Navy spokesman Lt. Courtney Hillson told The Associated Press.

"Our goal is to return the Miami to the fleet because this makes sense operationally and fiscally," Hillson said.

There had been lingering questions over whether it would make financial sense to repair the 22-year-old submarine, which is based in Groton, Conn. Early estimates put the damage at $400 million.

A former shipyard worker from Portsmouth, N.H., is charged with setting the fire on May 23 while the 360-foot-long vessel was in dry dock at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in Kittery, Maine, for a 20-month overhaul.

The fire got out of control, and the submarine's steel hull trapped heat, causing superheated smoke and a stubborn fire that took more than 100 firefighters about 12 hours to extinguish.

The fire caused heavy damage to forward compartments including living quarters, a command and control center and the torpedo room but did not reach the back of the submarine, where the nuclear propulsion components are located.

The Navy previously requested the reallocation of $220 million for unfunded ship repairs for the current fiscal year, with the understanding that some of it would go to the USS Miami. Additional money would be required to complete the repairs to the Los Angeles-class submarine.

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A Navy official said more information is expected next week.

The Navy will provide a briefing for congressional staff on the Miami, said U.S. Rep. Joe Courtney, a Democrat whose eastern Connecticut district includes the Naval Submarine Base in Groton. Electric Boat, which built the Miami and is based in Groton, likely will be involved along with the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in making the necessary repairs, Courtney said.

"This is not a normal repair and maintenance job," he said. "This is major body work."

The Naval Criminal Investigative Service said shipyard worker Casey James Fury confessed to setting the fire.

Fury, 24, told the NCIS that he set the fire because he was feeling anxiety and wanted to go home but his boss wouldn't allow it because his medical leave had been used up.

Fury, who faces charges that carry a maximum penalty of life in prison, has been ordered held without bail pending trial in U.S. District in Portland.

The Associated Press
Published: August 17, 2012

[jurrien visser (JuVi op Twitter)]

Early Estimate Pegs USS Miami Sub Fire Damage Up To $500 Million

UPDATED: Includes Info About Sub Deployment Skeds; Past Major Sub Fixes

WASHINGTON: The Navy is telling Congress that the nuclear-powered USS Miami suffered

$400 million to $500 million in damages from the impressive fire that injured seven and left the ship a smoldering mass at drydock.

The estimate is being provided at congressional request and is not, we hear, to be considered definitive. But the Navy is eager to let Congress know the extent of the damage as soon as possible to allow appropriators the chance to build funding into the Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO) portion of the defense spending bill so the boat can be redeployed as soon as possible.

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The May 23 fire struck the Los Angeles class boat in the early evening and persisted through much of the night. The fire roared through the forward compartment, which includes crew living, the torpedo room and command and control spaces. Those command and control facilities will be expensive to repair. The good news is that the nuclear reactor and the propulsion systems do not appear to have been damaged. The greatest concern among Navy experts was the double pressure hull and whether it had been compromised by the fire. That does not appear to be the case.

We hear the fire will add at least four to six months to the original time the USS Miami was scheduled to be in drydock at Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in Maine.

That raises the issue of how the Navy will cover the longer-than-planned absence of one of its most important assets. A naval expert familiar with the issue said the Navy has some flexibility.

"One option for compensating for the Miami's delayed return to service would be to extend the length of some attack submarine deployments that take place during the months that the Miami was originally scheduled to be available for deployment but now won't be. Deployment extensions of one month are a possibility, but they could also be shorter or longer than a month," the source said in an email.

Since this is a submarine and nothing is simple when it comes to scheduling the sailors and their boats, there care other options. "An extension might be longer than a month, for example, if the submarine in question is currently scheduled for a deployment of less than six months. Another option would be to move around scheduled maintenance activities on some attack submarines so as to make them available for deployment during the months that the Miami was originally scheduled to be available for deployment but now won't be. Another option would be to simply cancel or reduce some lower-priority missions that were to have been performed during those months, if there are any such missions."

The Navy will not get a replacement boat should the Miami be deemed a loss or Congress refuse to pony up money for the repairs. However, given the persistent and fairly widespread concern about the rate of boat building for the Virginia class -- the replacement for the Los Angeles class -- it's unlikely the Hill will turn the Navy away.

Here's a list of nuclear submarines that have been rebuilt after serious accidents.

In January 2005, the San Francisco (SSN-711) ran into a sea mount a few hundred miles from Guam while traveling at hgh speed. The front end of the submarine was badly damaged. The ship was repaired by replacing its front end with that of sister ship Honolulu (SSN-718), which was scheduled for deactivation.

In March 2009, the Hartford (SSN-768) was damaged in a collision with the New Orleans (LPD-18) in the Strait of Hormuz. The Hartford was previously damaged in a grounding in the Mediterranean in 2003.

http://defense.aol.com/2012/06/05/early-estimate-pegs-uss-miami-sub-fire-damage-up-to-500-million/#page2

[Lex]

Navy: Weeks before answers on fire-damaged sub

KITTERY, Maine — A union leader said Tuesday he's confident the fire-damaged attack submarine Miami can be repaired, but it'll be several weeks before the Navy reaches conclusions on the extent of damage.

The Navy will provide an update on the nuclear-powered submarine after three separate investigations are completed in two to three weeks, Patricia Dolan, spokeswoman for the Naval Sea Systems Command in Washington, D.C., said Tuesday.

Based in Connecticut, the $900 million Los Angeles-class submarine was in dry dock at Portsmouth Naval Shipyard for an overhaul when a fire broke out last week, damaging forward compartments including the torpedo room, command and control, and crew quarters, officials said.

An investigation by the military's legal arm, the Judge Advocate General Corps, will get to the bottom of what caused the fire, while a separate investigative team is looking at safety procedures and the Naval Criminal Investigative Service is looking into whether a crime was committed.

Paul O'Connor, president of the Metal Trades Council, said that based on what he knows, he's hopeful the Miami will be repaired at Portsmouth and returned to the fleet.

"Our plan is get that boat back to the Navy, and back on deployment," Connor said Tuesday.

Insulation and wiring fueled the stubborn fire and the metal hull trapped heat, turning the forward part of the sub into a superheated oven. More than a hundred firefighters worked in shifts to douse the blaze.

Big repairs wouldn't be unprecedented on a Los Angeles-class sub.

The submarine San Francisco suffered heavy damage when it hit an uncharted underwater mountain at full speed in January 2005, killing one sailor and injuring 97. The Navy ultimately chose to replace its bow with part of a decommissioned submarine, a repair that took more than three years and cost $134 million.

In this case, much of Miami's sensitive equipment had been removed and the fire didn't damage any nuclear components, both factors that work in favor of repairing the vessel, officials say.

But the Navy said it's premature to say whether the vessel can be repaired until the damage is fully assessed and the investigations are complete.

Working against the submarine is that it's 22 years old, there's no pressing threat and the Budget Control Act could cut defense spending by $100 billion in fiscal 2013, said Loren Thompson, defense analyst at the Lexington Institute, a think tank based outside Washington, D.C. Also, he said, fires as hot as the one aboard Miami can cause complex weakening and destabilization of the metal structures.

The submarine was three months into a 20-month overhaul when the fire struck, so scrapping the sub would have major ramifications on the Portsmouth workforce.

O'Connor said the shipyard workers don't want to see the Navy lose a sub, especially one that was in the shipyard's care when the fire broke out.

"Shipyarders are a tough lot," he said. "We're not going to roll over and give up. That's not who we are or what we do. We're fighters. It's in our nature."


Associated Press
Tuesday May 29, 2012 16:43:36 EDT

[Lex]

KITTERY, Maine –  A fire on a nuclear-powered submarine at a Maine shipyard has injured six people, including a firefighter.

Fire crews responded Wednesday to the USS Miami SSN 755 at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard on an island in Kittery, a town near Portsmouth, N.H., popular with tourists.

The shipyard says the injured people have been treated and released. The firefighter suffered heat exhaustion.

The fire still was not out shortly before midnight but shipyard spokesman Capt. Bryant Fuller says the situation is improving.

Shipyard public affairs specialist Gary Hildreth says the fire started in the forward compartment of the sub. The shipyard says the sub's reactor wasn't operating at the time and was unaffected.

The cause of the fire hasn't been identified.

Published May 24, 2012

Associated Press

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