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| Nuclear Navigational Mishap |
Finding safe passage, even with charts, can sometimes be tricky. A GPS comes in handy as does a pair of eyes. But when you're submerged in a nuclear submarine with every navigational tool on earth at your disposal, hopefully you'll miss the rocks.
Unless, of course, you're in the British nuclear submarine HMS Superb, which recently crashed into rocks in the Red Sea, damaging her sonar and forcing her to surface, unable to dive.
This crash comes only days after another nuclear submarine from that fleet crashed into the seabed, causing $10 million in damages after officers had obscured their maps by placing tracing paper over them to prevent pen marks damaging the maps. Seabed contours and symbols showing underwater current strengths were hidden by the paper's opacity. It took 18 months to refit that sub.
So far, it is not known if human or mechanical error was the cause for the Superb's crash but it is known that the 272-foot vessel, with a crew of 112, hit an underwater pinnacle clearly marked on maps. It is not clear if the submarine was carrying the Tomahawk cruise missiles it is capable of launching.
A Ministry of Defense spokesman would not disclose the estimated cost of repair, saying only that the submarine's reactor was "completely unaffected" and that there was "no environmental impact" from the collision.
"There were no casualties and the submarine remains watertight, is safe on the surface and able to operate under its own power."
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