How My Sub, Too, Nearly Had a Collision

It's difficult for civilians to fathom how a modern American submarine like the USS Greeneville — packed with hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of high-tech equipment and manned by the Navy's best and brightest — could have such a catastrophic accident with a Japanese fishing boat. But it can happen. I know. I was aboard a Navy sub as a civilian researching my book when it nearly had a collision.

The sub in my case was the USS Nebraska, one of the Navy's 18 Tridents that fire nuclear-tipped ballistic missiles. (The Greeneville is a fast-attack sub that fires conventionally armed torpedoes and cruise missiles). The Nebraska was steaming on the surface through a narrow channel leading from the King Bay, Ga., submarine base when suddenly it barreled straight toward large metal buoy marking the edge of the channel.

We were on a collision course because a critical part of a turn order the Nebraska's captain had given from the bridge never reached the helmsman below who was steering the boat. A communication circuit had failed, cutting off part of the order. The skipper reacted quickly, switching to backup communications and slamming on the brakes to bring the 18,750-ton vessel to a stop before it hit the buoy. No lives were ever in danger, but if the Nebraska had plowed over that buoy and run aground outside the channel, the skipper could have kissed his next promotion good-bye.

My experience leads me to different conclusions about the Greeneville accident than appears to be the norm in ongoing news reports. Reporters are looking for one culprit, with most of them focused on the sub's captain, Cdr. Scott D. Waddle. Waddle's attorney, meanwhile, is blaming a petty officer in the sub's control center who didn't alert the captain that the Ehime Maru was nearby.

Neither is correct. Like many accidents involving complex machinery, the Greeneville incident doesn't come down to one villain or a single fatal error. Rather, these things occur because many small mistakes, none of them serious by themselves, combine to create a major casualty. Yes, the petty officer marking up the contact evaluation plot probably would have saved the day if he had shouted out a warning to the skipper that the trawler was nearby. But the contact evaluation plot is more a historical record, and no skipper relies on just that one sailor to tell him where surface vessels are. Three other sonar screens in the sonar shack show the outside contacts that have been detected, along with a digital display indicator in the control center (which in the Greeneville's case was broken).

All told, a half-dozen officers, chiefs or sailors have some responsibility for warning the captain of nearby vessels. And this is before he raises the periscope to look outside, which in this case was apparently done hurriedly.

Of course, the final responsibility lies with the captain. And on Tuesday, Waddle, who has consistently stated that he was answerable for everything that happened under his command, surprised observers by testifying before the current inquiry without immunity. That testimony, and other evidence that surfaces in the search for answers — including that introduced in probable court-martial proceedings — will no doubt paint a more complete picture than the one we have at present.