The arsonist: Casey James Fury
Posted on 03/29/2014 8:15:21 PM PDT by Daffynition
KITTERY, Maine (AP) — The Navy said farewell Friday to the USS Miami, the nuclear-powered submarine whose service was cut short when a shipyard employee trying to get out of work set it on fire, causing $700 million in damage.
The somber deactivation ceremony at Portsmouth Naval Shipyard marked the beginning of an inglorious end: Next year, the submarine will be towed to the West Coast to be cut up for scrap metal.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Nope,nothing less than a rope will do.
I was thinking that the biggest threat to any naval vessel has always been fire, going all the way back to the Phoenicians. Given that, I'm amazed that there aren't some sort of automated fire control measures. Maybe there are some (I wasn't Navy, so I'm speaking out of total ignorance here), but they were disabled, since the sub was in dry dock and undergoing repairs.
And just watch, it will be a chinese or russian company (it might even require a presidential E.O. to make it happen) that gets the job to cut up the sub. I'm sure their governments would love the opportunity to get a closer look at our nuclear subs.
It’s obscene. No way he is going to *pay* that back.
Clownbama’s sequestering and cutbacks with the military make this sad event under his watch.
I’d bet a donut, that Putin would buy the hulk to bolster his rusty navy fleet.
I'm not surprised at all. Besides the expense of the repairs, the hull steel had to have been compromised by the exposure to that much heat for hours and hours. Or who wants to take her out and dive to 1000 feet and make sure it wasn't?
Why on earth would the prosecutors plea bargain this case? Are they that lazy that they didn't want to take it to trial?
A subs hull and bulkhead construction is significantly different from that of a surface ship. The inner lining for lack of a better term caught fire and under best of conditions would be difficult to put out. The fire had been burning for some time and behind the outer wall it went undetected as it grew. That's what I understand basically happened.
Drydock is a bad place for fires to start anyhow due to the nature of the work involved and as a result extra precautions are taken especially in welding etc. To stop a determined arsonist takes luck or every person being escorted into every space. On a sub that's not practical. Yardbird working in high security areas are supposed to be cleared by DOD. Obviously they aren't as well checked as the crew is which can go back to childhood.
Wouldn't a fire hot enough to compromise the hull steel require lots and lots of oxygen to burn? Wasn't the air supply something they could have controlled in the confines of a sub by closing hatches? I'm just seeking information, not trying to be a smart aleck with these questions...
The arsonist: Casey James Fury
I shudder to think what would have happened to him if he had done similar on the other side of the north pole.
Yep. That’s the punk...has a Tim McVey-ness about him.
Far too short a sentence.....
What you are saying makes perfect sense on a ship in normal condition. I'm assuming though that being in drydock, there were all kinds of compromises to watertight/airtight integrity that would make sealing off the spaces difficult or impossible.
FWIW, I see that wikipedia says "...integrity checks on the hull did not show changes to its metallurgy or strength." But are the people that did those tests going to be onboard when the boat goes to test depth?
Oh goodness YES! ::shivering::
Not really. Fire can burn at a lower oxygen level than it takes to support life and can still get quite hot. I was a firefighter in the shipyards. We had a three section full time Fire Department made up from the ships crew.
One night I was coming down from the 03 level Last top deck before the flighdeck to the 01 level two decks below to go into one of my shops work spaces. I was off duty that night. Another guy in my shop was also going there and in my fire department duty section. We smelled smoke as we got close to the space. We went down one more deck to the hanger deck and saw smoke coming from a close non watertight no aid tight hatch on a storeroom.
We ran to the quarterdeck looking for a working phone to call the Fire Phone In Damage Control Central. We ended up calling it over the 1mc aka the shops primary PA system.
We went back up to the Fire Dept on the 03 level and geared up. The duty crew took the fire and we did what is called OBA {which is the breathing device activated} investigating to check adjoining spaces above, below and beside the fire as far away as several decks or compartments from the actual fire as it can move quite fast.
By then the deck two decks above the storeroom had floor tile buckling. It was the barber shop. We hosed the deck and bulkheads down to cool the compartment. Steam was coming up. Across the passageway was a J-5 what is called a day tank or small tank likely used to fuel flight deck equipment. We cooled it also.
The guys who took the main fire sad it was confined to the storeroom and had been burning for quite a while likely 5 hours or more was the guess. It was mainly rags and boxes.
Steel is an excellent conductor of heat and on a ship heat transfer can jump compartment to compartment and start additional fires without even a spark coming from the original fire itself.
Submarine construction to deal with sound and other issues has lots of layering between the inside wall you can see and the outer hull you can't see behind it. They would literally have to tear the walls out to get to it and flood spaces thus causing major monetary damage doing so.
The guilty party needs to make restitution.....then locked in prison.
All because some dork wanted the day off.
China will just love all that nice metal! We certainly don't seem to want it.
Those democrat union voters have been sticking a shiv in the back of the military for some time now, I hope they just BRAC that base so Maine can sell the land to make seaside condos.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.