The Dakar submarine in 1968. Courtesy of the Israel Navy Museum
Posted on 08/31/2015 11:12:06 PM PDT by sukhoi-30mki
An Israeli submarine that sank 47 years ago probably went down due to a technical failure, according to a report released by the navy yesterday.
The report was released at a gathering of the families of the 69 sailors killed when the Dakar went down. Exactly what happened in the critical moments before the submarine sank remains unknown. But yesterday the navy released all the reports drafted after the incident, which had hitherto been classified, as well as a document summarizing all the efforts to search for the sub and any other information the defense establishment has about it.
According to Vice Admiral Ram Rothberg, commander of the navy, there was no new information in the documents given the families, but until now, the families hadn’t had all the information the navy possessed.
In 2013, the Israel State Archives published documents about the Dakar’s disappearance while en route home to Haifa, and the subsequent searches for it. But the archives published only a summary of the report drafted in 1968 by Shlomo Erel, who commanded the navy at the time, and submitted to then-Defense Minister Moshe Dayan. Yesterday the full report was released to both the families and the public.
The report listed three possible explanations for the Dakar’s sinking – technical problems, enemy action by the Soviet fleet or a collision with another vessel. But at a briefing for reporters yesterday, Rothberg said the possibility of a Soviet attack was later ruled out.
“The leading explanation is a technical failure and loss of control over the submarine, to the point that it went down to the seabed,” he said. “This could have happened because the crew was unable to function due to the technical problem, but we know there was no internal explosion on the submarine,
read more: http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/.premium-1.673865
(Excerpt) Read more at haaretz.com ...
The Dakar submarine in 1968. Courtesy of the Israel Navy Museum
Anyone know if the final resting place was ever found?
This sub was part of a paperback novel I read once. That’s about all I remember.
My Lord. What a way to go. That has to be one of the worst. RIP.
I read the same book.
WW2 British boat Totem. Left Scotland for Israel and sank off Cyprus. I’d kinda hoped that the USN had taken Dakar out as payback for the Liberty but of course we know that could have never happened.
Yes - she was located in the late 1990s by a joint American-Israeli team. Very deep, but part of the wreck was raised and a lot of examination was done.
NYT, May 31, 1999, said Dakar's debris was found scattered 9,500 feet beneath the Mediterranean Sea, between Crete and Cyprus, i.e., 300 miles west of Israel along planned ferry route from England to Israel.
If it was Technical failure why debris were scattered? Who knows, it was then cold war, broken hearted Gamel Abel Nasser still grieving about losing the 1967 war, who knows? The Cambridge Five traitors might have tipped off pre-planned ferry route to the KGB and was sank by the Russians for revenge?
Thanx. It’s a nasty way to go.
Thx.
Just from memory, but as far as I recall Dakar reached Haifa earlier than expected. Since some kind of official ceremony was to be held at her entry into the port, it was decided she would make a detour for half-a-day or so, before approaching Haifa again.
Thus, if she went down to enemy action it would have been a pure chance encounter (unless the Russians/Egyptians were able to listen in on the Israeli communications).
I also seem to remember having read about a Cypriot cargo ship reporting it had hit something while at sea in the operating area of Dakar, and at the time of her foundering. So, until some real evidence of either enemy action or technical malfunction is brought forward, I will go for the collision theory.
On 24 May 1999 a joint U.S.–Israeli search team using information received from U.S. intelligence sources and led by subcontractor Thomas Kent Dettweiler of the American Nauticos Corporation, detected a large body on the seabed between Crete and Cyprus, at a depth of some 3,000 meters (9,800 ft). On 28 May the first video pictures were taken by the remote operated vehicle REMORA II, making it clear that Dakar had been found. She rests on her keel, bow to the northwest. Her conning tower was snapped off and fallen over the side. The stern of the submarine, with the propellers and dive planes, broke off aft of the engine room and rests beside the main hull.
During October 2000 a survey of the Dakar wreckage and the wreckage site was undertaken by Nauticos corporation and the Israeli navy, some artifacts were recovered, including the submarine's bridge, the boat's gyrocompass and many small items.
The exact cause of the loss is unknown, but it appears that no emergency measures had been taken before Dakar dove rapidly through her maximum depth, suffered a catastrophic hull rupture, and continued her plunge to the bottom. The emergency buoy was released by the violence of the hull collapse, and drifted for a year before washing ashore.
Difficult to say from that description whether the damages described occurred as she hit the sea floor or before. If it was a technical error, making it impossible for her to break a dive, then this accident would be similar to the one that happened to the USS Thresher. However, the damage to the stern could have been caused by a collision.
Yes, there were deep doings with the Cambridge spy ring and (probably you are well aware of this) the “five” were not really five, more like a dozen of them, probably. Only five were discovered.
We often contemplated how we would die if we exceeded crush depth...
Either we would be ripped to shreds by the rupture of the hull and subsequent collapse of all the machinery within, or we would be instantaneously crushed and burned by the pressure wave of the hull imploding.
Death would be quick though....that was comforting.
Exceeded crush depth. Looks like the crew was set on fire then crushed by machinery and tons of water all in an instant.
“Bob Ballard has described it as like being inside the cylinder of a diesel engine. The water rushing in at high pressure acts like a piston combusting everything inside the hull. It is know as telescoping where the hull implodes like closing a spyglass, the men don’t have time to drown”
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/archive/index.php/t-553491.html
An aside. Amazing story of a sub that survived a power loss.
USS Chopper
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Chopper_%28SS-342%29
Major ouch!
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