Key Points and Summary – In 1969, the brand-new nuclear attack submarine USS Guitarro famously “sank” pierside at Mare Island after a stunning series of blunders.
-Workers removed a bolted manhole cover and cofferdam in the bow sonar dome to swap out faulty transducers—and never put them back.
Los Angeles-Class Submarine. Image Credit: Creative Commons.
-Weeks later, simultaneous trimming and calibration tests drove the bow just low enough for seawater to pour through the open manhole.
-As the dome flooded, the sub settled forward, taking on massive water through other openings until she went down at the pier.
-Refloated and nicknamed the “Mare Island Mud Puppy,” Guitarro would eventually enjoy a full Cold War career before decommissioning in 1992.
USS Guitarro: The “Screen Door on a Submarine” Disaster the Navy Won’t Forget
Chances are, at least some of our readers have heard the old joke about screen doors on a submarine.
Urban Dictionary even has an entry for the phrase “about as useful as a screen-door on a submarine,” defining it as “Utterly useless,” “A waste of oxygen,” “Completely worthless,” “A waste of space,” and “Devoid of any purposeful function on this earth.”
The Virginia-class submarine USS Vermont (SSN 792) makes her way up the Thames River and past Fort Trumble and the Coast Guard Cutter Borque Eagle as she returns home to Submarine Base New London on Thursday, December 24, 2020. The nineteenth and newest Virginia-class submarine she is the third U.S. Navy ship to be named for the Green Mountain State. (U.S. Navy Photo by John Narewski/Released)
Obviously, real-world submarines don’t have screen doors. (The history of human stupidity notwithstanding, no designer is truly *that* stupid.)
However, submarines have been sunk or severely damaged by negligent decisions that ended up having the same practical effect as a screen door, and these incidents were no laughing matter.
For example, back in March 2017, the Indian Navy’s first ballistic missile submarine, the INS Arihant (“Conqueror;” SSBN-80), was put out of action for 10 months after someone neglected to close a hatch properly.
As embarrassing as that sounds, a similar mishap befell a U.S. Navy submarine 38 years prior, in the middle of the Cold War. We now dives deeper into the story of the USS Guitarro and the open manhole caper.
The Basics/Bottom Line Up Front (BLUF)
The official account of the submarine’s sinking is quite telling, to say the least:
“In the most forward part of the ship is the bow structure sonar dome which contains the ship’s sonar sphere. Entrance to the dome is through a manhole which has a bolted cover. At the time of launch, this opening was also protected by a cofferdam approximately three and a half feet high. This additional precaution was taken to make sure that occasional water did not run down onto the electronic gear which was exposed at that time.”
The sonar’s operation is dependent on a number of large electronic components known as transducers. Sometime after the sonar equipment was installed it was discovered that some of these components were faulty and would have to be replaced. To facilitate this work, the cofferdam and the bolted manhole cover were removed. This occurred in early March 1969 and neither the cofferdam nor the cover was ever replaced. At the time the Guitarro went down, the manhole cover was on the dock and the cofferdam was in the storage warehouse.
From the testimony and records before the Subcommittee, it can be reasonably concluded that on May 15 a simultaneous trimming operation and calibrating test caused a sufficient change in the Guitarro’s draft to permit water to enter in quantity through the open sonar dome manhole. As the sonar dome became flooded, its weight caused the ship to further settle by the bow which permitted additional water to enter other openings. This soon allowed massive flooding through the large bow access and at this point the Guitarro was doomed.”
USS Guitarro (SSN-665) Post-Incident History
Luckily, Guitarro was refloated three days later and given the humorous namesake of “Mare Island Mud Puppy.”
U.S. Navy Virginia-Class Submarine.
As for her official namesake, Guitarro was named for the guitarro, AKA the guitarfish (Rhinobatos rhinobatos).
She was the 17th ship of the Sturgeon class of nuclear-powered fast attack submarines (SSNs). (A total of 37 Sturgeons were built between 1963 and 1975.)
Guitarro was finally commissioned on September 9, 1972, four years and two months after her launching, and six years and nine months after her keel had been laid.
According to Hullnumber.com, Guitarro had her Shellback Ceremony cruise (i.e., the rite of passage when a sailor crosses the Equator for the first time, marking their transition from a “polliwog” to a “shellback”) on September 17, 1973.
From there, she embarked on the following major deployments:
-July 1974 – September 1974, West Pac
-March 1979 – June 1979, West Pac
-January 1983 – July 1983, West Pac-Indian Ocean
-May 1987 – November 1987, West Pac
-August 1989 – February 1990, West Pac
-29 May 1992, Decommissioned and stricken from the naval roster
Where Is She Now?
Sadly, Guitarro was not preserved for posterity. Instead, she scrapped via the Ship/Submarine Recycling Program (SRP), with the work completed on October 18, 1994.
But considering the embarrassing manhole mishap 35 years earlier, Guitarro and her crews were blessed to have lasted as long as she did.
Sturgeon-Class submarine. Image Credit: Creative Commons.
That said, the sail of one of her sister ships, USS Sturgeon (SSN-637; the lead ship of the class), is lovingly preserved and displayed at the US Naval Undersea Museum in Keyport, Washington.
Submarine USS Guitarro (SSN-665) Technical Specifications and Vital Stats
Courtesy of GlobalMilitary.net:
-Displacement: 3,640 tons surfaced, 4,640 tons submerged
-Hull Length: 89.08 m (292.3 ft)
-Beam Width: 9.65 m (31.7 ft)
-Propulsion: 1 S 5W reactor with a power of 28,000 hp – 1 propeller
-Max Speed: 15 knots surfaced, 30 knots submerged
-Range: Unlimited, except for food supplies (thanks to the nuclear power factor)
-Max Depth: 400 m (1312.3 ft)
-Crew Complement: 107 commissioned officers and enlisted seamen
-Armament: 4 x 533mm torpedo launch tubes (TLTs) with 15 torpedoes in storage + 4 x UGM-84 Harpoon antiship missiles.
About the Author: Christian D. Orr, Defense Expert
Christian D. Orr is a Senior Defense Editor. He is a former Air Force Security Forces officer, Federal law enforcement officer, and private military contractor (with assignments worked in Iraq, the United Arab Emirates, Kosovo, Japan, Germany, and the Pentagon). Chris holds a B.A. in International Relations from the University of Southern California (USC) and an M.A. in Intelligence Studies (concentration in Terrorism Studies) from American Military University (AMU). He is also the author of the newly published book “Five Decades of a Fabulous Firearm: Celebrating the 50th Anniversary of the Beretta 92 Pistol Series.”
