ltstanfo wrote:
the_leander wrote:
--UPDATE--
One of the crew who were airlifted to hospital has died of his injuries according to the BBC.
One of our type 23 frigates is in the area and it was one of her helicopters that did the lift. Once in posission its likely that the frigate will be used to tow the sub back to port for imediate repairs.
I Seriously want to know WTF has gone off here. From the report made by the BBC, it looks like the MOD have been more then a tad sloppy in their refitting of the mothballed subs.
If this is the case, then I can only offer my condolances to the family of the crewman who died.
As someone who served in the Navy, I am disgusted at this. Looking at the state of one of the other subs that went over to Canada in the report, I am furious, that boat should never have left dock, let alone gone trans atlantic!
How dare the beancounter who thought this scheme up (cut costs by doing a sloppy job and pass on those costs to the canadians later on) threaten the lives of servicemen in the silent service!
:pissed: :pissed: :pissed: :pissed: :pissed: :pissed:
Sorry to cross post (I keep forgetting to check this forum...I usually stay in politics) but there is an update on the CNN website:
http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/europe/10/07/submarine.rescue/index.html
It now appears possible that the overall condition of these four subs is so bad that the Canadian MOD is considering sueing? My condolenses to the family of the deceased crewman as well.
Regards,
ltstanfo
Heh, no worries :-D
If thats the case (as its starting to look like) then none of those boats should ever have passed even a cursery saftey check by a loyds inspector (Loyds insure all boats and send out their own inspectors before anything can set to sea).
I must admit I have some very bad feelings about all of this, because as Glaucus has alluded to, the boats they've gotten thus far have had to go in for extensive refitting before their lads were happy to use them.
I hope they do sue, because this sort of slapdash workmanship simply cannot be accepted, especially for a submarine, where everything is that much more dependant on your equipment working because of the environment they are designed to work in.
And how one of the officers had the gall to turn around and say that the boats had been refitted and trialed prior to handover and was happy with their condition... it beggers belief... Only one british submarine has sunk in the last 50 years when it wasn't supposed to (Sunk as in gone down never to come up, not as in controlled submergence) and that was due in full to poor maintainance. Since then every government and every Naval commander in chief, and every contractor has made damned certain that nothing goes out that shouldn't, it even written into contractors contracts that any default in a vessel they work on must be fixed at the first oportunity since they will be held liable if they don't. Yes mistakes can be made, but nothing along the lines of what the Canadians are experiencing.
there is another possibility, that the four submarines have been in mothballs for so long, and the equipment not maintained to battle ready status, that they have aged far worse then expected. 7 years is a damned long time not to do some really in depth maintainance.
