Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cwjcc!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!att!cbnews!military From: shafer@drynix (Mary Shafer) Newsgroups: sci.military Subject: Re: U.S. sub w/two sinkings Message-ID: <8182@cbnews.ATT.COM> Date: 12 Jul 89 01:24:30 GMT Sender: military@cbnews.ATT.COM Lines: 35 Approved: military@att.att.com From: Mary Shafer I'd like to correct the report of the USS Houston sinking two ships. There was one fatality but only one ship was sunk in the two incidents. The first incident was caused by snagging a tow line between the tug and the barge (?). The tug, with three crew members, was pulled underwater and sank in 10,000' of water. Two of the crew escaped and were rescued. The third crew member, who was belowdecks at the time of the accident, went down with the ship. I don't believe that the body was recovered. This happened at night and the sub was using passive sonar. The tow line was quite long--I remember 5,000 ft which may not be correct, but is well within an order of magnitude. The incident happened between Catalina Island and LA. The second incident involved cutting through a trawler's fishing net. They had an interview with the skipper of the trawler and he was standing by the winch, ready to cut the line rather than be dragged down, when the net failed/broke and set the sub free. Since nobody was injured or killed in this incident, there were a lot of jokes about "the one that got away." Again, I think the sub was on passive sonar. In the news coverage of the first incident, they said that this was not the first such sinking, but I don't remember more than that and I threw out the LA Times for the interval last week. Cutting fishing nets seems to be quite common. -- M F Shafer shafer@elxsi.dfrf.nasa.gov NASA Ames Research Center arpa!elxsi.dfrf.nasa.gov!shafer Dryden Flight Research Facility ames!elxsi!shafer Of course I don't speak for NASA DON'T use the drynix address