http://www.navytimes.com/story.php?f=1-292925-580709.php January 03, 2005 Thresher crewmember dies Associated Press CHESTER, N.H. - For years after the submarine Thresher failed to surface from a deep dive off the New England coast, Raymond McCoole said he might have been able to save the vessel - and the 129 crew members who perished with it. McCoole, who died on New Year's Day at 75, was the boat's reactor control officer. He was ordered off the vessel two hours before it sailed that last time, on April 9, 1963. His wife had injured her eyes and needed emergency medical treatment. The submarine, which was on routine peacetime maneuvers, sank the next day in 8,400 feet of water in the Atlantic Ocean, about 220 miles away from Cape Cod, Mass. Navy officials believe the problem was a weak pipe joint in the nuclear submarine, which was built at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in Kittery, Maine, and launched in 1960. A hole opened up in the pipe, letting a stream of high-pressure seawater into the engine room. The electrical system short-circuited, shutting down the nuclear reactor, Navy investigators believe. Then, when the captain tried to empty seawater from ballast tanks, that system failed. As the submarine sank, water pressure crushed the vessel. An officer monitoring the radio on a submarine rescue vessel, Skylark, "heard the sounds of a ship breaking up - a dull, muted roar." McCoole said had he been on board, his experience would have prompted him not to follow standard procedure, perhaps endangering the reactor, but saving the boat. "The proper procedure in a nuclear reactor scram is to shut off the steam engines," McCoole said in a 1993 interview. "Jim Henry, who was my assistant, I am certain followed this established procedure. He had just come out of nuclear power school. "But I was a little more experienced and if I saw my pressure gauge exceeding test depth, knowing full well the captain was unable to do anything without propulsion, I would have drawn the steam (not shut it down)," McCoole said. "Yes, I still feel if I was there I certainly could have been able to contribute something and I would have tried to draw steam." McCoole had long blamed the Navy for allowing the sub to sea with what he called "glaring deficiencies." He also blamed the Navy's policy of rotating personnel immediately prior to a ship's sea trials. "They had almost a complete change of crew," McCoole said. "And the captain, although an experienced nuclear submariner, hadn't been aboard in months." McCoole, a native of Dover, had served in the Navy's submarine service for 24 years. He had held the rank of chief petty officer on the world's first nuclear submarine, Nautilus. -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Anti-Virus. Version: 7.0.300 / Virus Database: 265.6.8 - Release Date: 1/3/2005
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