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The submarine Greeneville was two nautical miles outside the Navy's official submarine training area when it slammed into a Japanese ship during an emergency surfacing drill Feb. 9, Navy Times has learned.
Coordinates obtained from the Coast Guard show that the Greenville shot out of the water during the "emergency main ballast blow" 10 miles due south of Diamond Head crater on Oahu, and two miles east of the training area.
The Coast Guard initially reported the collision took place inside the training area but replotted the position – 21 degrees, 5 minutes north; 157 degrees, 49 minutes west – and found it was outside the boundaries, said Chief Gary Openshaw, a Coast Guard public affairs specialist.
The Greeneville failed to detect the Japanese training ship Ehime Maru, which was carrying high-school students, ripping a hole into the vessel and sinking it within minutes. Nine people are missing and presumed dead; four of them 17-year old students. Twenty-six others were rescued.
The training area, marked as a "submarine test and trial area" on National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration charts, is a 14-by-4-mile rectangular area off Oahu. At its closest point, the northeast corner, it is within three miles of the Oahu coast. The training area has been marked on navigation charts for at least 30 years. Commercial and recreational craft can travel through but are advised to be particularly cautious.
Openshaw said the Navy reported its position within minutes of the 1:45 p.m. collision, which matches one the Ehime Maru broadcast by "emergency position radio indicating beacon," an automatic distress signal, he said.
The Navy did not return phone calls seeking comment.
Pacific Fleet commander Adm. Thomas Fargo has described the place of the accident as a submarine operating area. It is unclear whether the Greeneville was required to conduct the maneuver inside the marked training area.
But the accident-site disclosure comes as Navy officials are under intense questioning about whether the sub's captain and crew had lost full situational awareness in the minutes before the collision. The Navy acknowledged Feb. 13 that three of 16 civilian VIPs aboard the sub were seated at main controls, including the switches that shoot pressurized air into the ballast tanks to speed the sub's ascent, and as helmsman, which essentially steers the sub.
The Navy has been firm in stating that the civilians did not have actual control over the sub, but has conceded that the presence of the civilians during the critical maneuver may have been a distraction to the skipper and crew.
The Navy has refused to release the names of the VIPs, characterizing them as business people on a Navy goodwill visit. The Greenville's skipper, Cmdr. Scott Waddle, was relieved pending the outcome of investigations by the Navy and the National Transportation Safety Board.
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