Sub collision re-created

In a dramatic re-creation yesterday of what occurred at sea the day the USS Greeneville smashed into a Japanese fishing vessel, a video simulation showed that the Ehime Maru clearly would have been visible had the Navy crew conducted a thorough periscope search.

Capt. Thomas Kyle, chief trainer of submarine commanders for the U.S. Pacific Fleet, arrives at the inquiry. Associated Press

The computerized video simulation demonstrated that the Ehime Maru would have appeared only as a white speck during a low-power, high-speed sweep of a rough sea swelling with waves from all directions, similar to what happened on Feb. 9 when the collision threw 35 Japanese crew members into the water, killing nine.

But with a high-power, slower search and a higher look above the waves at the recommended speed for a careful, 360-degree search, the Japanese fishing vessel would be impossible to miss, a second simulation showed.

Capt. Thomas Kyle, the chief trainer of submarine commanders for the U.S. Pacific Fleet who reconstructed the paths of the Greeneville and the Ehime Maru, presented the video models during all-day testimony at Pearl Harbor. Kyle also pointed out the importance of several systems that were not operating.

During his reconstruction of the accident, Kyle said the Greeneville’s crew probably had only about 20 seconds of good observation time when the submarine rose to a depth of about 60 feet for the periscope search.

In that short amount of time, they couldn’t have seen 360 degrees around the submarine, and even if they got a good look at the Ehime Maru, they would have seen only about half of it, he said.

Kyle presented three video computer models designed to show what the crew might have seen through the periscope, re-creating the ocean’s swells and the hazy weather with a white Ehime Maru about one to two miles away.

In the first model, which showed three rapid sweeps with the periscope only about one to two feet above the waves, the Japanese boat was barely visible. With a quick look and the periscope at 10-12 feet above the water, the boat was more visible, but still not clear.

"If you saw that, you would continue your look," Kyle said. "If something catches your attention, you would stop the sweep, study the look, see if there’s danger and try to avoid a collision."

But the high-powered, slower search at the recommended standard speed — a much slower, three minute, 360-degree search -showed the Ehime Maru headed right for the submarine.

Kyle said he considered the ship’s video display unit, which was not working on the Greeneville, a critical piece of equipment. If it were not working on his ship, he said, "it would be a No. 1 priority to fix it."

If the unit could not be repaired, he said, his crew would have to compensate somehow, either by plotting sonar data more frequently or checking fire-control data more often.

Vice Adm. John Nathman, president of the court of inquiry, asked Kyle: "Would you expect then, given loss of these two displays, that they would seek more time" to perform maneuvers?

"If anything, it would dictate that things are going to go slower," Kyle responded. Rear Adm. Charles Griffiths Jr., who did the initial investigation of the incident, criticized Cmdr. Scott Waddle for trying to perform the maneuvers too quickly.

Later in the day, Kyle engaged in a tense exchange with Waddle’s attorney, Charles Gittins, as Gittins tried once again to pin blame for the accident on Fire Control Technician 1st class Patrick Seacrest. Seacrest, who did not inform Waddle of the close range of the boat that turned out to be the Ehime Maru, remains a mysterious figure in the court of inquiry.

In a series of highly technical questions, Gittins sought to show that it would have been normal for the fire control technician to have shifted his focus from his first contact, which was actually the Ehime Maru, to a new contact he found just before the collision.

Gittins also drew out of Kyle that the technician should have contacted a higher-ranking officer to report the close proximity of the first contact when he next saw that it was only about 4,000 yards away from the Greeneville.

Gittins contends that Waddle did not have the information he needed from his crew when he ordered the emergency blow that resulted in the accident.

"Would Cmdr. Waddle have ordered periscope depth if he had known there was a contact inside 4,000 yards?" he asked Kyle yesterday.

"No, sir," Kyle responded.

"Would that circumstance indicate to you that he was not aware of the accurate location of the ship?"

"Yes, sir," Kyle said.

Earlier in the day, Kyle testified that about 20 percent of submarines in the Pacific Fleet get underway with sonar technicians who are both unqualified and improperly supervised — despite clear Navy guidelines to the contrary.

Both the Naval Warfare Publication and the standard submarine operations regulation manual specifically say that only qualified personnel can stand watch at a sonar station, Kyle said.

"It's very clearly spelled out," Kyle said. "There’s no ambiguity there."

But after the Greeneville’s accident, a sonar supervisor aboard the Greeneville told Kyle that unsupervised trainees are a "common practice."

Later, a sonar inspector who rides all classes of submarines for the fleet told Kyle that he has seen the situation on about 20 percent of his trips.

Nathman immediately asked Kyle whether the unidentified sonar inspector notified senior "watch standers" or senior enlisted men throughout the Pacific Fleet to let them known he had witnessed violations of Navy policies.

"Did he try and close loop on this at all?" Nathman asked Kyle.

Kyle said he was more interested in understanding the situation than solving the problem. But he promised to get back to the court of inquiry to find out what steps have since taken place since.

Navy officials have said that sonar trainees often sit at control panels. But there must be a qualified technician standing by at all times ready to take over, they said, in addition to the normal sonar room supervisor.

The lack of a properly trained, properly supervised sonar technician has been listed as one of the many problems inside the Greeneville before the crash.

Just moments before the collision, a qualified sonar technician entered the submarine’s sonar room looking for his jacket, Kyle said.

He tried to help clarify the sonar contact that was known at the time as "Sierra 13," Kyle said.

The Greeneville was in the middle of executing a series of high-speed turns with 16 civilians on board. And as it headed on a course of 340 degrees, the sonar technicians had a chance to clearly track the Ehime Maru, Kyle said.

Staying on course for three minutes would have let the officers and crew realize that their next planned turn would take them closer to Sierra 13, Kyle said.

But the crew only had 30 seconds at the right speed and depth to decipher the sonar readings, Kyle said. Then the Greeneville turned to 120 degrees and drew closer to the Ehime Maru.

According to previous testimony, no one in the sonar room or at the fire control panels told the officer of the deck or the Greeneville’s captain about the possibility of a close surface contact.

Waddle instead ordered the Greeneville to rise to a periscope depth of 60 feet, probably thinking that there were no surface ships, the preliminary investigators previously said.

Before you go to periscope depth," Kyle said, "you’re obligated to understand all of the contacts around you."

In the sonar room, the four technicians probably could not understand why the Greeneville kept rising when they had an ambiguous contact on the surface, he said.

"I would guess that paradox was in the mind of the sonar people," he said.

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