This doesn't look good. The fact that they detected the contact, and just quit tracking it for an hour, can't be excused. Especially when they had enough data to reconstruct the path of the ship. I'm sure more info will come out, but I just lost a lot of faith in our navy. http://www.msnbc.com/news/529046.asp HONOLULU, Feb. 21 — Sonar crew on the submarine USS Greeneville detected the Japanese fishing boat Ehime Maru 71 minutes before the submarine collided with the vessel while surfacing, the National Transportation Safety Board reports. NTSB member John Hammerschmidt also said that civilian guests distracted a crew member responsible for tracking sonar contacts, though it was not clear that the interruption contributed to the accident. THE SUBMARINE’S fire-control technician, who used pencil and paper to plot the position of the Greeneville and nearby vessels, stopped performing that task less than an hour before the collision, because of the presence of 16 civilian guests in the submarine’s control room, Hammerschmidt said. “He told us ... that he was not able to continue his plotting ... because of civilians in the area,” but he did not ask them to move, Hammerschmidt said. Hammerschmidt said three other crew members in the USS Greeneville’s sonar room worked uninterrupted to monitor ships in the area south of Oahu. Hammerschmidt also said that data from the submarine’s sonar data log showed the Greeneville gained passive sonar contact with a surface vessel at 12:32 p.m. on Feb. 9 and designated the contact as Sierra 13. He added that the Navy reconstructed the path of the Ehime Maru and determined that Sierra 13 was the Japanese ship. ------------------ Stay Cool...
