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A 60-year statistical assessment
Abstract:
An analysis of submarine accidents from 1946 to 2005 was conducted to determine whether improvements in design and management systems have reduced the probability of an incident. The analysis showed that from 1946 to 1974, 0.92 sunk per 500 available submarines per year; and 38 fatalities per 30,000 available submariners per year, while from 1975 to 2005: 0.31 sunk per 500 available submarines per year, and 12 fatalities per 30,000 available submariners per year.
TWO WATERSHED EVENTS OCCURRED IN 1963 that effectively spelled the end of America's postwar period of national innocence: the assassination of President John F. Kennedy and the destruction of the nuclear submarine Thresher, commanded by Lieutenant-Commander John Harvey.
Just as the context for both these events were markedly different, so too would be the fallout from each. In the case of JFK's assassination, it would mark the end of the moral rectitude of U.S. politics and the sanctity of the office of the president. Robert MacNeil of the MacNeil/ Lehrer Newshour summed this up by stating, ". . . perhaps we lived in a fool's paradise before the Kennedy assassination" (Proctor, 1993).
In the case of the Thresher accident, the result would be scrutiny of submarine design and the implementation of assurance systems. It marked the beginning of SUBSAFE, a quality assurance program of the U.S. Navy designed to maintain the safety of the nuclear submarine fleet. Specifically, it provides maximum reasonable assurance that sub hulls will stay watertight and that they can recover from unanticipated flooding.
Interestingly, and by a twist of fate, both Kennedy and Harvey share more than just a tragic place in U.S. history. Both had apparently received a gift from enigmatic Admiral Hyman Rickover, director of the U.S. Navy's Naval Reactors Branch. The gift was a plaque inscribed with an old French fishing prayer: "O God the sea is so great and my boat is so small." Rickover had made a habit of presenting these plaques to new submarine captains, which was intended to be a reminder of their vulnerabilities. Kennedy, a World War II U.S. Naval Reserve officer, had also received the plaque (which now resides in his presidential library).
While the Thresher's demise did not put the brakes...