$2.2M sub mishap was ‘avoidable,’ report says

The crew heard the sound as soon as they rolled the propulsion shaft — Whump! Whump! Whump! — but rather than shut it down, they kept the shaft spinning at various speeds for days trying to figure out the problem.

Their “catastrophic” mistakes, a new Navy report concludes, sidelined the guided-missile submarine Georgia for three months, locking it up in the shipyard for repairs when it should have deployed for operations against Libya in early 2011. It also cost an officer and a senior sailor in engineering their jobs, and three crew members went to mast for dereliction of duty; three others earned non-punitive letters of caution.

All because of a single bolt worth a few dollars or less.

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