Nuclear Submarine Guardfish Leaves Controversy Over Safety in Its Wake

The San Diego-based nuclear submarine Guardfish has been plagued with 27 mishaps, ranging from minor to serious during the last two decades, Greenpeace officials alleged Wednesday.

The Guardfish shipped out on a routine deployment amid a storm of controversy Tuesday after several crew members alleged that the vessel was unsafe. Some crew members had threatened to boycott the submarine’s deployment this week, but Navy officials said that only one crew member did not report for duty. The Navy reiterated its claim that the vessel is safe.

It is not known whether the sailor, a seaman apprentice mess cook, shirked duty because of concerns about the vessel’s safety.

The mess cook, an inexperienced sailor whose name has not been released by Navy officials, apparently was aboard the submarine during the first roll call, said Lt. Cmdr. Doug Hocking, a spokesman for the Pacific Fleet’s submarine force. But, shortly before the submarine shoved off from its Point Loma pier, the cook left the vessel to take trash to the dock and never returned. His absence was not immediately detected, Hocking said.

The submarine’s departure, originally scheduled for Monday, had been delayed by one day as workers fixed a drain pump that malfunctioned during its last stint at sea more than a week ago.

During a press conference Wednesday, representatives from several environmental groups, including Greenpeace, said they expect more and more sailors to come forward to allege safety problems because, they said, the Navy is not taking care of the existing ones.

“This is just the tip of the iceberg,” said Karen Topakian, a Greenpeace spokeswoman. “We are beginning to see a pattern of crew members so frustrated and upset by the handling of safety problems that they are forced to come to the press.”

Topakian released a list of 27 mishaps involving the Guardfish, dating back to 1967. Greenpeace officials obtained the information from the Navy through the Freedom of Information Act.

Retired Capt. James Bush, a former submarine commander and associate director of the Center for Defense Information, said the laundry list of incidents was lengthy but could mostly be attributed to personnel errors rather than submarine malfunctions.

“It looks like the Guardfish has had a history of problems, but they aren’t nuclear problems,” Bush said. “They are based on a failure of personnel--not something inherently wrong with the ship.”

The two major incidents cited by Greenpeace occurred almost 20 years ago. The first involves a Guardfish sailor who drowned after he was swept overboard in 1972. The second incident took place in 1973, when there was a leak in the reactor’s coolant while the submarine was submerged 370 miles southwest of Puget Sound.

The Guardfish surfaced, and workers ventilated and decontaminated the ship. Four crewmen were taken to the hospital, according to records released by Greenpeace. The condition of the men was unknown.

In response, Navy officials said the Guardfish’s safety record is unblemished.

“Greenpeace gets ahold of information and publicizes it for their own objective--we have never had a major accident,” said Lt. Susan Haeg, a spokeswoman for Submarine Group 5 based in San Diego.