Navy Nuclear Sub, Saudi Ship Collide Off Norfolk

NORFOLK, Va. — A Navy nuclear-powered attack submarine and a Saudi Arabian merchant ship collided in the Atlantic off Norfolk on Friday but there were no injuries in the accident, the Navy said.

It was the latest in a spate of Navy accidents this year, including crashes of several F-14 fighter jets.

The collision at 9:24 a.m. EDT damaged a control plane and the rudder of the submarine Jacksonville, which headed for port at the Norfolk Navy Shipyard under its own power, the Navy said.

The 657-foot merchant ship Saudi Makkah, traveling from Baltimore to New York and carrying 30 crew members, was steaming out of Norfolk as the submarine was coming in when the collision occurred in dense fog and calm seas about 20 miles offshore.

The merchant ship reported a 21-foot gash above the waterline, but the Navy said it did not seek assistance. The ship was being escorted by a Coast Guard patrol boat to a Norfolk shipyard. Repair plans had not been determined.

Lt. Ron Hill, a spokesman at U.S. Atlantic Fleet headquarters in Norfolk, said the Jacksonville, a 362-foot Los Angeles class attack sub with a crew of 143, was on the surface at the time of the daylight incident. It had been out on a short training operation, officials said.

While one control plane on the right side of the sub was damaged, Hill said, there were no reports of internal water leakage or damage to the nuclear power plant of the Jacksonville. The control plane is a large wing-like structure that assists the vessel in diving.

“The Navy will conduct an investigation to determine the cause of the collision,” the commander of Atlantic Fleet submarine forces said. Coast Guard ships and a rescue helicopter were dispatched to the scene to assess the damage.

The incident was the third collision for the Jacksonville in the same vicinity in the last 14 years.

In March 1982, the Jacksonville hit a 510-foot Turkish freighter 25 miles east of Cape Charles. The submarine, commissioned in 1981, sustained only scratches, but the merchant ship’s bow was damaged and briefly took on water.

In September 1984, the Jacksonville collided with a 270-foot Navy barge at the entrance to Chesapeake Bay and sustained damage to its bow-mounted sonar dome.