Seawolf Sub’s Testing Delayed Due to Defect

The Navy has suspended testing of the Seawolf while engineers investigate a welding problem on the $2.4-billion attack submarine.

The problem affects the sub’s air flasks, which provide the buoyancy that allows the submarine to dive and surface, officials said.

“There’s enough of an issue here that we think the safe thing to do is to keep the submarine in port,” Cmdr. Bob Ross, a spokesman at the naval submarine base in Groton, said Friday.

Capt. Keith G. Arterburn, a spokesman for Naval Sea Systems Command in Arlington, Va., said the problem was discovered during an examination of two air flasks that were purchased for testing and were never installed on the submarine.

“The flaws they found were large enough to cause concern, but they could be repaired by cutting them out or grinding them and rewelding,” Arterburn said.

Navy officials have said that the Seawolf submarines, the newest attack subs in the fleet, are the quietest, fastest and most complex ever built.

The Seawolf was supposed to be in the middle of a six-month operational evaluation, a series of tests to determine the range of its capabilities, prior to its first scheduled deployment later this year. Ross said it is too soon to say whether the Seawolf’s schedule will be affected.