Sub Lacked Full Crew, Officer Testifies

Too few crew members on board, a broken piece of crucial equipment, the interference of civilian guests and a rush to get back to port combined to cause a U.S. nuclear submarine to crash into a Japanese fishing vessel, the Navy’s chief investigator said Wednesday.

Concluding his testimony before a court of inquiry, Rear Adm. Charles H. Griffiths Jr. said also that the submarine captain’s command style was a factor.

But “the first thing that I think contributed is the lack of full manning on the [Greeneville], particularly as it applies to sonar,” Griffiths said. “I think that the ship was handicapped.”

In earlier testimony, Griffiths said that 51 crew members and six officers who usually are on board the Greeneville had been left behind on Feb. 9; seven of them were sonar operators. At the same time, 16 civilians and their military escort were traveling on the attack submarine that day during a public relations jaunt.

One of the sonar operators on board the day of the crash was a trainee, which Griffiths said was “a factor” in the collision. Normally, the sonar room would have had two fully qualified sonar operators and a sonar supervisor.

The trainee and his qualified colleague were monitoring the equipment, following a vessel they would later find out was the Ehime Maru. As they watched the trawler in the hour leading up to the crash, they saw it change direction in relation to the submarine at a rate of six degrees a minute.

That rate, called a “right six bearing,” means that the trawler was either moving very fast or was very close to the Greeneville. It is unclear whether the sonar operators noted the change and, if they did, whether they got that information to Cmdr. Scott Waddle, the submarine’s captain.

“There were a couple of minutes there of a right six bearing rate” showing up on the equipment, Griffiths said during cross-examination Wednesday. “I know in my heart that if the captain knew he had a right six, bells and whistles would have gone off in his head.”

Two qualified sonar operators “would better notice” such a change than one, Griffiths said. “If there were two qualified operators . . . [the Greeneville] would have been better off.”

What compounded the problem was that a piece of equipment called a sonar repeater was not working on the day of the crash in which nine people died. The repeater allows other people to view sonar readings.

But during cross-examination Wednesday afternoon, Waddle’s attorney prodded Griffiths about another vessel or object that cropped up on sonar while the Ehime Maru was changing bearing in a potentially alarming fashion. That new vessel could have kept the sonar operators from seeing the Ehime Maru on their machines.

“If your point is that [the sonar operator] had a new contact while seeing the right six and that new contact may have distracted him, that’s true,” Griffiths acknowledged.

The first three days of the naval court inquiry--which will end with recommendations about whether Waddle and two other officers should be punished--have raised almost as many questions as they have answered.

Said Vice Adm. John B. Nathman, who heads the panel: “What we’ve seen more than anything else is that there are many areas we need to examine.”

Griffiths also made the point Wednesday that the three admirals on the panel should look into several areas so far not addressed.

Whipping out a 3-by-5 card that eventually became Exhibit 19, Griffiths read off a catalog of recommendations for the court of inquiry as it spends the next several weeks trying to pin down exactly what went wrong and what punishment--if any--should be meted out.

The admirals should get more information about the damage to the Greeneville, Griffiths said. They should hear from Navy leadership about the value of the so-called Distinguished Visitors Program that brought the civilians on board.

They should find out more about just what the Greeneville was supposed to be doing on Feb. 9; Griffiths said Tuesday that he believed the submarine bent the rules that say trips should accomplish more than just squiring around visitors.

Waddle’s eyesight and that of the Greeneville’s officer of the deck should be checked to see if their vision might have played a part in the collision, Griffiths said. And the panel should hear more from Waddle, the other two officers under scrutiny and the crew, among others.

Waddle has asked the Navy for testimonial immunity, basically, a promise that nothing he says during the current inquiry could be used against him in a possible future court-martial. Waddle will not testify until that immunity decision has been made, a Navy spokesman said Wednesday.

As he cross-examined Griffiths on Wednesday, Charles Gittins--Waddle’s attorney--tried to emphasize how brief the Navy’s investigation had been. He asked the Navy’s lead investigator just how many interviews he’d conducted in person (eight) and whether he’d actually talked to the three men targeted by the inquiry (no).

The attorney for Lt. Cmdr. Gerald K. Pfeifer, the Greeneville’s executive officer, also zeroed in on the brevity of the Navy investigation, noting during his cross-examination that Griffiths only spent 72 hours on the preliminary inquiry.

The attorney, Lt. Cmdr. Timothy D. Stone, also tried to raise questions about the quality of the investigation. He asked Griffiths about his need to rely on others for information during the early investigation--people he did not supervise himself, who did not tape their interviews with crew and officers.

Stone noted that the only finding of fact that Griffiths made about Pfeifer during the preliminary investigation was that during the Greeneville’s voyage leading up to the crash, Pfeifer “saw inadequacies and chose not to make the [commanding officer] aware.”

“If the results of these interrogations were misinterpreted or flawed, then the finding might also be inaccurate?” Stone asked.

“Obviously that’s possible,” Griffiths replied, although he later argued that he “trusted” those assisting him “to be accurate in the written renditions of their interviews.”

Several family members of those lost aboard the trawler have been in the spare courtroom since the proceedings began. During a brief break in testimony Wednesday afternoon, Pfeifer turned to them and apologized. “I feel sorry for your losses,” he said, bowing his head.

Through his questioning of Griffiths, Gittins also underscored Waddle’s experience and emphasized what an elite and responsible position the Greeneville’s captain filled before being removed from command after the crash.