In May 1968, an American nuclear attack submarine went on a secret mission to spy on the Soviet navy. Seven days after receiving this order, when the families of the crew members were waiting at the pier for the return of the Scorpion boat, which had been in combat service at sea for three months, the Navy command realized that the submarine was missing. "Scorpio" was the victim of a mysterious incident, the nature of which is still disputed to this day.
The USS Scorpion nuclear submarine was a Skipjack-class attack submarine. She became one of the first submarines in America with the "albacor", or teardrop-shaped hull, in contrast to the more massive submarines of the Second World War and the post-war period. The boat was laid down in August 1958 and entered service in July 1960.
Skipjack-class submarines were smaller than modern nuclear submarines. They had a displacement of 3,075 tons, a length of 77 meters and a width of 9.5 meters. The crew consisted of 99 people, including 12 officers and 87 sailors and foremen. In boats of this type, the Westinghouse S5W nuclear reactor was used for the first time, which provided them with a maximum surface speed of 15 knots, and an underwater speed of 33 knots.
The main armament of boats of this type was the Mk-37 homing anti-submarine torpedoes. The torpedo was equipped with an active homing sonar, had a launch range of 9 thousand meters and a speed of 26 knots. The warhead consisted of binary explosives marked HBX-3 and weighing 150 kilograms.
At the time of its loss, the Scorpion was only eight years old, and by modern standards it was quite new. Nevertheless, the crew quite often complained about it, thereby showing that the submarine was already becoming obsolete. In 1998, in the U. S. The Naval Institute Proceedings published an article stating that the Scorpion submarine had 109 unfulfilled technical tasks at the time of the last voyage. It had "chronic problems" with hydraulics, the emergency blowdown system did not work, and the emergency seawater shut-off valves were not yet decentralized. At the start of the last voyage, 5,680 liters of oil leaked from the submarine's conning tower as it left Hampton Roads Bay.
Two months before the disappearance of the boat, the Scorpion's commander, Captain Third Rank Francis Atwood Slattery, filed an urgent request for hull repair, noting in his report that it was "in very poor condition." He also expressed concern about a valve leak, which prevented the submarine from diving deeper than 100 meters, although its maximum diving depth was three times greater. Many in the Navy called this boat scrap.
On May 20, the commander of the US submarine fleet in the Atlantic gave the order to the crew of the Scorpion to monitor the formation of Soviet ships near the Canary Islands. This unit included a Project 675 submarine, a rescue vessel, two survey vessels, a destroyer and a tanker ship. The command believed that this unit was carrying out seismoacoustic studies of NATO surface and submarine ships.
On May 21, the Scorpion radio reported its whereabouts, giving the estimated date of return to Norfolk - May 27. There was nothing unusual in the report.
By May 28, the command of the Navy realized that the submarine had died. The SOSUS sonar anti-submarine system, designed to detect Soviet submarines, detected a powerful explosion under water. Later, the sunken boat was found at a depth of 3,047 meters using a deep-sea bathyscaphe. The wreckage of the hull was scattered over an area of 1,000 × 600 meters.
What happened to the "Scorpion"? The report of the US Navy on this incident was not definitive. Several theories have arisen about the death of the boat and 99 crew members, one of which was conspiracy theories. But they were all inconclusive and lacked solid evidence.
A technical advisory group, assembled in the Navy to study the physical evidence, put forward the theory that the boat was the victim of a torpedo that accidentally entered a combat state inside the torpedo tube. Unlike other torpedoes thrown by a gas jet, this Mk-37 sailed out of the torpedo tube more slowly and quieter, making it impossible to detect the boat. This theory is supported by a number of reports that at the time of the destruction, the submarine was moving in the wrong direction, which it should have followed in order for the torpedo, which had come into a combat state, to turn 180 degrees and aim at its own boat.
According to another theory, the garbage disposal unit broke down, causing water to enter the boat and come into contact with a 69-ton electric battery, causing an explosion. On the "Scorpion" really had to install a new lock for the waste disposal system, and due to malfunctions in its operation, seawater in the past has already entered the hull.
And finally, according to the latest theory, a hydrogen explosion occurred on board the boat during or immediately after charging the batteries. At the time of the explosion, the submarine was at periscope depth, and it is likely that it was at that moment that the watertight hatches were locked. This was an anachronism from the pre-nuclear era, and due to the locking of the hatches in the battery compartment, explosive hydrogen could accumulate, which happens when the batteries are being charged. A single spark is enough to cause an explosion of hydrogen gas and could detonate the batteries. This is consistent with the data from the direction finders, which recorded two small explosions half a second apart.
The conspiracy theory is that the Scorpion got into some sort of Cold War-style brawl and that the boat was sunk by a Soviet squadron. In 1968, an unusually large number of submarines sank, including the Israeli Dakar, the French Minerve, and the Soviet K-129. According to conspiracy theorists, the cold war in the deep sea from time to time turned into a very real war, because of which several submarines were lost. Unfortunately, there is no evidence, as there is no explanation of how the Soviet formation, which included only two warships, managed to sink the rather modern boat "Scorpion".
Most likely, there will never be a convincing and comprehensive explanation for the death of the Scorpion submarine. This is unfortunate, but since that incident, the US Navy has not lost a single submarine. The deaths of Thresher and Scorpion, with 228 crew on board, was a hard lesson for the Navy, but they learned it. Tens of thousands of submariners who safely returned home from their campaigns benefited from this.
