a crushing experience

i came across an interesting picture in my random surfing the other day of a damaged submarine that was labelled as the kursk. the picture, one of the ones below, didn't seem to me like it could be the kursk as the sub looked too intact to have experienced what the kursk went through.

after look at a list of submarine incidents i found that it was actually an american submarine, the uss san francisco, that had run into an underwater mountain while cruising at its full speed of 35 knots. that's an object weighing about 12 million pounds hitting a mountain at 40mph- and surviving!

of course it wasn't without some fairly major damage, but it still is incredible that something can be built to withstand that sort of impact.

according to accident reports, one person died while 97 out of the 137 crew members suffered injuries.

the black honeycomb structure on the left is apparently the sonar array. not sure why it was covered up in the above photos- would think not protection from the weather as it had previously been underwater.

the above picture shows the angle that the sub hit the underwater structure. what's also interesting is the thickness of the hull. not sure of the scale but it looks to be a good three feet thick.

the sub was fitted with the forward section from another submarine, the uss honolulu, and is back in service- hopefully with some more accurate sea charts.