Probe into Faslane submarine accident

from Sunday Herald, 12 September 2010

The Ministry of Defence (MoD) has launched an investigation after a crane accidentally dropped a heavy load onto a new nuclear submarine berthed at the Faslane naval base on the Firth of Clyde.

The accident happened on Friday 3 September, but was only revealed after inquiries from the Sunday Herald. HMS Astute, the Royal Navy’s latest reactor-driven submarine, was hit by a ramp slipping from a crane during loading.

Critics warn that the drop could have had serious consequences, triggering a torpedo explosion or a radiation leak. But the MoD insisted that the “wider safety of the boat was not compromised.”

An MoD spokesman said: "During the loading of HMS Astute, a small ramp slipped from a crane onto the submarine and into the water. An investigation has been launched and it is too early to comment on the cause of the incident or whether there has been any damage to the submarine casing.”

The incident had been formally reported to officials within the MoD. “A special investigation is being carried out by the naval base which will also incorporate an investigation by the ship’s staff,” the spokesman added.

The independent nuclear consultant, John Large, pointed out that dropped loads were among the major hazards to be avoided when submarines were in port. “The severity of this event will be dictated by the mass and height of the dropped load and, particularly, the part of the hull impacted upon,” he said.

“Unless the event was utterly trivial, the integrity of the hull will now have to be locally inspected and its integrity reviewed - which means yet more delays in getting Astute into full commission.”

HMS Astute was built by the arms manufacturer, BAE Systems, in Barrow, and formally handed over to the Navy at Faslane in a ceremony involving Camilla, the Duchess of Cornwall, on 27 August.

There were delays with commissioning the boat after a fire damaged its bridge fin in April last year. In March this year the MoD admitted that the programme to build four Astute-class submarines was running nearly five years late and was more than 50% over budget.

According to John Ainslie, the coordinator of the Scottish Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, dropping a load onto a nuclear submarine was a serious safety failure. “The navy's own risk assessments show that a dropped load can, in some cases, penetrate the hull,” he said.

“If the load is dropped on the stern of the submarine it could lead to a reactor incident and if it is dropped on the bow it could trigger a torpedo explosion. There should be a full investigation into why this incident happened and how the navy responded to it."

Comments

[Rob Edwards]

I did ask the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) whether it had been informed. "As there was no formal requirement to let us know about the incident we were not aware of it at the time," said an HSE spokesman. "This is because it did not fall under RIDDOR reportable incidents, i.e. no injury, no release of materials etc. Rather this is something that the HSE inspector would have discussed on his next routine site visit."

[Fred Dawson]

It would be interesting to know whether the incident has been reported to the HSE under the "Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations 1995" as a dangerous occurrence, where something happens that does not result in an injury, but could have done; and what action the HSE have taken.