[PSUBS-MAILIST] Vanguard class sub (UK) unintended depth excursion

Al Secor via Personal_Submersibles personal_submersibles at psubs.org
Tue Nov 21 08:00:34 EST 2023


That would only add the danger of entanglement.  I would add a pressure
gauge (analog) in series of the digital sensor
or scuba depth gauge mounted outside in view of the pilot.

Al


On Tue, Nov 21, 2023 at 7:24 AM Jon Wallace via Personal_Submersibles <
personal_submersibles at psubs.org> wrote:

> As Dan mentioned, for psubbers, not diving in water deeper than your sub's
> capability is good advice and we have this concept codified in the PSUBS
> operating guidelines section 4.1.2 paragraph 2.  Using multiple sensors for
> either backup or a weighted result between them is also a good idea except
> could be an expensive option given the price of some sensors.  A pressure
> transducer of mediocre accuracy for example is going to be in the $150 each
> range.
>
> What kind of protocol for verification of a single sensor would be
> effective?  The only thing I can think of for depth would be tying a marked
> rope to the vessel and comparing the pilot's observation to surface
> observation.
>
> Jon
>
>
> On Monday, November 20, 2023 at 11:57:50 AM EST, Sean T. Stevenson via
> Personal_Submersibles <personal_submersibles at psubs.org> wrote:
>
>
> Just read an article about an incident with a British Vanguard Class
> submarine that had an incident where it went far too deep, apparently as a
> result of faulty instrumentation. Engineers became aware of the sub's depth
> when they observed some backup depth instrument(s) and rectified the
> situation before it became a castastrophe.
>
> Just wanted to prompt some discussion here, because PSubs don't
> necessarily employ robust backup systems, and at minimum, we should
> endeavour to ensure that all critical instrumentation is periodically
> calibrated to some reference standard to ensure accuracy, and also
> periodically verified in order to have some mechanism in place to detect
> malfunctioning instruments.
>
> Backup instrumentation is a great method to achieve the latter (instrument
> verification), but comparing the primary and backup instruments needs to be
> part of SOPs. Where backups don't exist, some means of functional
> verification should at least be employed, if not per dive, then perhaps per
> trip?
>
> This was a military sub that was almost lost because of an easily
> avoidable problem.
>
> FWIW.
>
> Sean
>
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