On Tuesday, the 149 passengers on Southwest Airline’s Flight 1380 were shocked when about 20 minutes after takeoff from New York, the plane’s left engine exploded, blowing a hole in the fuselage. The rapid depressurization sucked one woman passenger partially out of … Continue reading
Tag Archives: US Navy
One hundred and twenty years ago today, on February 15, 1898, a mysterious explosion ripped through the hull of the American battleship USS Maine, at anchor in Havana harbor in Cuba. The ship sank killing 266 of the 350 men aboard. The loss … Continue reading
I sometimes wonder if the world is going a bit mad. Take, for example, the case of icebreakers with cruise missiles and destroyers with guns but no ammunition. Despite the increased strategic importance of Arctic, the US has only one … Continue reading
The Navy has announced that five officers involved in two deadly ship collisions are facing a variety of criminal charges including negligent homicide. The officers facing charges include Cmdr. Bryce Benson, former captain of the USS Fitzgerald, and Cmdr. Alfredo J. Sanchez, former captain … Continue reading
The US Navy has rightfully been undertaking a considerable review and revaluation of the problems that led to the recent ship collisions between the USS Fitzgerald and the USS John S. McCain with commercial vessels, resulting in the deaths of 17 sailors. … Continue reading
This may be the most bizarre Navy training film yet. The film dates from 1967 and purports to answer the question of “how to succeed with brunettes (or blondes.)” It is directed exclusively at male naval officers. How many female … Continue reading
Following the recent collisions between US Navy destroyers and merchant ships, various internet sites posted the AIS tracks of the collisions. Well, they posted half the AIS tracks anyway. The merchant ships used AIS while the Navy did not. While … Continue reading
The fallout continues from the recent collisions with merchant ships in the Pacific involving the destroyers USS Fitgerald and the USS John McCain. The collisions resulted in the deaths of 17 US sailors. Earlier in the year, two guided missile … Continue reading
Two high tech guided missile destroyers charged with protecting the fleet from incoming missiles somehow failed to avoid collision with two slow-speed commercial vessels. Tragically, seventeen sailors died in the collisions. Some immediately blamed cyber-hacking, although a Navy investigation has turned … Continue reading
In 1867, Royal Navy Captain, and later Admiral, Philip Colomb, worked out a system to send signals by a code of dots and dashed using signal lamps. Since then, navies around the world have used only slightly improved versions of signal lamps … Continue reading
Yale University has announced that it is renaming Calhoun College the Grace Hopper College in honor of Grace Murray Hopper. The University decided to change the name of the residential college which had been named after John C. Calhoun, who attended Yale in 1804 … Continue reading
In 2012, we posted about how U.S Navy low frequency sonar training and testing could kill or deafen thousands of whales and dolphins. Environmental groups, led by the Natural Resources Defense Council, filed a lawsuit in San Francisco arguing that actions violated … Continue reading
The Russians do not appear to like the US Navy operating ships in the Baltic Sea. On Aprill 11, two unarmed Russian SU24 fighter jets made low attitude passes at the US Navy destroyer USS Donald Cook. Then, on April 12, two Russian … Continue reading
Yesterday, two US Navy Riverine Command Boats (RCBs) with a combined crew of ten sailors were apprehended by Iranian Revolutionary Guard boats. One or both of the RCBs had suffered a mechanical failure and had drifted into Iranian waters. The Iranians released … Continue reading
Back in the early 200s, the US Navy began a program to build a new class of Littoral Combat Ships, LCS, which were intended to be fast, agile and, at least by US Navy standards, relatively inexpensive, which could operate … Continue reading
In 1998, the United States Naval Academy dropped celestial navigation from its curriculum. If a naval officer wished to know where he or she was, the officer simply had to read the display on a GPS (Global Positioning System) receiver. … Continue reading
This feels like a bad joke, but sadly, it isn’t. In May of 2010, we posted about “Women Submariners – Pioneers Facing Many Challenges.” Of the various challenges we expected women on submarines would have to face, secret shower videos … Continue reading
Last February, we posted that the US Navy planned to deploy its first laser weapon on one of its oldest ships. The new laser weapon has now been deployed on the 43 year old USS Ponce, an Austin-class amphibious transport dock, for field … Continue reading
Happy 239th birthday to the United States Navy! On Friday, October 13, 1775, the Continental Congress voted to fit out two armed sailing vessels to cruise to attempt to seize arms and stores from Royal Navy transports. The rebel forces were … Continue reading
One of the causes of the War of 1812, was the impressment of American sailors into the Royal Navy. But that was two centuries ago, and Yanks now, generally, do not serve in the British navy. As a result of love … Continue reading