Newport News skipper relieved

From Navy Times

Sub skipper fired after collision

Attack boat Newport News surfaced beneath Japanese tanker

By Andrew Scutro - Staff writer

Posted : Tuesday Jan 30, 2007 11:35:42 EST

The skipper of the attack submarine Newport News was relieved of command Monday in Bahrain following a Jan. 8 collision with a Japanese oil tanker in the chokepoint of the Persian Gulf known as the Strait of Hormuz.

Cmdr. Matthew A. Weingart was relieved of command by Rear Adm. Douglas J. McAneny, commander of Combined Task Force 54, “due to lack of confidence in his ability to command,” according to a statement from Naval Forces Central Command in Bahrain.

Capt. Norman A. Moore has assumed temporary command of the ship.

Charges against another Newport News officer were dismissed, but two petty officers received administrative punishment at the admiral’s mast proceeding.

Newport News remains in Bahrain, where technicians continue to assess damage from the collision with the Japanese oil tanker Mogamigawa.

On the night of Jan. 8, the tanker passed over the submerged submarine. The two ships then collided because the passing tanker created a “Venturi effect” which pulled the submarine into its hull, according to officials.

There were no injuries to either crew.

Phil McGuinn, spokesman for Commander, Naval Submarine Forces, in Norfolk, Va., said there is damage to submarine’s forward ballast tanks and the forward vertical launch missile tubes.

He said the Newport News cannot “conduct normal operations until it is fully repaired” in the U.S.

“The cost estimate is not yet available,” McGuinn said.

[All the blog talk of "Venturi effect" and the impossibility of avoiding the tanker doesn't change the fact that the upper echelons seem to be in a "firing mood" (see the post about the LCS program] and the skipper is ultimately responsible for the boat. Maybe he shouldn't have been where he was; I don't know, I wasn't there. But he's history and the troubles with the sub fleet continue].