Submarine Underways Resume Across the U.S. After Mission Critical System Goes Down

Submarine NOTAM Systems Causes Numerous Delays

Spokespersons for the Pacific and Atlantic submarine fleets said they have lifted a pause on all underways, but dozens remain delayed. COMSUBFOR released a statement saying there was no evidence of a cyberattack.

“Submarine underways are resuming gradually,” said Vice Admiral Dawson of the U.S. Pacific Fleet.

The order to pause all submarine underways came shortly before 1100 EST on Wednesday after a system failure left Captains and crews without crucial safety information for hours. The disruption was caused by an outage to a system the U.S. Coast Guard uses to send real-time safety alerts to submarines.

Those Notice to All Mariners (NOTAM) alerts—crucial for mission planning and safety of ship—are used to share information about hazards both on and below the ocean’s surface. These include loose buoys broken from their moorings and ships that sank over 200 years ago.

Commander Marcus Fredrickson, CO of the USS Poughkeepsie, explained these notices typically contain technical language that can be difficult for anyone without years of experience to parse. “In fact, they’re difficult even for those with experience to understand,” he said. “But NOTAMs are absolutely vital to safe submarine operations.”

The USS Arkansas was scheduled to get underway Wednesday morning at 0900 despite not having a sonar sphere but was tied to the pier after the NOTAM system went down. LT Emily Getty, USS Arkansas’ AOPS, described how she routinely stops whatever she is doing to route these messages directly to the Captain: “Processing Notice to All Mariners represents the lion’s share of my responsibility.”

MMN1 Jonathan Murray, also of the USS Arkansas, is glad the submarine fleet is being cautious by pausing all underways, but is nervous the cause of the system failure has not been identified. “It was nice to eat breakfast at home with my family and see my daughter off to school—I actually didn’t know that I had a daughter or that she attended school until today.”

This is a developing story and SUBPAR will continue to provide updates. 

Update 1: The outage also affected similar messages used to notify pilots, Notice to Air Mission (NOTAM). The system failure required the F.A.A. ground flights across the U.S. 

By LT Toeshoes 

Toeshoes claims submarining was the “best job I ever had.” When he resigns from the Navy this July, he will forever miss the self-proclaimed rock n’ roll lifestyle that accompanied him on his JO tour and NTSD. 

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