- [Man] In 1968, a US submarine vanished
with two nuclear torpedoes.
There have been many
theories about what happened.
Anything from Soviet interference
to a hot run torpedo.
As much as the Russians
seemed like an easy culprit
during the Cold War,
the Navy believed that
they had nothing to do with it.
The more they looked into the mystery,
the more it seemed like
the culprit was themselves.
The truth is that the USS Scorpion
was in need of an overhaul.
This 1958 submarine had
oil leaks, water leakage,
and a 300 foot depth restriction.
With so much going on,
it was clear the crew had severe
concerns for their junker.
Some nicknaming her scrapion,
and others simply walking off.
One engineer warned the whole crew,
saying that it was far too
dangerous for any voyage.
But despite the warning,
they left port in late April of 1968
to be involved in a NATO Operation.
One of the last pictures
the crew would take
was of their effort to repair the sub.
They look stern, as if they
know of their impending doom.
But on April 28th, they
head back from Rota, Spain.
They would never be seen again.
On the date of their arrival,
their families will stand at
the pier waiting for them.
The hours will tick by only
for them to be sent home.
There would be no explanation, no reason.
Just a disappearing act
in the harsh Atlantic.
That's when Dr. John Craven was called in.
He was a hero of the navy search party.
Known for finding the lost
H-bomb after it fell to the sea.
The bomb was noted for
being lost in Spain,
but predictions of its
location were all over the map.
He used a revolutionary form of math
to calculate the location
of the lost weapon,
and has ever since been
the finder of the navy.
He immediately started
tracking the 3,000 mile arc
the Scorpion and her crew must have taken.
The US navy had a little secret
that made the search much easier.
Due to Cold War tensions,
they had spent 17 million
dollars wiring the sea.
So Craven began listening,
searching through all the sounds
at the time of the disappearing act.
And then he heard it.
Five to eight underwater explosions
at the time of the submarine's vanishing.
They had been hoping
to find a living crew.
It is possible to survive
if the crew remains behind
the watertight doors,
but the evidence became too clear.
This noise came from 11,000 feet below.
Far lower than any military
submarine could withstand,
let alone the Scorpion.
Pressures of this sort would
crush a submarine instantly.
And then he heard it.
A single bang.
The rumble of water rushing into the boat,
continued by silence at three
minutes and 12 seconds in.
The USS Scorpion was
lost with all it's crew.
It was certain now.
On June 5th, the navy
made the announcement
that all the men on board had passed.
Their families, desperate for
an answer, were given none.
There was none to give.
They still didn't
understand what happened,
just that the soviets were
presumably not involved.
So the quest continued, with
Craven at the forefront.
As he was looking for answers,
he noticed something strange.
At the time of the explosion,
the submarine was going east, not west.
Why did they turn around?
After tracking down a
couple submarine commanders,
he learned about the concept
of a hot run torpedo.
A plausible explanation,
as it has happened to
the Scorpion in 1967.
The protocol during such an event
is to turn the ship around 180 degrees
to disarm the rogue torpedo.
Any officer would know this,
and the crew was definitely very familiar.
This is supposed to activate
the fail-safe on the torpedo,
letting the men on board get to safety.
It's an answer that makes a lot of sense,
but perhaps it was too easy of an answer.
If this was the reason for the wreckage,
why was there no serious hull
damage in the torpedo room?
Something strange was going on,
and the US navy easily accepted
that it was not a hot run torpedo.
After all, if they did admit this,
they would have to also
admit that their submarine
was killed by their own weapon.
And even worse, every M37 torpedo
in their fleet was flawed.
This was the Cold War, they
needed their torpedoes.
So they began looking
for some other answer,
but there was none to be found.
It's not until 20 years later
that a key piece of information
would come to light.
Charles Thorne is the technical director
of the weapons quality engineering center
at the Naval Torpedo Station at Keyport.
He was having a normal
conversation with Craven,
when he let loose a small
piece of information
that would change everything.
The M37 batteries on the
Scorpion were defective.
Between the power cell and the battery
there was a tiny piece of
foil that is only 1/7000th
of an inch thick.
This will rupture when pressure is applied
by the ejection of a
weapon in the torpedo tube.
This wasn't a secret, but
somehow no one knew about it.
Not even the board of inquiry
had known about this flaw.
Suddenly everything made sense.
If the foil partially ruptured,
it would cause a small fire.
So if the sparking of the
battery cocked off the warhead,
there would be a low-order explosion.
This explains why the torpedo
room had not been crushed,
since it had already
flooded when the ship sank.
It also explains how a hot-run torpedo
could not create the destruction
that they imagined it would.
All the same, this ship
is still a mystery.
Though our best guesses have
brought us to this conclusion,
none of the crew is here
to tell us the real story.
The only thing to do now
is to let the mystery rest,
and allow the families to find peace
in the answers we have given them.
This was the greatest tragedy
in non-wartime naval history,
but the men who sacrificed their lives
will not be forgotten.
(balloons popping)
