Damaged USS Miami decommissioning ceremony Wednesday, March 26, 2014 KITTERY, Maine — The Navy will formally decommission Los Angeles-class attack submarine USS Miami (SSN 755), March 28, during a 10 a.m. ceremony at Portsmouth Naval Shipyard. The time-honored ceremony will be held in the shipyards main auditorium and attended by current crew members, their families and other invited guests. The event will mark the end of Miamis nearly 24 years of active service in the fleet. The Miami was severely damaged by a fire set by a shipyard worker in May, 2012, while it was in dry dock during a 20-month overhaul. The Navy intended to repair the attack submarine and return it to duty before the discovery of additional cracks in pipes drove the estimated repair costs up from $450 million to $700 million. The Navy spent $71 million on planning and initial repairs on the fire-damaged USS Miami before scuttling plans to restore the nuclear-powered submarine in May. The decision to scrap the repairs and retire the submarine was made as a combination of the higher costs and mandated budget cuts to the Navy. Casey James Fury, the shipyard worker who set fire to rags aboard the nuclear submarine, confessed that he did so because he wanted to go home. He was sentenced to more than 17 years in federal prison for the blaze that transformed the vessel into a fiery furnace and injured seven people. Fury was also was ordered to pay $400 million in restitution. The then 25-year-old Fury, formerly of Portsmouth, N.H., a civilian painter and sand blaster, told authorities that he wanted to go home because he was suffering from an anxiety attack. He told them he never envisioned such extensive damage when he used a lighter to set fire to a plastic bag of rags that he left on a bunk in a state room. The blaze quickly grew into an inferno spewing superheated smoke that billowed from hatches. It took 12 hours and the efforts of more than 100 firefighters to save the submarine. Seven people were hurt. The ships first commanding officer, retired Capt. Thomas Mader, will be the keynote speaker. Rear Adm. Ken Perry, commander of Submarine Group 2, will be the guest speaker. Cmdr. Rolf Spelker, who assumed command of Miami on Nov. 15, is also scheduled to speak. Miami is currently undergoing an inactivation process the Navy announced last fall. Her crew of 111 officers and enlisted personnel will all be reassigned to other units by December. Miami was commissioned June 30, 1990 as the Navys 44th Los Angeles-class submarine.
Posted on: Fri, 28 Mar 2014 03:30:38 +0000
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