Collision between USS Hartford
and the USS New Orleans

The USS Hartford and USS New Orleans collision was a collision between the United States Navy Los Angeles-class submarine USS Hartford (SSN-768) and the United States Navy San Antonio-class amphibious transport dock USS New Orleans (LPD-18) on March 20, 2009.

It occurred in the Strait of Hormuz, between Iran, the United Arab Emirates, and Musandam, an exclave of Oman. A US Navy investigation into the collision found that the the Hartford was solely to blame for the accident. According to the Navy, the accident was caused by poor, lax leadership on the submarine and a failure to adequately prepare for and conduct the crossing of the Hormuz Strait by the sub's crew. As a result, the skipper and several other officers and sailors from the sub's crew were removed or disciplined.

1.  NAVY Final Report on the Incident [102 Pages, 4.2mb]
2.  Additional Documents Released by the NAVY [5 Pages, 1.26MB]
3.  Ship Deck Logs [10 Pages, 1MB]