The blaze aboard the USS Dolphin broke out Tuesday night, May 21, 2002, around 11:30 p.m. All 43 crew members on board the
submarine were rescued -- 41 by a Navy ship, and two by helicopter from the water, Pentagon officials said Wednesday. The fire
occurred when the ship was about 100 miles from San Diego. The USS Dolphin is a deep submergence submarine and has extensive
laboratories that are equipped for research. The USS Dolphin holds the submarine world depth record of 3,000 feet. The
submarine was on the surface when the fire occurred and some flooding occurred.
It is interesting to note that this fire occurred on the 34th anniversary of the sinking of the nuclear powered submarine,
USS Scorpion. Ninety-seven lives were lost in that accident. Since the remains are at 10,000 feet the cause of the sinking is
not known.
The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory has spent 22 years investigating the causes and effects of arcing
faults within electrical switchboards. The Arc Fault Detection Systems invented by JHU/APL have worked sucessfully on ships since
1990 and could be very useful when applied to the protection of power sensitive facilities such as hospitals, semiconductor
manufactures, and other large scale electrical users.