By Hadley Barndollar, Seacoastonline.com, Feb. 18, 2020

Federal judge orders release of USS Thresher investigative documents

A federal judge has ordered the U.S. Navy to begin releasing unclassified documents in relation to the USS Thresher, the nuclear submarine that imploded 57 years ago, taking the lives of 129, and forever changing submarine safety.

It was the country’s worst nuclear submarine disaster in history when Thresher (SSN-593) did not surface while conducting deep dive exercises 220 miles off Cape Cod on April 10, 1963. The vessel imploded, and its shattered hull remains more than 8,000 feet underwater today.

Thresher was built and commissioned at Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in 1961. Approximately two dozen families of the men lost aboard the submarine still live in New Hampshire, and a number of other families reside in Maine.

Read more here.