NEWPORT NEWS, Va. — It goes down in the history books as one of the Navy's darkest days: April 10th, 1963.
The USS Thresher sunk that day. All 129 men aboard perished.
The USS Thresher became the world's first nuclear-powered submarine to be lost at sea. The most likely reason for the sinking: failure of a salt-water piping system joint
Despite the tragedy, the Thresher accident turned into a watershed moment for the Navy, leading to the implementation of a rigorous submarine safety program known as SUBSAFE.
Even though the Thresher was not built at Newport News Shipbuilding, that company's shipbuilders can still learn something important from it, according to a new video posted on president Jennifer Boykins' Facebook page.
"I hope the Thresher story will serve as a reminder to all why doing our best each and every day matters," she said. "I know that the lessons learned from thresher are guiding us today to produce the highest quality, most complex ships for our United States Navy."
On Friday at the shipyard, they held a 57-second moment of silence for the Thresher, at 9:15 a.m. the exact moment she went down in the Atlantic.