The destruction and sinking of the USS Independence turns a lost submersible into the instrument of a shipwide catastrophe. A deep-sea organism’s effort to enclose the Deepflight sends it surging from the seabed; the submersible then strikes the USS Independence and drives its torpedoes into the hull. The initial blast destroys vital machinery, flooding makes the ship’s loss inevitable, and a second explosion followed by a helicopter crash compounds the disaster as the evacuation is under way.

From the seabed to the surface

The chain of events begins in the Greenland Basin, where a dwindling flow of cold water continues descending even after the chimneys that had produced it can no longer be detected. At about 3.5 kilometres below the surface, a blue glow reveals an enormous organism shaped like a long, thin-walled jelly tube, anchored to the seabed by countless small feet. Within it, millions of tentacle-like projections move in waves, carrying whitish lumps towards the Deepflight, which is lodged at an angle in the silt.

The organism has been loading the submersible with the frozen lumps, and the vessel is nearly full when the supply stops. A section of the tube separates and envelops the Deepflight, its transparent jelly contracting around the hull until the pods are closed. Another tube begins pumping water into the encasing sac from a large organic balloon suspended above the submersible. The water is warm and originates at a mud volcano near the Norwegian continental shelf; the balloon remains suspended rather than rising, despite the buoyancy the warmer water should give it.

The added warmth rapidly melts the frozen cages that contain the gas. Compressed methane expands to 164 times its former volume, filling the Deepflight and swelling the jelly cocoon until it is taut. The cocoon seals itself off and detaches. As the gas rises and the surrounding pressure falls, the ascent accelerates, carrying both the jelly enclosure and the submersible towards the surface. The vessel’s return is thus not a controlled recovery: it is the end point of a biological process that has wrapped, filled, and launched it.

Collision and first explosion

A few seconds before impact, the crew of the USS Independence is put on red alert after the dolphins report an unknown object. Sonar confirms that something is approaching rapidly, but its size and shape are unclear. It does not sound like a torpedo, and the crew cannot identify what launched it. Its vertical approach, silent speed, and growing bluish outline make it especially difficult to interpret. On the monitors, a rippling sphere appears, at least ten metres across. Buchanan orders it shot down, but the object is already too close.

The sphere bursts beneath the hull. During its ascent, the gas inside it has continued to expand until the cocoon’s thin jelly skin tears from top to bottom. The gas keeps rising, carrying the large rectangular Deepflight with it. Spinning on its axis, the submersible races into the USS Independence bow-first, ramming its torpedoes through the hull. The narrative gives little time between impact and blast: after the collision, the explosion follows.

The damage is concentrated amidships, where the ammunition magazines and engine room are located. A tear roughly twenty metres long opens in the hull, and water pours through it with enough force to kill many of those who survived the blast. The engine-room damage also begins a chain reaction in the hydraulic system and fuel-pumping stations, producing further explosions. What began as the return of one lost submersible has become the failure of the ship’s central machinery and the flooding of its interior.

Flooding and a second detonation

Buchanan remains on the bridge with the second officer and helmsman, monitoring developments and issuing orders. The two gas turbines are lost, and the six diesel generators that supply the ship’s electricity fail in quick succession. Flooding in forward cargo compartments tips the vessel bow-first. Buchanan understands that it will sink; the question is when, and whether enough people can be evacuated before the damage spreads.

Water pressure threatens to drive the flood towards the bow, break through the bulkheads, and rise to the level above. Buchanan estimates that the vehicle stowage compartments below the laboratory are about to flood, with some of the troop berthing also at risk. The absence of marines aboard reduces the evacuation burden: instead of the three thousand men a normal operation would involve, about 180 people are on the ship, most of them on its upper levels. Even so, the monitors, chart tables, communications equipment, and navigational aids cannot restore control or halt the flooding; the bridge’s usual systems become useless against the physical failure of the hull.

Below the flight deck, a torpedo released when the Deepflight exploded has not detonated. Water has pushed it into an ammunition magazine, where it settles into a metal storage cage partly torn from its position. As the ship inclines, the cage shifts gradually under the strain. Its supports buckle, cracks open in the magazine wall, and an attachment bolt is pulled free. The cage jerks loose, the partition collapses, and the torpedo is thrown towards a sensitive junction beside the bow cargo holds, troop quarters, and vehicle deck. This time its explosive charge works. The second detonation adds another rupture to a ship already flooding and losing its systems.

Evacuation and the final catastrophe

On the roof, the landing crew move people towards the helicopters. Buchanan speaks briefly with Flight Control and watches one helicopter take off; with the bow sinking lower, the flight deck may soon become too steep to use. The remaining aircraft are tethered, but that precaution cannot remove the danger created by the ship’s changing angle and worsening condition. The evacuation depends on getting people airborne before the deck becomes unusable.

As the deck tips further, a Super Stallion carrying Murray Shankar and others skids into the helicopter ahead of it. The aircraft lifts, but its movement becomes uncontrolled. Loaded with more than thirty-three tonnes and carrying nine thousand litres of fuel, it crashes into the bridge and turns the front of the island into a fire. The impact tears open bulkheads and destroys equipment; flames pass through the superstructure and down its passageways as people flee. The helicopter disaster therefore strikes not at the edge of the crisis but at the bridge and island that had been coordinating the response.

The sinking is presented as the accumulating result of connected failures: the Deepflight’s impact, the amidships blast, the destruction of propulsion and power systems, progressive flooding, the later torpedo detonation, and the loss of the bridge in the helicopter crash. Each new emergency narrows the remaining routes to safety. The underwater cocoon that first concealed and transported the Deepflight reappears at the surface as an object the crew cannot identify in time; what seemed to be an isolated sonar contact becomes the opening blow in the destruction of the entire vessel.