Washington – Early one morning last January, off the coast of Somalia, Special Warfare Officer Christopher Chambers reached from his group’s warship to the thin handle of a Houthi ship. The seas changed and he lost his grip and fell into the water. Within seconds, Special Warfare Officer 1st Class Nathan Gage Ingram jumped in to save his fellow Navy SEAL. Both sank beneath the waves of the Arabian Sea in 47 seconds.
A new US Navy report has concluded that both deaths were preventable, but justified why The The deaths of two elite Navy SEALs Unblocked is even darker.
The Navy’s report on its eight-month investigation, obtained by CBS News, cites a list of deficiencies ranging from a lack of proper training and equipment malfunction or misuse to failure to compensate for the extra weight the men carry. But their deaths come down to the fact that the two SEAL fighters operating on the small warship were too heavy, too laden with equipment, to stay afloat long enough to be recovered.
US Navy
Chambers, 37, of Maryland, and Ingram, 27, of Texas, were posthumously promoted by the Navy. They were part of SEAL Team Three/Task Force Three and were tasked with intercepting Houthi ships suspected of transporting Iranian weapons to Yemen. Those weapons have been used by Iran-backed rebels in Yemen to attack U.S. Navy ships and merchant ships in and around key Red Sea shipping lanes for more than a year. Israel-Hamas war in Gaza It started in Gaza.
The heavily redacted report details the series of events that led to their deaths.
Environmental conditions were “near or at the threshold” for the mission, the report, written by Rear Admiral Michael Devore, said – “not the cause of this horrific accident, but a contributing factor.”
According to the report, declassified and unreleased images of the two men before boarding the suspected Houthi ship on January 11 show them both fitted with flotation devices known as Tactical Flotation Support Systems (TFSS). The boat from the SEAL warship, Chambers slipped and fell into nine feet of water.
“Seeing his teammate struggling, (Ingram) jumped into the water to help (Chambers),” the report said. “The weight of each person’s gear and their physical capabilty (sic) or emergency flotation devices, if activated, are insufficient to keep them on the surface.”
It is not clear whether their flotation devices had been activated but would have been sufficient to keep them afloat. The cabins were loaded with about 50 pounds of gear. Ingram carried an extra backpack with the team’s radio, weighing an extra 30 pounds or so.
The ladder was on the suspected Houthi ship, a boat in the region known as the Dhow, but Chambers, like some of the SEALs who had already boarded the Dhow, wanted to reach the train. In a video shot by a US helicopter hovering 200 feet above, he “is seen intermittently on the surface 26 seconds after the fall. (Ingram) was only intermittently on the surface 32 seconds into the rescue attempt. The entire tragedy took place in just 47 seconds, and two NSW servicemen were lost at sea.”
The other SEALs couldn’t carry out rescue efforts so fast. A 10-day search and rescue operation turned up nothing but one of the lost SEAL’s flotation devices. The report states that the sea is about 12,000 feet deep in the area.
The investigation report states that the flotation devices failed to inflate, were separated from the men, or were too wedged by other gear to fully inflate.
“The Navy respects the sanctity of human remains and recognizes the sea as an appropriate and final resting place,” the statement said.
The report outlines the following issues related to the incident:
- Failure to recognize the hazards to flotation and the role emergency flotation devices must play in achieving flotation requires sand-assisted flotation.
- Failure to complete buoyancy tests once deployed.
- Inadequate training with tactical buoyancy support system
- Conflicting guidance and non-implementation of buoyancy requirements
- Maintenance of TFSS does not meet Navy standards
A US Navy official has confirmed that a SEAL team found weapons on a Houthi ship.
“Our deepest condolences go out to the families, friends and teammates of Chief Special Warfare Operator Christopher J. Chambers and Special Warfare Operator Nathan Gage Ingram,” said US Navy Commander Timothy Hawkins. “Chambers and Ingram were part of a team we remember as heroes who died defending our nation.”
The report makes several recommendations, including training and tactics, risk management clarifying buoyancy guidance and formalizing pre-mission “buddy checks”.
“This incident, marked by systemic problems, was preventable,” U.S. Army Central Command commander Gen. Michael Guerrilla said in a statement.
Landing a SEAL team between ships at sea is considered one of the most dangerous phases of a mission.
“However, layered protections of personal responsibility, properly maintained and operational equipment, and process and procedures protect against such risk,” the report said.
Whether it was a lack of those processes and procedures or a combination of failures that led to the deaths of the two SEALs will never be fully known. The source lies beneath the Arabian Sea.
Charlie D’Agata
