USS Miami (SSN 755)

- decommissioned -

USS MIAMI was the fifth of the 23 improved LOS ANGELES - class attack submarines and the third ship in the Navy named after the city in Florida. On May 23, 2012, the MIAMI suffered a major fire while dry-docked at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, Kittery, Maine. Caused by arson, the fire caused $700 million damage to the submarine, forcing the Navy to retire the MIAMI in a time of budget cuts. On June 12, 2015, the MIAMI left Kittery under tow heading for the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard, Bremerton, Wash., where the submarine will be scrapped.

General Characteristics:	Awarded: November 28, 1983
	Keel Laid: October 24, 1986
	Launched: November 12, 1988
	Commissioned: June 30, 1990
	Inactivated: September 27, 2013
	Decommissioned: December 3, 2014
	Builder: Electric Boat Division of General Dynamics Corporation, Groton, CT
	Propulsion system: one nuclear reactor
	Propellers: one
	Length: 360 feet (109.73 meters)
	Beam: 33 feet (10 meters)
	Draft: 32,15 feet (9.8 meters)
	Displacement: Surfaced: approx. 6,255 tons
	Displacement: Submerged: approx. 7,102 tons
	Speed: Surfaced: approx. 15 knots
	Speed: Submerged: approx. 32 knots
	Armament: Tomahawk missiles from 12 VLS-tubes, four 533 mm torpedo tubes for Mk-48 torpedoes, Harpoon missiles, ability to lay mines
	Cost: approx. $900 million
	Crew: 12 Officers, 115 Enlisted

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Crew List:

This section contains the names of sailors who served aboard USS MIAMI. It is no official listing but contains the names of sailors who submitted their information.

Click here to view the list.

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Click here to see which USS MIAMI memorabilia are currently for sale on ebay.

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Accidents aboard USS MIAMI:

Date	Where	Events
May 24, 2012	Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, Kittery, Maine	A fire breaks out aboard USS MIAMI while the submarine is dry-docked at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard for a 20-month engineered overhaul and modernization period. The fire started in the forward compartment at approx. 5.45 pm on May 24 and was extinguished the next morning at 3.30 am. MIAMI's reactor wasn't operating at the time and was not affected by the fire and no weapons were aboard. A shipyard spokesman reported that seven people received minor injuries. They were treated in a nearby medical facility and were released shortly afterwards. Initial findings indicated the fire started in a vacuum cleaner used to clean worksites at the end of shift, and stored in an unoccupied space. On July 23, 2012, a civilian painter and sandblaster working on the MIAMI admitted to setting the fire to get out of work early. On March 15, 2013, he is sentenced to over 17 years in federal prison and ordered to pay $400 million in restitution. On August 22, 2012, the Navy's estimated cost to restore USS MIAMI is approximately $450 million, with an estimated date of completion for the repairs of April 30, 2015. The estimate included 10 percent variability due to the unique nature of the repair and the cost impacts of shifting the planned maintenance availabilities of other ships and submarines. On August 6, 2013, the Navy notified Congress it plans to stop repairing the USS MIAMI and inactivate it. In April, they discovered additional cracking on board the submarine and the cost of the repairs increased from an estimated $450 million to $700 million. On September 27, 2013, MIAMI is deactivated.

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USS MIAMI History:

USS MIAMI entered service as an "improved" LOS ANGELES-class attack submarine built by General Dynamics Electric Boat at Groton, Connecticut. The contract was awarded on November 28, 1983; the keel was laid on October 24, 1986; launch followed on November 12, 1988 with Jane P. Wilkinson as sponsor; and commissioning took place on June 30, 1990 under Commander Thomas W. Mader. Homeported at Groton for the entirety of her operational career, she joined the Atlantic Fleet just as the Cold War waned, taking up the class's mix of undersea surveillance, anti-submarine and strike roles enabled by bow planes and a 12-cell Tomahawk vertical-launch system.

Through the early 1990s, MIAMI's rhythm combined New London work-ups, maintenance alongside the Thames River, and Atlantic deployments. Early images and unit records place her in South Florida during a summer port call at Port Everglades on July 17, 1993, and back in Connecticut for a routine hull inspection in the auxiliary repair dock SHIPPINGPORT (ARDM 4) at Naval Submarine Base New London on March 16, 1994 - snapshots of a typical cycle of sea periods, short upkeep, and inspections between longer forward operations. In 1993, she also drew public attention as one of the two boats featured in Tom Clancy's nonfiction tour of a U.S. nuclear submarine, which helped explain the 688I boats' day-to-day methods and missions to a general audience.

By the late 1990s, MIAMI was repeatedly forward in European and Middle Eastern waters as crises unfolded from Iraq to the Balkans. During Operation Desert Fox - a four-day U.S./U.K. strike from December 16-19, 1998, aimed at degrading Iraq's WMD-related infrastructure - she took part as a Tomahawk shooter, and then, in 1999, she again conducted combat cruise-missile operations during NATO's Operation Allied Force against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, a campaign that ran from March 24 to June 10, 1999. In doing so, the submarine became the first U.S. boat since World War II to conduct combat operations in two theaters in close succession, a distinction subsequently noted in official Navy histories and releases.

In the first half of the 2000s, MIAMI's deployments and port calls reflected both public-facing outreach and sustained undersea tasking. She moored again at Port Everglades for Fleet Week on April 26, 2004, an event documented in Navy photography and media coverage. Between sea trials and strike-warfare readiness drills, Fleet Weeks offered crews a brief window ashore and gave the public a glimpse of a class of submarines otherwise built for unheralded, independent operations.

As counter-terror and maritime-security priorities grew, MIAMI operated with carrier forces in the Arabian Sea. On November 11, 2007, she was photographed on the surface during an anti-submarine warfare evolution with the ENTERPRISE (CVN 65) Carrier Strike Group and, that same day, was recorded steaming in company with USS ENTERPRISE, USNS SUPPLY (T-AOE 6), and USS GETTYSBURG (CG 64) - a snapshot of the way fast-attack submarines knit into larger strike groups for coordinated theater operations.

A prolonged deployment in 2009 culminated in a Groton homecoming on December 2, 2009, when Navy imagery captured the boat returning to Submarine Base New London after eight months in the U.S. European area of responsibility. The photographs show MIAMI passing NAUTILUS (SSN 571) on the Thames River, a visual handoff between generations at the end of a long cruise.

In 2011, MIAMI's itinerary again traced the arc of allied cooperation and Sixth Fleet tasking. During an October 11 port visit at Haakonsvern, Norway, the chief of the Royal Norwegian Navy came aboard - an engagement documented by U.S. and Norwegian outlets - and on December 15, 2011, the submarine returned to Groton from a five-month deployment in the Sixth Fleet area, closing another period of forward surveillance and undersea defense in European waters.

The boat's final chapter began with a routine shipyard period. MIAMI entered Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, Kittery, Maine, on March 1, 2012, for an Engineered Overhaul intended to refresh hull-mechanical-electrical systems and upgrade combat suites. On May 23, 2012, a civilian worker set a fire aboard the submarine that spread through forward spaces. The blaze took roughly 12 hours to extinguish and injured several firefighters. A Navy investigation and related court proceedings established arson as the cause, and while an initial plan contemplated repairs using parts from recently retired submarines, refined assessments pushed estimates toward $700 million. In the context of fiscal pressures, Navy leadership decided on August 6, 2013, not to proceed with repair. MIAMI was inactivated and then decommissioned on March 28, 2014, for disposal via the Ship-Submarine Recycling Program. The loss shaped subsequent Navy-wide fire-safety reforms governing maintenance availabilities across public and private shipyards.

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USS MIAMI Patch Gallery:

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USS MIAMI Image Gallery:

The photos below were taken by Michael Jenning and show the decommissioned MIAMI at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, Kittery, Me., on May 4, 2015. The submarine is sitting high in the water. The mast on the sail as well as the navigation lights and the installation on the bow are preparations for MIAMI's upcoming tow to the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard, Bremerton, Wash.

The photo below was taken by Michael Jenning and shows the MIAMI laid up at the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard, Bremerton, Wash., on October 13, 2017.

The photo below was taken by Michael Jenning and shows the MIAMI laid up at the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard, Bremerton, Wash., on June 12, 2022.

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