The Royal Navy has launched an urgent investigation into allegations that employees used glue to patch up broken bolts in the reactor room of the Trident nuclear-armed submarine. According to a Sun story, incorrect repairs were found on the cooling pipes of the HMS Vanguard during an inspection after one of the bolts came out.
Initially, overtightening caused the bolt heads to come off. However, the employees at the defence contractor Babcock decided to use glue as a temporary remedy rather than replace the broken shafts.
When the issue was identified, the engineers referred to it as a procedural error, but no one brought up how poorly the remedy was done.
‘It’s a disgrace. You can’t cut corners with nuclear. Standards are standards. Nuclear standards are never compromised,’ stated a navy source.
‘The glued bolts held insulation in place on the coolant pipes in the nuclear reactor and were found just as workers were set to fire it up to full power for the first time,’ reported the newspaper.
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