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Dan McMillin the BTL Engineer Who Was the Source of the SCORPION Acoustic Data Died on 18 March

By Bruce Rule - Mar 20, 2015

In my K-129 posting of 20 Feb, I stated the following: “The writer expresses his gratitude to the individuals who provided those two data sets which permitted the first SCORPION analysis in more than 40 years and the first ever analysis of the K-129.”

Dan McMillin, long part of the BTL “System” brain-trust, was deeply involved in the initial analysis of the Canary Island detections of the loss of the USS SCORPION.

It was Dan who, as discussed in my posting earlier today, called John Craven to tell him his measurements of the change in the difference in detection times of the SCORPION acoustic events by Argentia array 3141 and the Canary Island hydrophones were seriously in error: off by a factor of 50: 0.04 seconds versus the Craven value of 2.0 seconds..

It was Dan who provided me with the Canary Island recording. Without those data, we would still be completely in the dark, unable to refute either John Craven's assessmen that SCORPION was lost because of “the explosion of a large charge weight external to the pressure hull” or the reprehensible conspiracy theories.

Dan was the critical link in the chain of evidence that confirmed the SCORPION Structural Analysis Group's conclusion - never previously available to the public – that the disaster was the result of the explosion of the main battery.

For those who have a copy of WHY THE USS SCORPION (SSN-589) WAS LOST, the measurement summary and data analysis on the last page of Chapter ONE is Dan's analysis in his handwriting.

I remember Dan with affection and great respect.

Bruce Rule