Spain Asks U.S. for More Help to Fix Flawed Sub

In a recent U.S. visit, the Spanish Defense Minister asked American officials for more help to correct design problems with its S-80 diesel-electric submarine program.
Minister asked the U.S. for continued cooperation, with S-80 builder Navantia to resolve a technological rough patch, in the program.
U.S. submarine builder General Dynamics Electric Boat was contracted last year through a Foreign Military Sales (FMS) contract to help correct a problem with the first-in-class Isaac Peral (S-81) — the first of four boats.
The submarine was found to be up to 75 tons overweight.
Navantia tells the problem with the submarine should be solved by June, when it expects to be able to release details about the extent of the redesign, the time needed to sort it out, and the extra costs involved.
Some estimates say correcting the problem could delay Spain’s first operational S-80 submarine by two years from 2015 to 2017.
usni.org