The Maritime Self-Defense Force held a decommissioning ceremony Friday at its Kure base for the submarine Nadashio, which collided with a pleasure boat in Tokyo Bay in July 1988, killing 30 people and injuring 17 others.
Commissioned in 1985, the 2,250-ton Nadashio will be removed from the MSDF and scrapped.
The Nadashio was commissioned in Yokosuka, Kanagawa Prefecture, in March 1985 and was moved to Kure, Hiroshima Prefecture, in March 1998.
The collision between the submarine and the sports fishing boat Fuji Maru No. 1 occurred July 23, 1988, when the Nadashio was cruising on the surface of the Uraga waterway bound for its home port of Yokosuka.
The Fuji Maru, with nine crew members and 39 passengers on board, sank immediately after the collision, drowning 29 people. One of the 19 rescued and taken to a hospital died the same day.
In December 1992, the Yokohama District Court sentenced the Nadashio captain to a suspended 30-month prison term and the Fuji Maru skipper to a suspended 18-month term. They were found guilty of negligence.