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SUBSAFE is a quality assurance program of the United States Navy designed to maintain the safety of the nuclear submarine fleet. All systems exposed to sea pressure or critical to flooding recovery are subject to SUBSAFE, and all work done and all materials used on those systems are tightly controlled to ensure the material used in their assembly as well as the methods of assembly, maintenance, and testing are correct. Every component and every action are intensively managed and controlled. They require certification with traceable objective quality evidence. These measures add significant cost, but no submarine certified by SUBSAFE has ever been lost.

On 10 April 1963, while engaged in a deep test dive approximately 200 miles off the northeast coast of the United States, USS Thresher (SSN-593) was lost with all hands. The loss of the lead ship of a new, fast, quiet, deep-diving class of submarines was effective in ensuring that the Navy re-evaluate the methods used to build her submarines. A "Thresher Design Appraisal Board" determined that, although the basic design of the Thresher class was sound, measures should be taken to improve the level of confidence in the material condition of the hull integrity boundary and in the ability of submarines to control and recover from flooding casualties.

From 1915 to 1963, the United States Navy lost 16 submarines to non-combat related causes. From the beginning of the SUBSAFE program in 1963 until the present day, only one submarine, USS Scorpion (SSN-589), has been lost, but Scorpion was not SUBSAFE certified. No SUBSAFE-certified submarine has ever been lost.

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