Fire! Fire! Fire!

 Photo: K-480 being rolled out of the building hall at SevMash, 16 April 1988. Source: military.tomsk.ru and TV program Udarnaya Sila

Arkhangel'sk - The efforts to extinguish a fire on a submarine awaiting disposal at the Zvezdochka Shipyard in Severodvinsk has been continuing for seven hours according to a source.

The fire on Akula class K-480 Ak Bars (Project 971) began at approximately 1445 Moscow time. "Cable raceways caught fire. Initial efforts to extinguish the fire were ineffective. The compartment is relatively big, but it almost immediately filled with smoke and visibility was practically zero. An attempt was made to flood the compartment in an attempt to extinguish the flames without effect".

K-480 is pretty young for being being a candidate for disposal (not that that is a BAD thing from my perspective!). For a taste of what disposal involves, see A Unique Operation in Gremikha.

Submarine Disaster of the Day: The Chaotic Rescue of S-178

Memorial to Project 613B SS-178. Photo: primamedia.ru

The Pacific Fleet Project 613B medium diesel submarine S-178 was lost on 21 October, 1981 as a result of a collision with the refrigerated cargo ship Refrigerator-13. The boat was returning after two days at sea with K3R V.A. Marago at the helm.

S-178 received permission to enter Zolotoy Rog harbor at 1930. RFS-13 didn't notice S-178's running lights against the backdrop of the city of Vladivostok and other ships in the roadstead until too late. The commander managed to give the order, "On the starboard side! Signalman, illuminate the oncoming vessel!", but it was already too late.

Refrigerator-13 struck S-178 on the port side around compartment number six at 1945. The compartment was flooded in about 15 to 20 seconds. The boat developed a severe list and people standing in the sail flew into the water. About 40 seconds after the collision, S-178, having taken on about 130 tons of water, lost seaworthiness and sank in 31 meters of water.

The memorial to the crew of S-178 was established in the Mariner's cemetery by submariners. It was opened in 1982, a year to the day of the loss of the boat...The monument conssists of the metallic structure of a type S submarine, set into a granite block. The front part of the sail is directed north. On the face of the memorial is a granite tablet, upon which is engraved, "Pacific Fleet sailors of SS S-178, lost at sea 21 October in the Sea of Japan"...There are 16 submariners buried in the cemetery, 10 more buried in their home regions and the bodies of six were never found.

There are more details about the sinking, including the rescue efforts which seem to have a lot in common with the chaos involved with the Kursk rescue a generation later:

At 2015, the Pacific Fleet duty officer declared an emergency rescue situation and called upon the search and rescue detachment based in Vladivostok. Submarine S-179, base minesweeper BT-284 and the salvage vessel Zhiguli departed the range where they had been conducting training seven minutes later and proceded to the scene of the accident. The salvage vessel Mashuk, a few small boats and the Project 940 (Lenok class) rescue submarine BS-486 Komsomolets Uzbekistan, which was preparing to enter the yards, arrived from Vladivostok. (Note: BS-486 also played a key role two years later in the recovery of the "black box" from the shot down KAL-007).


Caption: India-class rescue submarine BS-486, Golden Horn Bay, Vladivostok, 1999. Source: podlodka.su

At 2100, RFS-13 found a rescue buoy. The rescuers arrived in the following order:
- 2150 the Mashuk and the Project 365 fire-fighting boat PZhK-43,
- 2239 Zhiguli got underway from Preobrazheniya Bay,
- 0120 22 Oct BS-486 and the Project 522 dive tender VM-110


22 October

From 1055 on 22 Oct the floating cranes Bogatyr'-2 and Chernomorets-13 arrived on the scene to place roadstead equipment to assist the rescue ships. The chief of staff of the Pacific Fleet Vice Admiral R.A.Golosov was on board the Mashuk to direct the rescue effort.

At 0030 on 22 October, comms were established with the sunken submarine through the rescue buoy. The XO reported the situation about the condition of the crew, the loss of comms with the stern and the lack of individual escape gear. On the basis of this report, HQ calculated the time the crew had left.

There was no food, water or warm clothing. The temperature in the compartment fell to 12 degrees celcius. There were no instruments to measure the amount of toxic gases or oxygen in the air. The level of CO2 was 2.7 percent, despite the fact that two compartments were burning five O2 candles apiece. The reserve of 60 regeneration banks were enough to support life for 60 hours. A person can live 72 hours at an atmospheric pressure of 2.7kg/cm2. An independent ascent would be accompanied by the bends and a longer stay would surely be fatal.

There are tablets hanging in the compartments with instructions for swimming to the surface. There aren't any instructions for how to save oneself after a long stay in a compartment under high pressure. Meanwhile, the submariners know that the longer that they remain under pressure, the less chance there is to save their lives.

Because bad weather was expected in the next two days, headquarters decided not to save the submariners by raising the aft end of the boat and they decided instead to use the rescue submarine, without a glance at the current weather conditions.

(...)

On 22 October at 0845, BS-486, in a peacetime first, began rescuing people from the sunken sub.

At 0906, she let out her underwater anchor 15 meters from where S-178 sank so that divers could search the area. But it took three hours for the divers to find S-178(!!!!!!!?????). They inspected the stern for an hour and rapped on the hull to try to establish comms with compartment seven. There was no return signal. They attached a buoy to mark the stern section and departed.

At 1300, the rescue sub began to maneuver to a distance not more than 30 meters from the bow of the sunken boat. (...)

At the same time, conditions in the area deteriorated greatly: a 30 knot north-west wind whipped up and the sea state grew to four. Some of the equipment was not functional and there was a complete lack of search and rescue gear to find an unknown object on the sea floor. The shallow depth in rough seas limited the ability for rescuers to maneuver. BS-486 tried to surface and dive three times. The worst part was losing the radio bouy attached to S-178, which cut off comms at 1410 on 22 October.

It turned out that valuable time was wasted. There was a lack of equipment and the rescue boat spent several hours maneuvering without finding the bow of the sunken boat. There was no real assistance offered.

Kapitan-Lieutenant S.M.Kubynin decided to take a group up to the surface because of the worsening situation. They prepared escape trunk number three. When the pressure was equalized, K2R B.Ya.Karavekov gave the signal. Exiting the lock, the communications officer Kapitan-Lieutenant S.N.Ivanov released the beacon buoy, but he got the buoy lines mixed up and the buoy did not go to the surface.

At 1545 Kap-Lt Ivanov and Sr. Seaman Mal’tsev made a free ascent to the surface. The submariners were found and were put into a decompression chamber 12 minutes later to compensate for the effects of breathing pressurized air for so long.

BS-486 continued to maneuver in the area around the bow of the sunken submarine, but she just couldn’t find it.

The submariners trapped without comms with the surface continued there efforts to save themselves. At 1830, Kap-Lts Kubynin and Zybin sent a second group through escape trunk number four.

Sr. Seaman Anan’yev, Seaman Pashpev and Seaman Khafizov disappeared without a trace: they weren’t found on the surface because it was dark and there was no organized search of the area around the lost submarine. It is possible that a key role in their fate was played by the maneuvering rescue submarine

At 2015, divers from the rescue submarine found the sunken submarine and established comms by tapping back and forth on the hull with the submariners.

BS-486 anchored using her bow anchor and began to reposition using the maneuvering motor to take up the necessary position. After each maneuver, divers corrected her position. Finally the seventh trio of divers to work secured an exit tube to a diving platform to the upper starboard rescue hatch (hatch number three). There they found the failed marker buoy, freed it and checked the connection to the hull and floated it to the surface.

BS-486 used around 17 hours to maneuver into position to offer practical help to the trapped sailors.

23 October

Divers from the rescue submarine began to work at 0303. They loaded six IDA-59 rescue re-breathers into hatch number three, two diving suits and 10 ISP-60 diving tanks, rescue lamps, food and after that the rescue divers exited into the rescue submarine.



By 0400 the gear was taken into the first compartment. Despite the instructions received from the rescuers, Kap-Lt. S.M.Kubynin decided with the Brigade Chief of Staff to send a third group through the air lock.

It seems that the decision was correct: V.Ya.Karavekov was demoralized, the diver’s skills weren’t what they should be and there was no medical help.

At 0554, the third group began its ascent from escape trunk three. Right at that moment, a diver was approaching to deliver gear and saw the opening hatch. The CHENG Yamalov emerged. The diver assisted him in leaving the apparatus and tried to guide him to the entry on the rescue submarine, but the submariner wouldn’t let the diver hook him up to the submarine, tearing off the harness and swimming to the surface. The diver detached from the hull. While he fell a meter or two to the bottom, Seaman Mikushin emerged from the hatch. There was nothing else for the diver to except to report the exit of the sailors to the rescue submarine. K2R B.Ya.Karavekov remained in the escape trunk.

Divers inspected escape trunk number three, found nothing in the eight meter long tube and left more gear and instructions for its use.

While all this was going on, communication between the trapped crew and the divers was poor. There was no standardized set of signals for submarine rescue – they were made up on the spot. A lot of time was wasted in the escape trunks. Additionally, the divers were working a long time in the depths and were freezing. They had to work in 60 to 90 minute shifts. New divers received a pass down on board the rescue submarine, planned their dives and had to establish comms with the sunken boat. There were intervals of time when there were no rescue divers outside the escape trunk.

During underwater operations the divers had their first practical use of much of their equipment in a real live rescue situation. For example, the device built to transfer equipment in to the stricken submarine turned out to be cumbersome and inconvenient.

Around 1000, the submariners closed the forward escape trunk and drained it. The body of a dead officer was inside.

Deciding not to no longer test fate, Kap-Lts S.Kubynin and V.Zybin organized preparations to exit to the surface through a flooded compartment. The submariners took all their gear into compartment two, including the oxygen candles. They unblocked the hatch to escape trunk three. They donned the ISP-60s. There weren’t enough diving suits so they gave them to the crewmembers who would exit last. Eighteen men prepared to exit.

At 1515 they signaled the divers, “Wait for us by the exit of the escape trunk. We are ready to exit.” The compartment began to flood. There was a danger that the flooding could affect the list and trim, causing torpedoes to shift off their skids. Because of this danger, the flooding was deliberate and slow through the forward port upper hatch. The excess air pressure generated was bled off through the sea cock on the depth gauge.

At 1915 they began their exit. The first to exit collided with a foreign object in the escape trunk and had to return to the compartment. The way remained blocked.

After removing the body of V.Ya.Karavekov, the escape trunk still wasn’t cleared of the equipment left there by the rescue divers. Divers placed loaded dive suits and IDAs in escape trunk four.

The weapons officer Kap-Lt V.Zybin entered this complicated situation in escape trunk three. He succeeded in clearing the escape trunk of unnecessary gear. Then, signaling to his comrades about the clear path, he got the attention of the divers and made his way through the rescue apparatus to the rescue submarine.

By 2030 the last one left on the boat was the XO Kap-Lt. S.Kubynin. He exited the escape trunk and, failing to meet the divers, he ended up on the sail of the submarine and lost consciousness. A minute later, he was brought to the surface and was brought aboard a rescue cutter.

Sixteen of the eighteen men exiting the boat through the flooded apartment survived. Seaman P.Kireyev lost consciousness and died in the compartment. Seaman Len’shin wasn’t found by the rescue cutters on the surface or the divers, who searched the escape trunk and the bottom around the sunken boat.

Six men transferred to the rescue submarine. They were transferred to a pressure chamber on board BS-486. They were diagnosed with oxygen poisoning and hypothermia as a result of a long time in the water. Their condition was generally better than their comrades.

The sailors exiting the stricken submarine by means of free ascent were placed in a pressure chamber on the salvage vessel Mashuk. They all suffered from severe decompression sickness. They developed single and double pneumonia and four of them suffered pressure related damage to their lungs. One of them required surgical intervention.

Doctors worked for more than two days in the pressure chamber. All the pressure chambers had to be linked into one system in order to allow enough doctors and specialists to work. After decompression, the stricken sailors were transported to the hospital. All twenty people who exited the sunken submarine under their own power survived and healed. Only one seaman was pronounced as unfit for further submarine service.

Postscipt

Work on raising S-178 began on 24 October. Pontoons were affixed to the deck at a depth of 15 meters and she was transferred to Patrokl Bay, which was shielded from the wind, and placed on the bottom at a depth of 18 meters.

There, divers recovered the bodies of the victims through hatches and the hole in the sixth compartment.

After that, the boat was surfaced with the help of pontoon and a floating crane. The compartments were dried, except for the damaged compartments and the diesels.

On 15 November, the sunken submarine was made seaworthy again.

After offloading the torpedoes in the first compartment, S-178 was carried to the Dal’zavod Shipyard and put into dry dock at 2000, 17 November. Refurbishing the boat was found to be pointless.

The commander of S-178, K3R V.A.Marango and the XO of RFS-13 V.F.Kurdyukov were sentenced to ten years in prison.

After the loss of the S-178, a joint decision between the Navy and industry was made to place bright orange running lights on the submarines, warning all ships that a submarine was running on the surface.

Cold War Stories: Twenty Two Years on Patrol

It's been 22 years since Yankee I SSBN K-219 blew up and sank in the Sargasso Sea. Here is what happened.




It was the beginning of October 1986. The latest acheivements of Soviet labor blared from the television screens. Although deep in the background were reports of a Soviet submarine catastrophe that went nearly unnoticed - there were only three lines about it in the newspapers - that was a first. It was the first time that they admitted openly that our warships ran into problems off the coasts of America. And the fact that Mikhail Gorbachev informed Ronald Reagan this fact during a meeting in Reykyavik caused one to think about the seriousness of the accident and the possible consequences that those of us for whom the words and phrases "combat patrol", "thermonuclear warhead", "megaton", "TNT equivilent" were nothing more than professional jargon.

Ten years have passed since then (now its more than 20 years). Mass media has more than once tried to cast light on the causes of the loss of the K-219, meanwhile it is impossible to describe in the newspaper the kind of damage suffered by the submarine and the heroic efforts of the crew to save her. I turn you attention to an article written by the President of the Saint Petersburg Submariner's Club K1R (Ret.) Igor' Kirillovich Kurdin, who for a long time served as the XO of Project 667AU SSBN K-219.

The Motherland Says You Must

SSBN K-219 got underway on patrol according to plan on 4 September, 1986. The commander of the submarine, K2R Igor' Anatol'yevich Britanov was an experienced submariner, having been allowed to independently captain a Yankee I SSBN since 1981. While it was his third patrol as commander and his 13th patrol overall, he didn't command his own ship - the watch on board K-219 was actually the first crew of K-241including 31 officers, 38 warrant officers and 49 seamen as well as some highly qualified specialists. But this time preparations to get underway were confused like never before.

The Cold War continued and our Navy (like the Strategic Rocket Forces) carried the burden of strategic deterrance between the two superpowers. The combat forces of the Soviet Navy were the first response to American deployment of the Pershing missile in Europe and patrol areas by our SSBNs were moved closer to American shores. This was done to make the flight time of our missiles to American territory the same as the flight time of American cruise missiles pointed at our military and civilian facilities.

There was pressure to increase patrols to two or three a year. The resources to support this op tempo were pushed to the limits and maintenance wasn't able to keep up. Submariners were in an even more precarious situation - two or three patrols a year, unused leave, and crew muddles became the norm. Under pressure, the high command had to shut their eyes when crews went to sea on boats other than their "home" boat.

An analysis of the sailing list of the combat patrol crew on K-219 shows that eleven of 31 officers were changed out between preparations for sailing and patrol, including many key officers - XO, Missile Officer, Torpedo Officer and the Radio Officer. There was a similar situation in the Warrant ranks - out of 38 warrant officers, 16 were replaced including the two senior warrants in the weapons department. But I never raised a finger to point blame at the then 19th Division Chief of Staff for Personnel, then Rear Admiral N.N. Malov, since five SSBNs were ordered on patrol at that time.

Why didn't the captain himself refuse to take an unprepared, strange boat to sea with a half-unknown crew? Because they just would have replaced Britanov with someone else. But lets turn to the events of 3 October 1986.


(The families of the crew of K-219 at the pier, Gadzievo, August 1986. Source: submarine.id.ru)

Explosion in the Missile Tube

Thirty days in the the deployment, K-219 maneuvered into her assigned water in the Sargasso Sea. The boat came to periscope depth at 0456 on 3 October for the regular broadcast and after five minutes began to dive to 85 meters. Conditions at that moment were the following: the main power plant was operating in single eschelon mode, the starboard reactor was operating at 30 percent while the port reactor was scrammed with all the dampers and the steam generator and turbine were in a ready state; the starboard turbine was turning the screw while the port shaft was hooked up to the emergency electrogenerator.

At 0514, the Missile Officer and the machinist in the fourth (missile) compartment found a leak from the seal around the number six launcher. Under pressure, the water became a stream. After reporting water in launcher six (the third launcher on the port side), the captain ordered a change of depth to 46 meters for safety at 0525. Pumps were turned on to de-water launcher six. At 0532 a reddish-brown fog of oxidizer began to leak from the seal on launcher six in compartment four. The Missile Officer declared an emergency in the compartment and reported the situation to the conn.

Non-essential crew evacuated the fourth compartment. Nine men remained in the affected compartment. The captain sounded general quarters. Within a minute the crew was performing damage control tasks, including sealing the compartments. The boat came to a safe depth. After five minutes, there was an explosion in launcher six at 0538.

Black smoke appeared in compartment four and then water contaminated with missile fuel began to pour into the compartment from destroyed piping in the upper part of the launcher. The captain immediately gave the order to emergency surface. There were other consequences of the explosion: the atmosphere in the fourth compartment was highly toxic and there was about 4.5 tons of water in the bilge; control was temporarily lost over the environmental conditions of the missiles in the rest of the launchers; other systems were damaged: the 1MC, the missile control communications circuit in the fourth and fifth compartments; the R-651 radio transceiver was partially knocked out, lights and lamps in the compartments were broken and the high pressure air piping was damaged. Indicators on the reactor control panel indicated that the 220 volt DC bus on the port side was knocked out, that the automatic valves feeding water to the steam generators on the port side were open and that the seperate valves on the third loop were open. The control panel of the "Kama" electrical system indicated that insulation resistance in both busses had reached zero. Control ordered atmospheric overpressure in the third and fifth compartments as a precaution.

At 0610, the crew in the fifth and sixth compartments (the auxiliary machinery compartment) were transfered to the eighth compartment (turbine). Seven minutes later came word that the fourth compartment would have to be abandoned because of high temperature and toxic gas. The captain ordered the fifth compartment to be prepared to receive the crew of the fourth. At 0635 the crew of the fourth compartment was withdrawn, leaving behind three people, including the Missile Officer. The port emergency generator was brought on line at the order of the Engineer.

A two man emergency party was sent into the fourth compartment at 0645 to evaluate the situation and render assistance to the crew remaining there. But the team could neither find the Missile Officer nor examine the condition of the sixth missile launcher because of heavy smoke. They did drag the bodies of Seaman I.K.Kharchenko and Seaman N.L.Smaglyuk. The team couldn't turn off any electricity consuming equipment in the fourth compartment nor could they find the source of the fire.

The fourth, fifth and sixth compartments were vented to the atmosphere beginning at 0725. At dawn the XO observed the casualty in launcher six from the top of the sail. The launcher hatch was gone, the front section of the missile was not visible, the hinge of the cover was turned to the side, the outer hull around the launcher was damaged, the hydrodynamic covers of launchers one, three, four, five and seven were torn and hung overboard and the deck in the vicinity of the launcher was deformed. Reddish-brown smoke wisped weakly from launcher six.

At 0831 two more men were again sent into compartment four. Atmospheric contamination in the compartment lessened and visibility improved. The flow of water from the upper part of launcher number six stopped. The investigators found the body of the Missile Officer K3R A.V.Petrachkov without signs of life.

By that time they got the overboard drainage pumps for launcher six working and were able to de-water the bilge in the fourth compartment using the main pumps. After turning on the pump to drain the launcher, water and thick smoke began to pour into the compartment from damaged piping in the upper part of the launchers. The pumps were ordered shut off. They removed the body of the Missile Officer, the gas analysis equipment and emergency protection suits.

At 0925 the port reactor was brought on line. Both steam generators were switched on and the level of power was the following - starboard side 30 percent, port side 50 percent.

The captain decided to give the order to emergency drain the oxidizer and de-water the launcher. He instructed four crew members from engineering and weapons departments to go into the fourth compartment with this in mind. All attempts to begin to de-water the launcher led to additional bursts of oxidizer and water steam into the compartment. The next group started the emergency oxidizer drain pumps. Water under pressure flooded the electrical equipment, including the fourth compartment electrical distribution panel. A short circuit occured and a fire broke out in the fourth compartment. The fire burned out the electrical equipment in the compartment and the pumps stopped. Under orders from control, the emergency party evacuated the fourth compartment.

Under orders from control, at 1754 freon flooded the fourth compartment from the chemical extinguishing system in the third compartment and because of damage to the freon supply piping, the freon gas began to leak into the third compartment and so the supply of freon to the fourth compartment was turned off. Around 1800, the atmosphere in the third compartment began to worsen and the levels of nitric oxide in the air reached 10-40 times acceptable levels. The crew in the third compartment was ordered to don protective gear. Some of the crew retreated to the second compartment. The crew was forced to abandon the communications and encryption stations and as a result, radio communications were lost (no situation reports were sent and instructions and advice from Northern Fleet HQ weren't received).

At 1840, investigators opened the hatches between the fourth and fifth compartments. Encountering smoke which they mistook for fire, they reported the situation to control. Control ordered the fifth compartment flooded with freon from the extinguishing station in compartment six.

At 1930, as a result of the loss of the 380 volt, 50 hertz bus on the starboard side, the starboard reactor scrammed and the reactor moderator lattice failed to go into the lowered position.

Twenty minutes later the reactor compartment reported smoke in the lower level of the sixth compartment to control. The compartment was evacuated, the ventilation between the fifth and sixth compartments were closed and people were transfered to the seventh (reactor control) compartment. Soon it was discovered that the hydralic pressure had fallen to zero. In the interests of maintaining safety in the starboard reactor, specialists from the Machinery Division were sent into the reactor compartment to lower the moderator lattice by hand - Senior Lieutenant N.N.Belikov and Seaman S.A.Preminin. After the Sr.Lt. lost consciousness, Preminin lowered the moderator lattice by himself. At the same time, control ordered the ventilation of compartments eight, nine (turbine) and ten (aft) to the atmosphere and air pressure in those compartments dropped to atmospheric levels, while pressure in compartment seven remained elevated as compared to compartment eight. Because of this, the crew in the eighth compartment couldn't open the hatch to the seventh compartment. Attempts to even the air pressure between the two compartments using equipment in compartment eight, lower level produced thick smoke from the piping. Seaman Preminin was ordered by control to open the exhaust valve to the ventilation, but he couldn't do it. The damage control team in the neighboring compartment couldn't do it either. Seaman Preminin ceased responding to further questions.

Ships from the Soviet Merchant Fleet began to approach the area at 2130, including the Fedor Bredikhin, the Krasnogvardeysk and the Bakaritsa. By 2300 (according to reports from the crew), the atmosphere on board became more toxic, the protective gear had exhausted its resources and the temperature of the bulkhead between compartments three and four was rising. Based on the reports, the captain concluded that there was a fire in compartments four, five and six, that pressure was building in compartment seven and that the possibility of fire in compartments eight, nine and ten couldn't be excluded. Given that the resources for the emergency protective equipment had already been expended and that there was the possibility of one of the missiles exploding in compartmets four or five because of fire, the captain of the submarine decided to shut down the port reactor and to prepare to evacuate the crew to the merchant ships.

The port reactor emergency switch was thrown and the reactor put into cooldown mode. The crew evacuation began, which was finished by one in the morning on the night of the fourth. After the evacuation of the crew, the hatches in the sail and the stern were shut and dogged. Six officers including the captain remained on the bridge.

At 0146, one of the merchant ships sent a message to the headquarters of the Northern Fleet from the captain of K-219: "Fire in all compartments, dead in the water. Six remaining on the boat. Heavy fire in the lower levels of the fourth and fifth compartments. The captain awaits orders to abandon ship." At 0300 came word from the Northern Fleet Command for all officers, except the captain, to abandon ship.

At 2245 a damage control party led by the XO boarded the submarine and investigated compartments one, two and three. These compartments were dry, pressure was normal and the emergency lights were lighted. Besides that the batteries were only partially discharged, the high pressure air was at only 50 percent and there were no hydralics. The pressure hull of the submarine abover the fourth and seventh compartments were burned - its possible that this is from residual heat from the reactor. The pressure hull in the area around other compartments were at air temperature. The bulkhead between compartments three and four up to the upper edge of the intercompartment hatch was cold but above that it was warm.

When the damage control party returned to the forward part of the boat, they leveled out the trim by blowing the forward ballast tank and began to make preparations to tow the submarine. They couldn't investigate the aft end of the submarine since the aft hatch was flooded. With darkness, work on preparations to tow the boat were suspended and the damage control party left the boat.


(Source: atrinaflot.narod.ru)

Loss of the Boat

At dawn on the 5th, the damage control party continued preparations for towing. At 1815 the Krasnogvardeysk began to tow the boat. The submarine continued to settle a bit and the trim began to get out of adjustment. At 0620 on the 6th of October, the towing line snapped and the forward and aft entry hatches went under water. Because of the list, the damage control team couldn't enter the lower hatch on the sail to enter compartment three. The submarine continued to lose seaworthiness and when the boat sank so that the water came up to the deck, the damage control party abandoned ship. At 1100, when the boat sank up to the sail planes, the captain abandoned ship by the order of the Commander of the Navy. On the 6th of October, 1986, at 1102, K-219 sank.

Investigation

A criminal inquery was launched into the circumstances surrounding the loss of the K-219, an investigation that lasted almost a year. As always, the guilty party turned out to be those people who tried to save men and the ship. The captain, the Politcal Officer and the Engineer were forced out of the service for conduct unbecoming and the crew was dispersed. Out of the entire crew, only Seaman S.A.Preminin received any sort of decoration, the Red Star awarded posthumously. (Later, Preminin was named Hero of the Russian Federation in 1997).

It is necessary to note the heroism of the crew, which maintained normal radiation safety during the accident. The maintenance of the reactor cores and systems up to the moment of the sinking prevented the possibility of a nuclear explosion. The control party and the crew correctly organized damage control efforts. The boat was able to surface. All the compartments were successfully hermetically sealed and the correct air pressure was maintained in compartments three and five. The port reactor was brought up correctly and compartments were investigated and corrective actions taken properly when problems were discovered in the missile launcher. Some of them were remedied. The investigations done allowed evaluation of the situation in the fourth compartment and the ventilation of the fourth, fifth and sixth compartments. As a result of all the measures taken, the situation was temporarily stabilized. Both reactors worked at their ordered power levels, the cooling units worked and the boat had electrical power and a speed of 13 knots when she met the merchant ships. Despite all this the boat's command team did not take all the precautions that they should have to prevent the loss of the boat.

The following was established by the investigative commission:

1. The cause of the accident was a water leak in the number six missile launcher. This led to destruction of the missile airframe and the leak of missile fuel into the launcher. The reason for the leak of water into the launcher in the first place could not be established.

2. The reason why nitric oxide spread from the fourth compartment and contaminated the stern compartments was because investigative teams opened the hatch to the fourth compartment too many times to offer help, to begin venting the air in the compartment, to de-water the launcher and emergency drain the oxidizer. The start up of the pumps and the de-watering of the launcher led to additional discharge of nitric oxide from the launcher into the compartment. It was this that led to the short circuits in distribution panels seven and eight and the fire in the compartment.

3. The reason for the loss of K-219 was uncontrolled flooding of overboard water into the fourth compartment which led to the loss watertight integrity and seaworthiness of the boat. The flooding of the fourth compartment came through the open hatch of launcher six. This led to the flooding of compartments five and six through open ventilation valves between compartments four and five and five and six.

Soviet Naval Disaster of the Day - Severomorsk is Nearly Obliterated, 17 May 1984

This event is never mentioned in print. What is being refered to is the explosion at Okol'naya - the main ammunition storage base for the Northern Fleet. Back then, because of a sailor's cigarette butt, almost half of the fleet's supply of strategic missiles, torpedoes and mines were destroyed in the course of an hour and a half. It was at the end of the work day. Missiles flew above the bay in corkscrew trajectories. One after another, and another...The air was full of howls, crashes, thunder and explosions. In the city as well as on the ships at their moorings in Severomorsk, it was immediately understood - Okol'naya was the source of the fireworks, its granite walls rising just a kilometer from a neighborhood and a few hundred meters from the ships of the 7th Squadron. There were two nuclear submarines acutally tied up at Okol'naya. The "fireworks display" grew. Several mindless missiles corkscrewed into the sky, flying in the direction of the town and the ships. Soon a giant cone of black fire spread in the sky. It slowly rose into the sky, taking on a mushroom form, leading to alarm in the population of the town.



Women ran into the streets with children in their arms, many only half dressed in house coats and slippers, the men running henny-penny with them, certain of them in uniform, giving the scene a weird drama. People ran up the stairs that lead up the slopes of the hills. Someone fell, he was picked up and dragged. Cars jammed the routes out of town. The cars were packed, but despite this they stopped to pick up children which their mothers literally threw into the arms of strangers. Screams, cries, curses - all drowned out by the thunder and howl from the volcano that was Mount Okol'naya. Black with an orange-purple mushroom top, growing to its full height in an instant, nodding toward the town, but afterwards it began to slowly settle in the direction of the tundra and the ocean.

There were casualties. I can confidently talk about two brave people - an officer attempting to extinguish the flames and a sailor staying behind to man his post in a burning storage building. The prevailing wind was in the direction of the town - hundreds, maybe thousands were poisoned by the fallout (the authorities prepared for the evacuation of neighboring Murmansk). A catastrophic ending could have occured with a bombardment by ships with nuclear reactors and full charges in their missile launchers.

This is just a snapshot. Not one town or village would want to live through this. But, judging by all the military units that have had such explosions and fires, even at the sites most suceptible to explosions, it hasn't been foresworn.

Author:
Vladimir Yermolin
June 9th, 2001

Soviet Submarine Disaster of the Day

Twenty seven years ago this month, on the 23rd of May, 1981, Delta III Project 667BRD "Kal'mar" class "K-211 Petropavlovsk-Kamchatskiy" allegedly collided with an unidentified Sturgeon-class SSN.

There are two versions of the story. The first alleges a collision, but with whom is not mentioned:

An SSBN was returning to base from combat preparations at the range. The boat was at a depth of 50 metes and was proceeding on a course of 180, 9.5 knots. The commander of the Soviet boat formally checked on the absence of a trailer and at 1930 ordered a sound level measurement. At 1951, the "K-211" experienced three unexpected shocks lasting 10 seconds. The commander of the Soviet boat decided to proceed to periscope depth, but received a report from sonar about propeller sounds off the port side bearing 127. Sonar classified the contact as an SSN. At 1958, "K-211" maneuvered to starboard of the supposed contact and within two minutes contact with the foreign submarine was lost. "K-211" surfaced at 2011 but didn't detect anything visually or on radar. An inspection of the hull back at base showed insignificant damage to the rubberized covering of the hull of the Soviet SSBN from a glancing blow.

The second version of the story names a villain (the United States, naturally) and reveals that the damage was much more extensive than minor damage to the rubberized coating:

A collision between the nuclear submarine "K-211" and an American Sturgeon SSN occured in a training area near the Kola Gulf in 1981. An American submarine hit the stern of the newest SSBN "K-211", which had just joined the Northern Fleet and was testing elements of combat readiness, with its sail. The American boat didn't surface in the area of the collision. But a few days later an American SSN appeared at the British Naval Base at Holy Loch with severe damage to the sail. Our boat surfaced and returned to base under its own power. There it awaited a commission, consisting of navy specialists, production specialists, scientists and contractors.

The commission, having modeled the maneuvering situation of the two boats and having inspected the damaged area, determined that the American bost was following our boat, remaining in her acoustic shadow. As soon as our boat changed course, the American boat lost contact and collided with its sail into the stern of the Soviet boat. She was put into the dock and there an inspection revealed punctures in two main stern ballast tanks and damaged blades on the starboard screw and horizontal stabilizer. Bolts and rivets were found in the damaged ballast tanks and pieces of metal and plates from the American boat's sail. Additionally, the commision was able to establish that the collision was with an American "Sturgeon" boat which was confirmed to have showed up at Holy Loch with a damaged sail.

As far as it is known, "K-211" continues service in the Pacific Fleet in the 16th Submarine Squadron based at Rybachyy, Petropavlovsk.

Soviet Submarine Disaster of the Day

Forty years and a day ago, the November class nuclear attack submarine "K-27" suffered a reactor accident that killed five right away, more than half the crew since and left many of the rest invalids.

A most horrible nuclear accident occured on the nuclear submarine "K-27" on 24 May, 1968 at 1135.

Five sailors received lethal doses and died in the hospital, suffering horrible tortures. And after the nuclear accident, 10 more submariners died after discharge from military service. Half of the crew members are still alive today, most of them diagnosed as invalids.

The average age at death of a "K-27" crew member was 50.

The military saga of the "K-27" and its crew began in 1963 and made two unique deployments in the five years beforet the accident - to the South Atlantic and the Mediterranean Sea. In its shakedown cruise, the crew of the boat under the command of Ivan Gulyayev set the world record for continuous submurgence - 52 days without surfacing. It was this legendary submarine that was the first Soviet nuclear submarine to sail in the Med.

The US Department of Energy determined that the cause of the accident in the experimental liquid metal reactor was

...[a] secondary to primary leak in the left board reactor led to fuel channel blockage and core damage, following which an estimated 20% of the fuel pins were transported to the steam generators.

The boat went on deployment several times despite a string of reactor accidents:

The first warning that the liquid cooled nuclear reactor had serious technical deficiencies let itself be known in 1959 in the Obninsk Submarine Training Center. Mazurenko says that "Then in the piping, through which coursed liquid metal, the hermetic seal broke resulting in microcracks. The sailors who were the first crew of the "K-27" arriving there for training didn't think anything of training on the mechanism. Each of them received a big dose of radiation. Some of these sailors were hospitalized and then quietly "retired". Nobody received any documentation of their injuries. Furthermore, each one signed a 25 year non-disclosure agreement about what happened to them. So they were silent as they slipped away from life, unaware of the reasons for their fatal illness."

The deployment to the South Atlantic with the world record 52 day submurgence did not pass without unplesantness - again there was a serious reactor accident. A similar story repeated itself in 1965 during "K-27"s deployment to the Med, which lasted 60 days. During resolution of the emergency situation, sailors Grigoriy Rain, Vasiliy Osyukov and the commander of the reactor compartment Sr. Lt. Vladislav Dombrovskiy displayed heroism.

But, despite this chain of reactor accidents, the crew prepared for their third deployment in the fall of 1967. The submariners had to set a new record: circumnavigation of the world without surfacing. The main task - testing the liquid metal reactor on an extended deployment in different ocean temperatures.

But this was not fated to be. In October 1967, there was a new reactor accident - there was a liquid lead leak from the loop and the crew again had to fix the leak by hand with chisels and hammers. "Not only was it radioactive," remembers Vyacheslav Mazurenko, "you had to add that it was really hot in the compartment where the lead spilled. It was simply Hell! There wasn't any sort of protection against radiation for the guys. Each guy could only work five minutes!"

The division commaner didn't listen to the warnings by the sailors that they couldn't go to sea with such an unreliable nuclear reactor, much less a round the world cruise. This became the end, not only of the story of "K-27", but also drove a stake through the heart of special project Soviet SSNs with liquid metal reactors...

Today the Project 645 November class "K-27" lays on the bottom of the Kara Sea with company:

The K-27 submarine did not sink after an accident but was scuttled in the Kara Sea in 1981 when necessary repairs were deemed impossible and decommissioning considered to be too expensive....In February 2003 a scientific expedition discovered 237 containers holding solid radioactive waste and the burial site of the K-27 in the Kara Sea in northern Russia...

Submarine Disaster of the Day/Video of the Day

The history of K-118, which also served as communications submarine SS-429 in order to comply with the terms of SALT I, can be found here. One incident stands out and can serve as the Submarine Disaster of the Day:

1973: The (Golf class K-118) SSB was preparing for post-repair sea trials. Literally on the eve of getting underway, after the consumables stores load, like (TR Note – I’m guessing here: loose B-64 type oxygen candles), one of the workers was trying to weld some sort of cleat to the upper deck plates above the gyros. Without ensuring that there weren’t any fuel lines or cable raceways below him, he started welding. Meanwhile, there were these B-64s crammed into the overhead of the secure navigation station against the overhead deck! A fire broke out. Smelling smoke, the CDO, thinking that it was a result of the just finished welding, gave the command to ventilate the boat through the access hatch in the 8th compartment. This ventilated the conn well enough but spread smoke through the rest of the boat. This triggered a re-adjustment of the ventilation systems in the missile compartment, whose built in ventilation systems were cut off from fresh air. After a while, the ventilation cut off, the fire was extinguished, but the boat needed repairs and equipment replaced since it was covered in soot…

K-118 today:

Soviet Submarine Disaster of the Day

Collision of two submarines on 01 March, 1975 in the Kola Gulf.

A Soviet Project 667A (Yankee I) Nuclear Ballistic Missile Submarine (SSBN) was returning to base after patrol. The boat should have met the duty escort ship, which would have led her during her entrance into the Kola Gulf. The escort MPK (Small Submarine Ship) got underway late and failed to escort the returning submarine. At the same time, a Project 641 (Foxtrot) diesel submarine (SS) was putting to sea, heading out to the range for training. The commander of the SSBN didn’t properly evaluate the situation and took the contact he had to be the escort ship. Visibility was 30-40 cables, sea state was two, wind was 195 at five meters/second (appx 10 kts). The SS was sighted at 0626 and no precautions were taken on the part of the SSBN since it wasn’t identified at the time. The SS exited the Kola Gulf at 0600 two cables to the port of the channel centerline because of a delay in making the turn. The commander and the navigator of the SS knew about this, but despite this turned off the radar and secured the maneuvering watch in combat. The CO of the SS was informed about the possibility of a meeting with a returning SSBN, but no precautionary measures were taken and she continued to proceed at 9.5 knots. The SSBNs running lights were sighted at a range of 30 cables and the boats continued to close dangerously. The CO of the SSBN continued to count on the fact that the escort MPK was dead ahead, which should have been at a position 10 cables ahead. Because of an incorrect evaluation of the situation, he acted in an indecisive manner and maneuvered dangerously. The Foxtrot was detected by radar at 0615 and in 11 minutes was spotted visually. At 0628 a report from combat came about a dangerous approach and the captain of the Yankee I slowed from ten to seven knots. Within five minutes both boats closed to a distance of four to five cables and the commander of the Foxtrot gave the command, “Hard to port, course 070!” Simultaneously, the SSBN put its rudder “hard to starboard” and in a minute threw the engines full astern. At 0634 the Foxtrot began its left turn and thirty seconds later, stopped its engines. At 0635 the Foxtrot was in a left turn and inertia and a 7-8 knot headway carried it into the bow of the Yankee. The blow came to the starboard side of the SSBN at a 35-40 degree angle. Both submarines suffered damage to the outer hull and the hydroacoustic station on the Foxtrot was completely destroyed.

(Translation by the Russian Submarine Blog. Source: www.shipandship.chat.ru)