Russian submarine and crew saved.
Leonardo
Sent: Sunday, August 07, 2005 9:23 AM
In het Engels maar gezien het onderwerp ditmaal te rechtvaardigen dacht ik.
Russian submarine and crew saved.
Bron: http://news.bbc.co.uk/ 2005/08/07
04:43:13 GMT
A Russian mini-submarine stranded for three days beneath the Pacific Ocean
has been brought to the surface after an international rescue effort.
The seven-man crew, who had faced low temperatures and dwindling oxygen, are
all alive and were able to climb out of their submarine unaided.
The vessel, trapped 190m (620 ft) down, surfaced at 1626 (0326 GMT).
A British underwater robot helped rescue the craft, slicing through nets and
debris entangling the submarine.
Russian military medics were on standby to treat the men, who had faced
temperatures as low as 6C (43F) and a faltering oxygen supply.
Pinned to seabed
Senior navy official Vladimir Pepelayayev said all the men were in a
satisfactory condition, according to the news agency Interfax.
The British Scorpio craft had been working for several hours to cut the
vessel free of the debris pinning it to the seabed off the Kamchatka
peninsula.
Initial reports said the vessel was trapped in vast fishing nets but later
it emerged that the sub may have also been snagged by an underwater antenna,
said to be part of a coastal monitoring system.
The sub's very heavy anchors also hampered rescue efforts.
The Russian Priz submersible - itself a rescue vehicle - was on a training
exercise when it became trapped underwater on Thursday.
Earlier Russian efforts to rescue the sub's crew, which included looping a
cable onto the vessel to drag it to higher waters, had failed.
The BBC's Sarah Rainsford in Moscow says the rescue is something few in
Russia had dared hope for.
For many this episode revived memories of the sinking of the Kursk submarine
almost exactly five years ago, when all 118 men on board died.
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/world/europe/4128614.stm
Published: 2005/08/07 04:43:13 GMT
----------------------------------------------------------
Russia learns lessons of Kursk disaster
By BBC correspondent in Moscow
The sinking of a 40-year-old, decommissioned Russian nuclear submarine
appears to be a freak event.
The naval authorities say the vessel had been attached to pontoons and was
being towed to the shore. There, it was to be dismantled, starting with the
removal of its two nuclear reactors.
But five kilometres (three miles) from the town of Polyarniy, a storm broke
out. One of the pontoons became detached. As a result, the submarine became
unstable.
It sank in water 170 metres (558 feet) deep.
The naval authorities appear to have decided on a course of openness with
the media. From the moment the news broke, they have given detailed reports
of what is known about the accident, and how the rescue efforts are
progressing.
After recovering one crew member alive, and the bodies of two who perished,
they were keen to play down the chances of finding anyone else.
With the temperature of the water about 10C they said, no-one would survive
being immersed for more than 45 minutes.
The early morning news that a nuclear submarine had sunk in the Barents Sea
immediately filled Russians with horror.
On hearing the words "submarine" and "sunk", memories of the Kursk disaster
are brought back. That accident, three years ago, was the worst in Russia's
recent naval history, shocking Russia and the world.
PR disaster
The Kursk was one of Russia's newest and most modern submarines. But it
became an underwater tomb for 118 sailors after an explosion on-board sent
it plunging to the bottom of the Barents Sea.
A small number of the crew had survived the initial explosion - only to die,
hours later, in unimaginable conditions, suffocating in pitch darkness.
The Kursk disaster was a public relations disaster for the Russian navy and
the Russian authorities.
President Vladimir Putin stayed on holiday and said nothing. Officials found
it difficult to admit the true scale of the accident.
Instead, they cynically lied. Russia stubbornly refused foreign assistance
even though its navy lacked modern search and rescue equipment.
This time, Mr Putin, on a trip to Italy, responded swiftly.
'Not seaworthy'
"Of course, all reasons for the tragedy will be established," he told
reporters.
Submarine experts have already started saying it is likely the accident
resulted from "incorrect towing procedures".
A former commander of the submarine, retired Admiral Eduard Baltin has said
the submarine, a K-159, was in bad shape as early as 1983.
"It was already sinking then," he told Russian media. "We could just about
maintain ourselves under water, but on the surface it kept losing its
positive buoyancy."
Months after the Kursk disaster, an official inquiry found that volatile
torpedo fuel lay at the root of the accident. The torpedoes were of a design
rejected by Western nations decades ago.
Russia's navy is still viewed with pride by Russians. Like the other armed
forces, it suffers from underinvestment, unreliable equipment and chronic
discipline problems - particularly bullying.
But it is not just the navy in Russia that has a poor safety culture. That
extends to many spheres of life here.
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/world/europe/3194257.stm
Published: 2003/08/30 13:53:04 GMT
------------------------------------------------------------
Russia's rusting navy
By Stephen Mulvey
BBC News Online
The decline of Russia's armed services has been unmistakeable for more than
a decade, but it is the crisis in the navy that has been most conspicuous of
all.
The declaration from the navy commander-in-chief that the nuclear cruiser
Peter the Great is too dangerous to be at sea is only the latest in a string
of problems.
The sinking of the Kursk submarine during exercises in 2000, was Russia's
worst peacetime military disaster, leading to the death of 118 sailors.
It was followed by the death of nine more men last year when another
submarine, K-159, sank as it was being towed to a scrapyard.
The incident graphically illustrated the depth of the navy's problems -
Russia is decommissioning warships so fast it does not have the resources to
scrap them.
How can it be considered optimal if training is not conducted in many units,
pilots hardly ever fly and sailors hardly ever put to sea
Vladimir Putin in 2000
The K-159, a model dating back to the 1950s, had been to left to rust for
years before it was finally taken away to be dismantled.
Last year, yet another round of naval downsizing was announced - this after
1,000 warships were dumped in the 1990s.
The Russian navy's chief of staff, Admiral Vladimir Kuroyedov, said a fifth
of the fleet would be scrapped because the navy received just 12% of the
budget it needed to keep the ships seaworthy.
Insufficient training
The Kursk disaster was initially blamed on a collision between the Kursk and
a foreign submarine in the area, but a two-year investigation pinned the
blame on a faulty torpedo.
Was it badly manufactured or badly maintained? Or were the sailors just
poorly trained? The investigation did not make this clear.
All were lucky the ICBM did not explode on the sub
Military expert Pavel Felgengauer on a failed missile test in 2004
But Western analysts speculated from the first that the disaster could have
been caused by mistakes in handling the liquid fuel the torpedoes use.
And President Putin himself underlined the need for better military
training, in the wake of the tragedy.
"How can it be considered optimal if training is not conducted in many
units, pilots hardly ever fly and sailors hardly ever put to sea?" he asked
the Russian Security Council.
Uncomfortable memories of the Kursk disaster were stirred just last month,
when Mr Putin himself put to sea to observe a pre-election naval exercise.
A nuclear submarine was to fire two liquid-fuelled intercontinental
ballistic missiles (ICBMs), but both got stuck in their silos.
The next day, a sister ship succeeded in firing a missile - but it exploded
soon after take-off.
"All were lucky the ICBM did not explode on the sub," the military analyst
Pavel Felgengauer wrote in his column in the Moscow Times.
Ambitions scaled back
It appears that poor maintenance and training could also be factors behind
Admiral Kuroyedov's decision to confine the flagship of the northern fleet,
the Peter the Great, to its base for two months.
Here again this Russian habit of relying on mere chance and hoping that
everything will work just this time showed itself
Defence Minister Sergei Ivanov on the K-159 accident
He said he was particularly concerned about the state of the on-board
nuclear reactor, and he ordered the crew to re-take a military training
course before they go back to sea.
A final verdict has yet to be delivered on the K-159 incident, but one
theory is that officers failed to follow proper safety procedures.
There have been accusations that the submarine should not have been being
towed in rough weather, that it was towed too fast, and that there should
not in fact have been any sailors on board the ancient vessel.
"Here again this Russian habit of relying on mere chance and hoping that
everything will work just this time showed itself," Defence Minister Sergei
Ivanov was quoted as saying.
As the navy has been hit in recent years by one problem after another, it
has also scaled back its ambitions.
It now has only one aircraft carrier, the Admiral Kuznetsov, launched in
1989.
The ship was being prepared in 2000 for its first deployment in the
Mediterranean since 1997 - a gesture seen in Moscow as an important
confirmation of Russia's status as a major world power - when the Kursk
disaster struck and the trip was called off.
One Russian military analyst said recently that the Kuznetsov's only
remaining purpose seemed to be training naval pilots.
Russia's focus is increasingly on protecting its own territorial waters than
patrolling the world's oceans.
Plans for production of new warships are limited to modest frigates and
corvettes.
And this year, Russia will finally give up its military base at Cam Ranh,
Vietnam, leaving it with just one overseas logistical support base, at
Tartus in Syria.
Starvation
Over the last decade Russians have become accustomed to tales of woe
emanating from the navy.
In one notorious incident in 1994, four conscripts in the Pacific Fleet died
of a stomach infection linked to malnutrition.
In 1995 a nuclear submarine came close to meltdown when an electricity
company cut supplies to a naval base in a dispute over unpaid bills, and the
submarine's cooling system ceased to function.
And in 1998 a 19-year-old went on the rampage, murdering eight fellow
sailors and threatening to blow up the submarine on which he was serving.
Theft also remains endemic.
Russian TV reported last year that warships and submarines of the northern
fleet were being routinely robbed of vital components, including
telecommunication circuit boards, air regeneration filters and even
torpedoes.
It said naval officers were sometimes working together with criminal gangs
which made millions of dollars smuggling the loot abroad.
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/world/europe/880220.stm
Published: 2004/03/23 15:32:10 GMT
---------------------------------------------------
Russian Sub Surfaces; All Seven Crew Alive
Russian Mini-Sub Surfaces After Being Trapped
for Nearly Three Days;
All Seven Aboard Rescued
By VLADIMIR ISACHENKOV
The Associated Press
Aug. 7, 2005 - Seven people on board a submarine trapped for nearly three
days under the Pacific Ocean were rescued Sunday after a British
remote-controlled vehicle cut away the undersea cables that had snarled
their vessel, allowing it to surface.
The seven, whose oxygen supplies had been dwindling amid underwater
temperatures in the mid-40s, appeared to be in satisfactory condition, naval
spokesman Capt. Igor Dygalo said. They were examined in the clinic of a
naval ship, then transferred to a larger vessel to return to the mainland.
"The crew opened the hatch themselves, exited the vessel and climbed aboard
a speedboat," said Rear Adm. Vladimir Pepelyayev, deputy head of the naval
general staff.
"I can only thank our English colleagues for their joint work and the help
they gave in order to complete this operation within the time we had
available that is, before the oxygen reserves ran out," he said.
The sub surfaced at 4:26 p.m. local time Sunday, some three days after
becoming stranded in 600 feet of water off the Pacific Coast on Thursday and
after a series of failed attempts to drag it closer to shore or haul it
closer to the surface. It was carrying six sailors and a representative of
the company that manufactured it.
In an echo of the Kursk sinking, President Vladimir Putin had made no public
comment by Sunday on the mini-sub drama. Putin in remaining on vacation as
the Kursk disaster unfolded, raising criticism that he appeared either
callous or ineffectual.
Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov traveled to Kamchatka on Saturday.
But in sharp contrast to the August 2000 Kursk disaster, when authorities
held off asking for help until hope was nearly exhausted, Russian military
officials quickly sought help from U.S. and British authorities. All 118
people on board the Kursk died, some surviving for hours as oxygen ran out
As U.S. and British crews headed toward the trapped sub, Russian officials
considered varying ways of freeing the vessel.
The Interfax news agency quoted Pacific Fleet commander Adm. Viktor Fyodorov
as saying crews planned to try to blow up or tear away the anchoring system
in an effort to free the vessel an idea that apparently was later discarded.
Dygalo later said Russian rescue crews managed to loop cables under the
assembly and were preparing to try to lift the vessel closer to the surface,
where divers could try to rescue the sailors.
That effort failed. But by Sunday afternoon, a British remote-controlled
Super Scorpio cut away the cables that had snarled the vessel in Beryozovaya
Bay, about 10 miles off the east coast of the Kamchatka peninsula, which
which juts into the sea north of Japan.
But even that attempt was hampered. A mechanical problem with the Super
Scorpio forced workers to bring the rescue vehicle to the surface, just
after the discovery of a fishing net caught on the nose of the submarine,
Russian officials said.
The United States also dispatched a crew and three underwater vehicles to
Kamchatka, but they never left the port.
Officials said the Russian submarine was participating in a combat training
exercise and got snarled on an underwater antenna assembly that is part of a
coastal monitoring system. The system is anchored with a weight of about 66
tons, according to news reports.
Officials said the sub's propeller initially became ensnared in a fishing
net.
The events and an array of confusing and contradictory statements with
wildly varying estimates of how much air the crew had left darkly echoed the
sinking of the Kursk.
Russia's cash-strapped navy apparently lacks rescue vehicles capable of
operating at the depth where the sub was stranded, and officials say it was
too deep for divers to reach or the crew to swim out on their own.
The submarine's problems indicated that promises by President Vladimir Putin
to improve the navy's equipment apparently have had little effect. He was
criticized for his slow response to the Kursk crisis and reluctance to
accept foreign assistance.
By early Sunday, Putin had made no public comment on the latest sinking, but
Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov had traveled to the site of the rescue
operation.
The new crisis has been highly embarrassing for Russia, which will hold an
unprecedented joint military exercise with China later this month, including
the use of submarines to settle an imaginary conflict in a foreign land. In
the exercise, Russia is to field a naval squadron and 17 long-haul aircraft.
Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may
not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Copyright © 2005 ABC News Internet Ventures
Mega ST4
>
> In het Engels maar gezien het onderwerp ditmaal te rechtvaardigen dacht ik.
*knipje*
<Q> Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or
redistributed.Copyright © 2005 ABC News Internet Ventures </Q>
--
Shalalalala-lala-laa!
--
Gr. Mega ST4
Leonardo
news:62c3b$42f71434$52d92528$22...@cache40.multikabel.net...
> <Q> Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This
> material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or
> redistributed.Copyright © 2005 ABC News Internet Ventures </Q>
Ik ken geen Engels en kan het dus ook niet lezen en begrijpen.
Shalalalala-lala-laa!
--
Groet, Leonardo.
Navigare necesse est.
www.DutchFleet.net
Paul Mercuur
"Leonardo" <u...@reply.to.invalid> schreef in bericht
Leve de Koningin!!!
Paul Mercuur
>
>
Mega ST4
Ja dag,,,, Leve papa pils :-)
> Paul Mercuur
*Paul Mercuur* nooit van gehoord LOL
--
Shalalalala-lala-laa!
Paul Mercuur
"Leonardo" <u...@reply.to.invalid> schreef in bericht
Wat een materiaal hebben die Russen zeg????
Paul Mercuur
>
>