• E-mail
• Print
• Comment
• Font Size
• Digg
• del.icio.us
• Discuss article

Trapped Russian mini-sub, crew rescued in Pacific

Posted on: Sunday, 7 August 2005, 01:30 CDT

By Oliver Bullough

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Rescuers cut free a Russian mini-submarine ensnared in deep-sea cables on Sunday, saving its seven crew with British help, after a three-day ordeal at the bottom of the Pacific with dwindling oxygen.

"The operation is finished. At 7:17 a.m., the submarine broke the surface. The crew opened the hatch on their own," Rear Admiral Vladimir Pepelyaev said on state television.

He said the seamen were put on a rescue ship to be taken to hospital in the far eastern Pacific port of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky for further observation.

"By our information, the doctors have said their condition is satisfactory. They have not needed any particular treatment," he said.

Officers had said they might only have Sunday left to rescue the men stuck on board the AS-28, which was snarled up in heavy metal debris, because of their limited air supply.

A British Scorpio, an unmanned undersea rescue vehicle rushed at Moscow's request to waters off the far east Kamchatka peninsula, was briefly forced to return to the surface but got back to work to clear remaining debris.

The AS-28, itself a rescue vessel, got its propeller tangled in metal cords from the antenna of an electronic underwater monitoring station -- part of Russia's coastal defenses -- during military exercises, trapping it 200 meters (600 feet) below the surface.

The accident, which occurred on Thursday but only came to light the following day, stirred up memories of a botched attempt to save a Russian submarine five years ago.

TRAUMA AND CRITICISM

The nuclear-powered Kursk sank in the Barents Sea in August 2000 after two huge underwater explosions and all 118 crew perished in a drama that traumatized Russia.

President Vladimir Putin was criticized for failing to break off a holiday on the Black Sea while rescuers battled in Arctic waters to reach the doomed crew.

This time, Putin has once again stayed silent.

However, in a sign of Kremlin concern, he sent Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov to Kamchatka to take charge of the rescue operation, although he had not arrived at the scene before the AS-28 was rescued.

Conflicting reports of the amount of oxygen left had raised fears that the crew would not be saved in time -- with officials saying on Friday the seven men had air for 24 hours, but repeatedly extending the time limit as the days went by.

The structure enmeshing the vessel was itself weighed down on the ocean floor by two heavy anchors. A previous attempt on Saturday to drag the mini-sub to shallow waters failed.

The coastal waters off Russia's far east have highly sensitive installations and there were suggestions that the Russian military was far from keen to allow foreign navies to come so close to such a strategic area.

"This area is stuffed with secrets," Interfax news agency quoted retired Admiral Eduard Baltin, former Black Sea Fleet commander, as saying. "It is home to strategic nuclear submarines." (Additional reporting by Maria Kiselyova and Meg Clothier)

Source: REUTERS

More News in this Category