Faulty kit blamed for sub sinking

Navy commander Gennady Suchkov (left) has been suspended

A Russian navy captain has launched an outspoken attack on the equipment used to tow a nuclear submarine which sank in the Barents Sea in August, killing nine people.

Captain Sergei Zhemchuzhnov, who was in charge of the operation, has been charged over the failed mission, but he told a Russian newspaper the operation was blighted by ancient equipment.

Pontoons used to keep the mothballed K-159submarine afloat were made in the 1940s, were not airtight, and were not designed for towing, he told Kommersant newspaper.

As an officer, I didn't have an opportunity to express my personal opinion and had to fulfil the order Captain Sergei Zhemchuzhnov

"The devices attaching the pontoons to the sub were welded to the rust-eaten hull which in some places was as strong as foil," he said.

The four pontoons themselves were being repeatedly topped up with air, he claimed, and one of the four was "absolutely wrecked" and needed constant reinflating.

"They consistently bled down air pressure, and the K-159 crew was assigned to pressurize them every five hours to keep the sub afloat," the captain said.

"A structure built of such components can hardly be called reliable," he said.

The tragedy happened as the submarine was being towed across the Barents Sea to a scrapyard.

The submarine was ripped away from some of the pontoons in rough weather. It tilted on its stern before sinking to the sea bed.

Click here to find out more about sunken nuclear submarines and reactors in the region

Captain Zhemchuzhnov said he was aware of the dangers but was forced to follow orders from his superiors.

"As an officer, I didn't have an opportunity to express my personal opinion and had to fulfil the order," he said.

Even as the operation began to struggle, Captain Zhemchuzhnov claimed his commanders were slow to react.

"I had the impression that the commanders simply couldn't believe that anything might happen to a mothballed submarine," he said.

Captain Zhemchuzhnov is the only officer facing criminal charges over the incident, although the Northern Fleet commander, Admiral Gennady Suchkov has been suspended.

Operation errors

The head of the Russian navy, Admiral Vladimir Kuroyedov, has blamed Northern Fleet commanders for going ahead with the operation despite a bad weather forecast, and for towing the submarine faster than they should have done.

He also said there was no attempt to evacuate the vessel when the operation began to go wrong.

Ninety minutes elapsed between the start of the problems and the final sinking of the submarine.

Three sailors managed to escape from the submarine, but only one survived the freezing waters of the Barents.

The bodies of the other seven are believed to still be in the wrecked vessel, which is lying 238 meters (780 feet) below the surface.

Russian navy authorities plan to seek foreign help in lifting the sunken submarine in summer next year.

The accident came three years after the Kursk tragedy, when 118 sailors died after their nuclear submarine sank in the same sea on 12 August 2000.

NUCLEAR POLLUTION IN THE BARENTS AND KARA SEAS

Sunken reactors:

1. Techeniya Fjord: 2 reactors without spent fuel dumped in 35-40 metres of water in 1988

2. Tsivolko Fjord: 3 reactors without spent fuel from the nuclear powered icebreaker Lenin. 60% of the fuel elements from the reactors packed in a container and dumped at the same location

3. Kara Sea: 6 reactors containing Uranium, together with 10 empty reactors and 11,000 radioactive waste containers

4. Stepovogo Fjord: K-27 submarine fitted with two experimental liquid metal cooled reactors dumped at depth of 50m in 1981

5. Abrosimov Fjord: 3 reactors with spent fuel, 3 without dumped in 20m of water in 1965 and 1966

Other sites:
Zapanaya Litsa: 21,860 spent fuel assemblies, Vidyaevo: spent nuclear fuel in 17 laid-up submarines, Severomorsk: spent nuclear fuel in 2 laid-up battle cruisers, Gremikha: 767 spent fuel assemblies; 6 liquid metal cooled reactor cores, spent nuclear fuel in 19 laid-up submarines, Severodvinsk: Approx. 588 spent fuel assemblies stored

Source: Bellona Foundation

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