“The safety of a nuclear submarine depends on the qualifications of the crew”
A Vanguard-class nuclear submarine of the British Navy with ballistic missiles on board almost sank in the Atlantic Ocean, the British The Sun reported. The reason was a malfunction in one of the depth gauges. We talked about how events could have developed if the nuclear submarine had been at a critical depth with the Hero of Russia, Rear Admiral Vsevolod Khmyrov, who participated in 15 combat services, commanded a submarine division, and spent more than five years under water.
“The submarine has a diving limit,” says Vsevolod Khmyrov. — As a rule, it is about 400 meters. To prevent the boat from sinking and control the depth, there are depth gauges and various instruments on board. The principle of their operation is based on measuring the time during which sound waves propagate in water and are reflected back from the bottom.
The submarine also has echo gauges. That is, you can monitor the situation, how far the boat has sunk, how far it has reached the ground, how far it has reached the surface. All these devices exist.
Vsevolod Khmyrov explains that if one or another means that controls the dive of a submarine fails, it very quickly loses buoyancy and sinks to the ground.
— To prevent the destruction of the submarine, there are watches, there are specialists on board who monitor the instruments. Everything depends on the vigilance of these people. Whatever the submarine, its safety primarily depends on the qualifications of the crew. This allows it to avoid getting into difficult situations.
— If a submarine falls to a depth where its specifications are exceeded, it is crushed by pressure like a shell. And she goes to the ground.
And there were such examples, as our interlocutor says. In May 1968, the American submarine Scorpio did not return to the port of Norfolk (Virginia) after a training cruise. The submarine had a displacement of 3,075 tons and was 77 meters in length. Five months later, it was discovered by the research vessel Mizar 400 miles southwest of the Azores. (Journalist Drew Pearson, in turn, claimed that the Scorpion was found by the Russians, who kindly reported the coordinates of the submarine to the US Navy command).
The wreckage of the Scorpion lay at a depth of more than 3,000 meters. In the area of the central post, the submarine was torn in half. The entire crew died — 91 people.
Khmyrov believes that in 1968, control was missed on the Scorpion, and the boat went into extreme depths.
Our interlocutor also recalls the tragedy with the Argentine Navy submarine San Juan, which stopped communicating on November 16, 2017, approximately 1,400 kilometers from Buenos Aires.
A year later, Argentine authorities announced: the submarine was discovered using a remote-controlled uninhabited underwater vehicle near the Valdez Peninsula. The submarine lay at a depth of more than 800 meters.
The commander of the Argentine Navy, Rear Admiral David Bourdin, said that the cause of the death of the San Juan was an explosion. The submarine suffered from water entering the battery tanks, which caused a short circuit.
There were 44 crew members on board.
As for the British Vanguard-class nuclear submarine, The Sun reports that it had almost entered the danger zone when engineers at the stern raised the alarm. With the help of a second depth gauge, they were able to notice that a failure had occurred.
—Modern submarines are high-tech systems that require highly qualified crews. We heard what the British tabloid reported. The failure could have been detected in the aft compartment, the bow compartment, and the central compartment. We are unlikely to know what actually happened there.
— There would be no problems with them, they would also be crushed by the pressure. Our ship K-219 with 15 ballistic missiles is still in the Atlantic at a depth of more than 5 thousand meters. The pressure will “eat up” everything. (On October 3, 1986, on the strategic nuclear submarine K-219, a ballistic missile exploded in one of the silos.
Three days later, the boat sank. The reactor was shut down. Most of the crew were rescued. It was announced that, According to the conclusion of both the Soviet and American military departments, there is no danger of a nuclear explosion or leakage of radioactive substances. — ).