AS-28 - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

AS-28 is a of the Russian Navy, which entered service in 1986. It was designed for submarine rescue operations by the Lazurit design bureau in Nizhny Novgorod

Nizhny Novgorod

Nizhny Novgorod , colloquially shortened to Nizhny, is, with the population of 1,250,615, the fifth largest city in Russia, ranking after Moscow, St. Petersburg, Novosibirsk, and Yekaterinburg...

. It is 13.5 m (44.3 ft) long, 5.7 m (18.7 ft) high, and can operate up to a depth of 1000 m (3,280.8 ft).

Training accident

On August 5, 2005 AS-28, under the command of Lieutenant Vyacheslav Milashevskiy, became entangled with the aerial of a hydrophone

Hydrophone

A hydrophone is a microphone designed to be used underwater for recording or listening to underwater sound. Most hydrophones are based on a piezoelectric transducer that generates electricity when subjected to a pressure change...

array off the coast of the Kamchatka Peninsula

Kamchatka Peninsula

The Kamchatka Peninsula is a peninsula in the Russian Far East, with an area of . It lies between the Pacific Ocean to the east and the Sea of Okhotsk to the west...

, in Berezovaya Bay, 70 km southeast of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatskiy, Kamchatka Oblast

Kamchatka Oblast

Kamchatka Oblast was, until being incorporated into Kamchatka Krai on July 1, 2007, a federal subject of Russia . To the north, it bordered Magadan Oblast and Chukotka Autonomous Okrug. Koryak Autonomous Okrug was located in the northern part of the oblast...

. The aerial, anchored by 60-tonne concrete blocks, snared the propeller of the submarine, and the submarine then sank to the seafloor at a depth of 190 m (600 ft). This was too deep for the ship's complement of seven to leave the submarine and swim to the surface. The British rescuers and Russian officials stated that fishing net

Fishing net

A fishing net or fishnet is a net that is used for fishing. Fishing nets are meshes usually formed by knotting a relatively thin thread. Modern nets are usually made of artificial polyamides like nylon, although nets of organic polyamides such as wool or silk thread were common until recently and...

s also had entangled the vessel.

On August 6, Russian President Vladimir Putin

Vladimir Putin

Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin served as the second President of the Russian Federation and is the current Prime Minister of Russia, as well as chairman of United Russia and Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Union of Russia and Belarus. He became acting President on 31 December 1999, when...

ordered Russian Minister of Defence Sergei Ivanov

Sergei Ivanov

Sergei Borisovich Ivanov is a Russian senior official and statesman. He was Minister of Defence from March 2001 to February 2007, Deputy Prime Minister from November 2005 to February 2007, and the First Deputy Prime Minister from February 2007 to May 2008...

to fly to Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky

Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky

Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky is the main city and the administrative, industrial, scientific, and cultural center of Kamchatka Krai, Russia. Population: .-History:It was founded by Danish navigator Vitus Bering, in the service of the Russian Navy...

to oversee the rescue operation, which was under the command of the Commander of the Russian Pacific Fleet, Admiral Viktor Fedorov.

On August 7, all seven sailors were rescued after the cables snaring their submarine were cut by a British remotely operated vehicle

Remotely operated vehicle

A remotely operated vehicle is a tethered underwater vehicle. They are common in deepwater industries such as offshore hydrocarbon extraction. An ROV may sometimes be called a remotely operated underwater vehicle to distinguish it from remote control vehicles operating on land or in the air. ROVs...

(ROV). The submarine surfaced at 4:26 p.m. local time on Sunday and all seven crewmen exited the vessel without assistance.

International appeal

The Russian Navy requested assistance after at least 24 hours, much faster than their response when the Kursk

Russian submarine K-141 Kursk

K-141 Kursk was an Oscar-II class nuclear-powered cruise missile submarine of the Russian Navy, lost with all hands when it sank in the Barents Sea on August 12, 2000...

sank on August 12, 2000. It was suggested that the Russians may have called for help so quickly this time as they were on a recent exercise with NATO forces for just such an eventuality.

Immediate support was offered by the Royal Navy

Royal Navy

The Royal Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Founded in the 16th century, it is the oldest service branch and is known as the Senior Service...

, Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force

Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force

The , or JMSDF, is the naval branch of the Japan Self-Defense Forces, tasked with the naval defense of Japan. It was formed following the dissolution of the Imperial Japanese Navy after World War II....

and the United States Navy

United States Navy

The United States Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the seven uniformed services of the United States. The U.S. Navy is the largest in the world; its battle fleet tonnage is greater than that of the next 13 largest navies combined. The U.S...

. The United Kingdom

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

sent a Scorpio 45

Scorpio ROV

The Scorpio [Submersible Craft for Ocean Repair, Position, Inspection and Observation] is a brand of underwater submersible Remotely Operated Vehicle manufactured by Perry Tritech used by subsea industries such as the oil industry for general operations, and also by the United States Navy and...

ROV

Remotely operated vehicle

via C-17 Globemaster III

C-17 Globemaster III

The Boeing C-17 Globemaster III is a large military transport aircraft. Developed for the United States Air Force from the 1980s to the early 1990s by McDonnell Douglas, the C-17 is used for rapid strategic airlift of troops and cargo to main operating bases or forward operating bases throughout...

cargo aircraft and a team to operate it. Japan sent four ships with rescue equipment. The United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

sent two unmanned Super Scorpio ROVs

Scorpio ROV

from San Diego

San Diego, California

San Diego is the eighth-largest city in the United States and second-largest city in California. The city is located on the coast of the Pacific Ocean in Southern California, immediately adjacent to the Mexican border. The birthplace of California, San Diego is known for its mild year-round...

and a Deep Drone

Deep Drone

The Deep Drone is a submersible remotely operated vehicle designed for mid-water salvage for the United States Navy. One vehicle is based in Largo, Maryland, under the command of The U.S. Navy Supervisor of Salvage and Diving , it is maintained and operated by .The vehicle is capable of operating...

ROV from Landover

Landover, Maryland

Landover is an unincorporated community in Prince George's County, Maryland, United States, within the census-designated place of Greater Landover. The Prince Georges County Sports and Learning Complex is in Landover...

, Maryland

Maryland

Maryland is a U.S. state located in the Mid Atlantic region of the United States, bordering Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware to its east...

, both airlifted via C-5 Galaxy

C-5 Galaxy

The Lockheed C-5 Galaxy is a large military transport aircraft built by Lockheed. It provides the United States Air Force with a heavy intercontinental-range strategic airlift capability, one that can carry outsize and oversize cargos, including all air-certifiable cargo. The Galaxy has many...

and C-17 transports, respectively. Each unmanned vehicle was also accompanied by a team to operate it. It was intended that these unmanned rescue vessels, with their robotic arms, would be able to cut the nets or cables that anchored the submarine. A pair of Canadian

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

divers and their deep sea diving suits

Atmospheric diving suit

An atmospheric diving suit or ADS is a small one-man articulated submersible of anthropomorphic form which resembles a suit of armour, with elaborate pressure joints to allow articulation while maintaining an internal pressure of one atmosphere...

accompanied the U.S. mission via the C-5 transporting the USN Scorpios, to directly assess the situation on the seabed

Seabed

The seabed is the bottom of the ocean.- Ocean structure :Most of the oceans have a common structure, created by common physical phenomena, mainly from tectonic movement, and sediment from various sources...

if necessary. The American ROVs never left the dock, although their C-5 plane arrived only two hours after the British crew, deciding instead to aid the British crew unloading their ROV. The British mission was a complete success as expected.

Rescue

Russian admiral Fedorov (Fyodorov) first discussed using explosives

Explosive material

An explosive material, also called an explosive, is a reactive substance that contains a great amount of potential energy that can produce an explosion if released suddenly, usually accompanied by the production of light, heat, sound, and pressure...

to cut the antenna but those tactics were never employed. The Russian oceangoing tugs

Tugboat

A tugboat is a boat that maneuvers vessels by pushing or towing them. Tugs move vessels that either should not move themselves, such as ships in a crowded harbor or a narrow canal,or those that cannot move by themselves, such as barges, disabled ships, or oil platforms. Tugboats are powerful for...

MB-105 and KIL-168
KIL-168
A Russian Kashtan rescue/crane ship based in Vladivostok, the KIL-168 was commissioned in 1990 and goes by the callsign UHJRIn August 2005, it served as support in the rescue of the AS-28 after it became tangled in underwater antenna cables....

instead attempted to lift the stricken craft to the surface using underslung cables. This attempt proved futile. Meanwhile, to conserve energy and oxygen, the crew of the AS-28 shut down the submarine's non-essential systems (including the heater), donned thermal suits, and rested.

The British Scorpio

Scorpio ROV

was the only foreign remotely operated vehicle

Remotely operated vehicle

to arrive and be deployed. It successfully cut away the antenna and fishing nets which had snagged the submarine while surface ships had retreated a safe distance. On August 7, 2005 at 16:26 local time (03:26 UTC), the saga came to a close when the vessel successfully surfaced. All seven crewmen were alive and able to climb out of the vessel within moments of its surfacing. They had been trapped in the vessel for over 76 hours and rescuers found that they had only enough oxygen to last at most 12 more hours. They also were desperately short of water, of which they had had only three or four handfuls a day.

The story of the submarine's rescue was featured on the BBC One

BBC One

BBC One is the flagship television channel of the British Broadcasting Corporation in the United Kingdom. It was launched on 2 November 1936 as the BBC Television Service, and was the world's first regular television service with a high level of image resolution...

documentary Submarine Rescue. The documentary was subsequently awarded the accolade of "best documentary" by the British Maritime Society.

The submariners

Vyacheslav Milashevskiy (Вячеслав Милашевский), captain-lieutenant, 25-year old commanding officer of the vessel.
Anatoliy Popov (Анатолий Попов), senior lieutenant, navigator
Sergey Belozerov (Сергей Белозеров), senior warrant officer
Alexandr Ivanov (Александр Иванов), senior warrant officer
Alexandr Uybin (Александр Уйбин), warrant officer

and also

Valeriy Lepetyukha (Валерий Лепетюха), captain of the 1st rank
Gennadiy Bolonin (Геннадий Болонин), the Deputy Director of Lazurit, the organization that built AS-28.

Note 1: Midshipman pronounced and written in Russian [michman] (mичmaн) is a warrant officer

Warrant Officer

A warrant officer is an officer in a military organization who is designated an officer by a warrant, as distinguished from a commissioned officer who is designated an officer by a commission, or from non-commissioned officer who is designated an officer by virtue of seniority.The rank was first...

rank in the Russian Navy

Repercussions

The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...

reports questions have been raised over how long Russian officials waited to request help. The first exposure of the accident came when the wife of a crewman called a radio station 24 hours later, and the wife of commander Milashevsky claims they were actually stranded Wednesday. Kommersant
Kommersant
Kommersant is a commerce-oriented newspaper published in Russia. , the circulation was 131,000.- History :The newspaper was initially published in 1909, and it was closed down following the Bolshevik seizure of power and the introduction of censorship in 1917.In 1989, with the onset of press...

reports that the head of the Navy Vladimir Kuroyedov, may be relieved over this, the Kursk, and other accidents. Another nuclear submarine, the , being towed to the junkyard, sank in 2003 when the pontoon broke loose, with the loss of nine lives. BBC

BBC

The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...

also reports that in July, an ICBM test firing witnessed by Putin failed to launch twice; then exploded soon after launch the next day. Although officials claimed the AS-28 crew had food and water for five days, they were actually desperately short of water. There were also alternating stories about whether the submarine was caught on an aerial or fishing nets; nets and cables were visible on TV footage of the ROV in action. Russian prosecutors have opened a criminal investigation into the affair, and their Navy plans to buy two of the £700,000 to £3 million Scorpio ROVs.

External links

US NAVY CALLS UPON PHOENIX FOR SUBMARINE RESCUE SUPPORT
Rescuing the Rescue Submarine - Hammernews
Rescued submarine crew tell of 76-hour ordeal- Guardian
Press haunted by Kursk memories (Russian reports via BBC)
Where the submarine was stranded (BBC)
Russians race to rescue sailors (BBC) August 6, 2005
Russia races to free trapped mini-sub (Reuters Canada) August 6, 2005
World unites to save young skipper and 6 crew (The Age, Australia) August 6, 2005
Submarine Rescue Teams Prepare to Use Explosives to Free Vessel (Bloomberg News) August 6, 2005
Official: Russian rescuers lifting disabled sub (CNN) August 6, 2005
Rescuers Attempt to Lift Russian Mini-Sub to Let Divers Work — Navy Official (MosNews.com) 6 August 2005
Trapped sub surfaces, crew safe (CNN) August 7, 2005
Russische Marine wollte U-Boot nicht bergen

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Training accident

International appeal

Rescue

The submariners

Repercussions

See also

External links