'Two killed' in Russian sub fire

BBC UK ^ | 9/7/06

[stm]

The ghost of K-159 comes back to haunt Russia yet again

[SmithL]

[rottndog]

I remember all the fire drills on my boat--at least done weekly underway, and usually more often than that when we were not on actual ops. I remember many times being rousted out of the rack because of an "Acrid smell" somewhere on the boat-and always an hour or more searching for the source. I also remember having to navigate the entire boat end to end from one EAB connection to another, blindfolded.

Fire on a boat is very serious business--you have the fire inside the people tank competing for oxygen, and the fire very quickly will win out if not stopped. The biggest fear is always that the fire will spread to the hull insulation foam--once that happens it's very difficult to stop, and the smoke from the burning foam is toxic.

Luckily, during my time on a boat we never had a fire, but we were always well trained and prepared in case we did. Prayers for these Russian submariners.

[Doohickey]

Fortunately, the rover wasn't at the workbench at that particular time; the lagging above the WTD was burned almost through.

Luckily there wasn't much collateral damage. 1S did have to get replaced, but we were able to close it, which is good because we needed to get power to the TG-TG tie bus. The 2S blowout cause all sorts of issues with the rod control switches, so it was awhile before we could get even a single loop up.

[Centurion2000]

I see Soviet levels of quality control are still alive and well in Russia.

We've had our own share of accidents with nuclear stuff.

US accidents

[GSlob]

"With the Soviets, it was always about quantity over quality"
"Quantity has a quality of its own", as one Joseph Stalin used to say.

[Spktyr]

Yes, but no recent serious incidents, and no total losses in over 30 years. The Soviets used to lose at least one sub per 5 years, and the Russians seem to be on track for the same record.