A fire killed the crew of the secret Russian nuclear submarine "Losharik" (Transl)

Gordon ^ | 02JUL2019 | Staff

[AdmSmith]

A post on Telegram:
As a result of an explosion and a fire, the hull of the deepsea vessel lost its integrity and was completely flooded
https://t.me/bbbreaking/16675

[AdmSmith]

«The crew did all required measures to protect the installation, it is in a fully workable condition, and this makes us hope that the vessel can be restored in pretty short time.»

https://thebarentsobserver.com/en/security/2019/07/report-president-super-secret-submarine-losharik-will-be-repaired-and-taken-back

In other words; the Soviet question of who is to blame is already answered. This means that they know the reason for what happened.

[AdmSmith]

Update by HI Sutton:

http://www.hisutton.com/Spy%20Sub%20-%20Project%2010831%20Losharik.html

[AdmSmith]

Kommersant (Russian) 04JUL2019:

As it became known to Kommersant, as one of the causes of the tragedy at the nuclear deep-water station (ACS) of the AC-31 is considered a short circuit in one of the switchboards. This could cause the cable braid or transformer oil to ignite, and the ventilation carried smoke through the compartments. Most of the aquanauts, according to the source of Kommersant, rested at this time and did not have time to use personal protective equipment. As a result, only a five-person watch of the last of a day survived - they were able to localize the spread of fire and raise the station.

The sailors carried out service according to the routine routine: at 19 o'clock Moscow time, the third shift of aquanauts was supposed to have dinner, and at 20:00, the watch was replaced at the central post AS-31. the officers, who had departed for four hours, leave to rest, and their place is taken by the last shift in the day, which is supposed to manage the station until midnight. Thus, most of the personnel of the AS-31 on Monday evening was supposed to be in the so-called residential compartment of the station, separated from the service compartments and the central post by special bulkheads.

At that moment, according to another source of Kommersant, a short circuit allegedly occurred in one of the numerous AS-31 electrical distribution panels located in the compartments. The boat uses a standard voltage of 380 volts, but some devices use currents of up to 1000 amperes.

With a large current, a short circuit in the shields, according to sources of Kommersant, causes not just a flash with a flash, but rather resembles a small explosion, capable of destroying the shield itself and even contusion of nearby specialists.

Because of the incident, poisonous products of combustion began to enter other compartments, and the aquanauts, according to their colleagues reacted to the danger too late.

The duty watch may be a little late with the sealing of the compartment, and the rest of the shift - with the inclusion of portable breathing apparatus. According to the charter, every submariner is obliged to keep this device at all times, allowing him to stay in a smoke-filled room for about 20 minutes, with himself. During this time, the aquanaut, as conceived by the manufacturer, even in the most difficult situation, will be able to find one of the fittings of a stationary respiratory system that supplies fresh air from balloon stocks and connect to it. However, the sailors for some reason did not take advantage of either system.

Meanwhile, in his opinion, the smoke from the burning cable sheath is able to put a person out of action in literally seconds. “For a loss of consciousness in a closed room, just a few breaths are enough,” the submariner is convinced.

Thus, within a few minutes after the beginning of the smoke, only the duty shift at the central post continued to struggle for the survivability of the boat. These four officers and one civilian specialist organized the lifting of the AC-31, which in the current situation was difficult to do. According to Kommersant’s sources, the depth of the Barents Sea in the area of the landfill for stations like AC-31 is quite small - within 200 m. However, the ascent procedure with all operations takes about ten minutes. These minutes, obviously, turned out to be fatal for 14 aquanauts who received severe poisonings from the combustion products.

The remaining five survived and even saved the station entrusted to them. The duty watch was able to safely lift the AS-31 to the surface, after which the station was brought to the dock at the aquanaut base in the Deer Guba.

https://www.kommersant.ru/doc/4020054

[AdmSmith]

I used aquanaut for гидронавты but not sure if that is the correct word.

[AdmSmith]

6 May · Tac Ops We got H I Sutton to come on!! We discuss a mix of everything, from Russia’s Belgorod, to North Korean blunders.

1.5 h: https://podtail.com/podcast/tac-ops/hi-sutton-covert-shores/

[SunkenCiv]

Submarine duty, not a job I'd like.

[gandalftb]

I have just seen a report that is completely different.

It stated that we heard an explosion onboard that degraded the hull. Seawater filled the sub and everyone except 11 in a compartment survived. 5 of the bodies are still on board.

The report stated that onboard batteries exploded.

[AdmSmith]

This has been published earlier in the thread: 4-5 of the bodies are still on board and that the onboard batteries exploded

[AdmSmith]

https://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/3761049/posts?page=131#131

[AdmSmith]

everyone except 11 in a compartment survived. but 14 are dead. and

The hull:
“As a result of an explosion and a fire, the hull of the deepsea vessel lost its integrity and was completely flooded “
https://t.me/bbbreaking/16675

We have to wait for more juicy leaks.

[AdmSmith]

The Russian president Vladimir Putin has bestowed top state awards on four of the 14 submarine crew who died during a secret mission on 1 July. The four officers, all captains, received Hero of Russia medals. Two other officers on board already had those medals for earlier missions

The other 10 who died in the disaster in the Barents Sea, also officers, received Russia’s Order of Courage.

Pavel Felgenhauer, a military analyst at the independent Russian daily Novaya Gazeta, said it was a mystery why 14 sailors died from smoke inhalation when they would have all carried oxygen masks at all times and had access to emergency on-board oxygen supplies.

It is also a mystery, he wrote, why so many senior officers were on one mission. He speculated that they might have been testing new secret equipment or examining US seabed devices placed to track Russian submarines.

Mr Felgenhauer also asked why Russia would use a secret submersible capable of diving down to 6,000m (19,685ft), when the Barents Sea is on average only 220m deep.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-48880475

[AdmSmith]

the captain of the second rank Dmitry Solovyovevacuated a civilian representative of a research group aboard the vehicle and secured a hatch behind it, which prevented the spread of fire to other compartments of the ship. The whole emergency response operation took about an hour and a half, after which the device surfaced independently and was towed to one of the Northern Fleet docks at the base in Severomorsk. However, it was not possible to save the lives of 14 sailors of the crew of the AS-31, including Denis Dolinsky and Dmitry Solovyov - they all suffocated with carbon monoxide.

In fact, the desire to restore the AU-31 by any means is explained quite simply. Such units in our Navy are just a few, they can be counted on the fingers of one hand. As for the AS-31, this ship of the project 10831 was developed by the Malachite design bureau in the early nineties of the last century, and was built in 2003 and is considered one of the most secret in our Navy. And although there are no weapons on board, he is able to perform a number of very specific tasks: install special equipment, including deep-sea mines, using a manipulator up to three kilometers deep, pick up fragments of drowned equipment from the day, and also sabotage operations — cut communication cables likely opponent. Its carrier platform is the special-purpose submarine Orenburg, which is formally part of the 29th separate brigade of submarines of the Northern Fleet, but at the same time submits not to the Main Command of the Navy, but to the General Directorate for Deep-Water Research (GIGI). That is, in fact, personally to the Minister of Defense.

It should be noted that GUGI is perhaps the most mysterious structure of our military department with the highest monetary allowance and excellent career prospects. It is known that officers there earn from 300 thousand to 600 thousand rubles per month, and the promotion from a lieutenant to a captain of the first rank can be made there in just 12 years.

According to official reports from the Ministry of Defense, AC-31 conducted bathymetric surveys of the Barents Sea shelf in the Kola Bay and the adjacent waters. But this version can hardly be considered complete. In fact, the entire shelf in the Kola Bay has long been studied and hardly needs further research. But to fulfill the performance of anti-sabotage operations there, for example, to search and lift foreign deep-water measuring sensors, or to install their own, AC-31 could well. By the way, this vessel as part of the Orenburg submarine a few years ago performed very similar tasks in the Greenland Sea, as well as in the northern Atlantic Ocean.

https://expert.ru/2019/07/4/intsident-s-lodkoj/

With the highest average wage in Russia as about 55 000 RUB/month this indicated that the officers earn 6 - 10 times the average wage. Although the exchange rate is 1 USD = 63 RUB, i.e. about $ 9 500/month the purchasing power of that is very high in Russia.

https://tradingeconomics.com/russia/wages

[AdmSmith]

Losharik is the successor of these:

In 1977-1995, the Admiralties built six experimental submarines — three projects of 1910 and the same number of project 1851, which had no analogues in the world shipbuilding of nuclear deep-water stations (AGS).

Experimental nuclear deep-water stations (AGS) of the projects of 1910 and 1851 did not have the traditional torpedo-rocket armament and were intended for working out in natural conditions at great depths of new types of nuclear reactors and other technical equipment. The immersion depth of the 1851 ACS project, according to some official sources, reached 1000 m.

During the construction of experienced AGS, unique technologies of forming durable housings from stamped blanks, welding of thick plate structures, mounting of spheroplastic structures, making cable glands into a durable case, etc. were mastered. Experienced AGS were transferred to the Navy in December 1986 after lengthy and intense testing in the White and Barents Seas.

The photo shows the Experimental Nuclear Deep-Water Station of the project 1910. In 1986, 1991 and 1994, the Soviet and the Russian Federation Navy handed over three vessels AC-13, AC-15 and AC-33.

http://forums.airbase.ru/2011/03/t25848_7—atomnaya-glubokovodnaya-stantsiya-1-ranga.html

[AdmSmith]

Komomolskaya Pravda 4Jul2019:

WHY WAS SO MANY SENIOR OFFICERS ON BOARD?

For scientific research, a multibeam echo sounder, a profilograph, mechanical manipulators and others are used. The use of such technology requires the highest professionalism of experienced specialists. Therefore, to the question - “Why were so many senior officers aboard?” I received the following answer:

- And what, in your opinion, should such equipment be managed by young contractors? In fact, they are all military research scientists. Even in the title of the task that they perform, it sounds - research work.

---

The accident occurred at a depth of 280 meters. The struggle for the survival of the ship lasted about 1.5 hours.

the cause of the emergency was a short circuit in the ship’s power system that caused a fire in the battery room (otherwise, in the “battery well”). And if the concentration of hydrogen there exceeds 3% - an explosion occurs and the subsequent fire. What happened.

The fire developed “at a hurricane pace” because of what some crew members did not even have time to use a special breathing apparatus. Just masks melted!

And even in these conditions, severely burned sailors saved each other.
https://www.vrn.kp.ru/daily/26998.4/4059246/?from=smi2

---

Fire went with hurricane speed, breathing masks melted

---

https://www.vrn.kp.ru/daily/26998.4/4059246/?from=smi2

[AdmSmith]

Komsomolskaya Pravda 05JUL2019

“Submariners of the Navy who died on July 1 in a deep-water fire in the Barents Sea will be buried in St. Petersburg at the Serafimov cemetery next to the crew of the Kursk submarine,” said Igor Kurdin, head of the St. Petersburg submariners ’club.

https://www.spb.kp.ru/daily/26999.7/4060119/

[AdmSmith]

Soviet procedure:

The preliminary report to the president will be prepared by the military within the next few days: according to some information, it will contain only the technical part of the emergency. The names of the perpetrators of the incident and the degree of responsibility of officials will be determined already during the investigative actions.

https://www.forbes.ru/obshchestvo/379225-versiya-s-akkumulyatorom-chto-proizoshlo-na-losharike

[AdmSmith]

Funeral on Tuesday.

[AdmSmith]

Lenta 05JUL2019:
Experts believe that the sailors had a chance to escape. They could leave the burning compartment and batten it down, but in this case the power plant on board the station would be damaged. Then the device would not be subject to recovery.

https://lenta.ru/news/2019/07/05/zadachi/

[AdmSmith]

Lenta 05JUL2019:

The fifth and most likely use of the AS-31 “Losharik” involves testing the placement of elements of the Russian positional underwater observation system “Harmony” , an analogue of SOSUS, which is formed by special underwater robotic systems emerging from the submarine and deploying autonomous bottom station.

The probable addition (within the network-centric approach) or the full-fledged component of “Harmony” will be MGK-608 complexes of various adaptations , the hydrophones (receiving elements) of which will be installed at a depth of up to one kilometer and at a distance of up to 200 kilometers from the coast. Acoustic data obtained by the bottom sensors after digitization should be transmitted via a fiber-optic cable line to the coastal post for further analysis.

“Harmony” should be deployed by 2020, which probably will not happen. Among the possible reasons for the backlog of deadlines are not so much the incident with the AC-31 “Losharik”, as the problem with the necessary components and equipment, such as fiber optic cable , couplings, cable layers and batteries . It is curious that the Harmony control center is located in Belush’ya Guba (Novaya Zemlya), whereas the training ground for ADF is located in Okolnaya Bay (Severomorsk), not far from the alleged location of the AS-31 Losharik.

Without Harmony (in a broad sense) and MGK-608 (in the narrow), the Armed Forces of Russia are practically unable to track and identify foreign submarines in their own Arctic waters. A direct consequence of this situation is that without the underwater observation system, Daggers and Avangards cannot provide any strategic advantage, and the carrier with Poseidon simply does not have time to leave the Russian territorial waters, if necessary.

https://lenta.ru/articles/2019/07/05/as31/