Soviet submarine K-278 Komsomolets
This article includes a list of general references, but it lacks sufficient corresponding inline citations. (April 2011) |
K-278 Komsomolets profile
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K-278 upon deployment on 1 January in 1986.
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History | |
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Soviet Union | |
Name |
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Builder | Sevmash |
Yard number | 510 |
Laid down | 22 April 1978 |
Launched | 9 May 1983 (3 June 1983) |
Commissioned | 28 December 1983 |
Decommissioned | 6 June 1990 |
Homeport | Bolshaya Lopatka at Zapadnaya Litsa |
Fate | Sank due to fire on 7 April 1989, killing 42 |
Notes | Located in the Barents Sea in 1,700 m (5,600 ft) of water |
General characteristics | |
Class and type | NATO reporting name "Mike"-class submarine |
Displacement | 4,400–5,750 tons surfaced, 6,400–8,000 tons submerged |
Length | 117.5 m (385 ft) |
Beam | 10.7 m (35 ft) |
Draft | 8 to 9 m (26 to 30 ft) |
Propulsion | One 190 MW shp steam turbines , one shaft |
Speed | 14 knots (26 km/h; 16 mph) surfaced, 26 to 30 knots (48 to 56 km/h; 30 to 35 mph) submerged |
Test depth | 1,000 m safe, 1,250 m design, 1,500 m crush |
Complement | 64 (30 officers, 22 warrant officers, 12 petty officers and enlisted) |
Armament |
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The K-278 Komsomolets was the Project-685 Plavnik (Russian: проект-685 плавник, meaning "
In the
Despite the fire in the engineering compartment, K-278 was able to surface and remained afloat for approximately five hours before sinking.[4] Many of the crew perished before rescue, leading to 42 total dead.
The wrecked submarine is on the floor of the Barents Sea, about 1.7 km (1 mile) deep, with her nuclear reactor and two nuclear warhead-armed torpedoes still on board.
Design
The Project 685 was designed by the
K-278 had a double hull, the inner one being composed of
Crew
According to Norman Polmar and Kenneth J. Moore, two Western experts on Soviet submarine design and operations, the Project 685's advanced design included many automated systems which allowed for fewer crew members than usual for a submarine of her size. The manning table approved by the
Name
In October 1988, K-278 became one of the few Soviet submarines to be given a name: Komsomolets (Комсомолец, meaning "a member of the Komsomol"), and her commanding officer, Captain 1st rank Yuriy Zelenskiy was honoured for diving to 1,020 metres (3,350 ft).
Sinking
On 7 April 1989, while under the command of Captain 1st Rank Evgeny Vanin and running submerged at a depth of 335 metres (1,099 ft) about 180 kilometres (100 nmi) southwest of
The fire continued to burn, fed by the compressed air system. At 15:15,[9] several hours after surfacing, the boat sank in 1,680 metres (5,510 ft) of water, about 250 kilometres (135 nmi) SSW off Bear Island.[9] The commanding officer and four others who were still on board entered the escape capsule and ejected it. Only one of the five to reach the surface was able to leave the capsule and survive before it sank in the rough seas. Captain Vanin was among the dead.
Rescue aircraft arrived quickly and dropped small rafts, but winds and sea conditions precluded their use. Many men had already died from hypothermia in the 2 °C (36 °F) water of the Barents Sea. The floating fish factory B-64/10 Aleksey Khlobystov (Алексей Хлобыстов)[10] arrived 81 minutes after K-278 sank, and took aboard survivors.[11]
Of the 69 crewmen, 27 survived the incident and 42 died: nine during the accident and the subsequent sinking, 30 in the water of hypothermia or injuries, and three aboard the rescue boat. The crew were awarded the Order of the Red Banner after the incident.[12]
Aftermath
As well as eight standard torpedoes, K-278 was carrying two torpedoes armed with nuclear warheads. Under pressure from Norway, the Soviet Union used deep sea submersibles operated from the oceanographic research ship Keldysh to search for K-278. In June 1989, two months after the sinking, the wreck was located. Soviet officials stated that any possible leaks were insignificant and posed no threat to the environment.
In 1993, Vice Admiral Chernov, commander of the submarine group of which the Komsomolets was part, founded the Komsomolets Nuclear Submarine Memorial Society, a charity to support the widows and orphans of his former command. Since then, the Society's charter has expanded to provide assistance to the families of all Soviet and Russian submariners lost at sea, and 7 April has become a day of commemoration for all submariners lost at sea.
An expedition in mid-1994 revealed some plutonium leakage from one of the two nuclear-armed torpedoes. On 24 June 1995, Keldysh set out again from Saint Petersburg to the Komsomolets to seal the hull fractures in Compartment 1 and cover the nuclear warheads, and declared success at the end of a subsequent expedition in July 1996. A jelly-like sealant was projected to make the wreck radiation safe for 20 to 30 years, that is, until 2015 to 2025.[13]
Norwegian authorities from the Marine Environmental Agency and Radiation Agency take water and ground samples from the vicinity of the wreck on a yearly basis.[14]
In July 2019, a joint Norwegian-Russian expedition found "clouds" emitted from a ventilation pipe and a nearby grille. They took water samples from the pipe and from several metres above, and analysed them for caesium-137. That pipe had been identified as a leak in several Mir missions up to 1998 and 2007. The activity levels in the six samples out of the pipe were up to 800 Bq/L (9 July). No activity could be detected in the free-water samples. Due to dilution, there is no threat to the environment. The Norwegian limit on caesium-137 in food products is 600 Bq/kg. The background activity of caesium-137 in the water body is as low as 0.001 Bq/L. More sensitive measurements of the samples were reported to be in progress.[15]
See also
Notes
- ^ The OK-650 reactor was also installed on Project 971 (Akula), Project 945 (Sierra), and in pairs on the Project 941 (Typhoon) submarines.
References
- ^ "Marine Nuclear Power:1939 – 2018" (PDF). July 2018. Retrieved 30 December 2022.
- ^ "Хождение за три глубины". Военно-промышленный курьер. Archived from the original on 30 April 2021. Retrieved 9 May 2013.
- ^ a b "Ход развития аварии и борьбы за живучесть ПЛА "КОМСОМОЛЕЦ"". 26 July 2006.
- JSTOR 23624029.
- CIAReport 14 April 2007.
- ISBN 1-57488-594-4
- ^ Gary Weir and Walter Boyne, Rising Tide, New York: Basic Books, (2003) [ISBN missing][page needed]
- ^ "A lot lost at sea". The Economist. 15 April 1989. Archived from the original on 9 April 2016. Retrieved 3 May 2015.
- ^ JSTOR 4313590.
- ^ Fishing Fleet of Communist and Post-Communist Countries: "Pionersk" type multi-purpose mother ship project B-64.
- ^ Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey: In Memory of Komsomolets. Archived 2 September 2019 at the Wayback Machine Pravda.ru, 7 April 2013.
- CIAtranslation, 15 September 1992.
- ^ Matthew Bodner: Soviet Nuclear Submarine Wrecks at Bottom of Arctic Ocean. The Moscow Times, 14 November 2014.
- ^ Michalsen, Kathrine (22 August 2008). "Sjekker atomubåten "Komsomolets" for radioaktiv lekkasje". Havforskningsinstituttet. Archived from the original on 9 July 2019. Retrieved 16 January 2019.
- ^ Hilde Elise Heldal, Stine Hommedal: Researchers discovered leak from Komsomolets. Institute of Marine Research, 10 July 2019, updates 11 July and 29 August 2019, and personal communication 29 August 2019.
Bibliography
- The Sunken Nuclear Submarine Komsomolets and its effects on the Environment (by Steinar Høibråten, Per E. Thoresen and Are Haugan. Published by Elsevier Science. 1997)
- Wallace, Wendy, "Komsomolets: A Disaster Waiting to Happen?", CIS Environmental Watch, Spring 1992.
- Montgomery, George, "The Komsomolets Disaster", Studies in Intelligence, Vol. 38, No. 5 (1995)
- Romanov, D. A., Fire at Sea: The Tragedy of the Soviet Submarine Komsomolets. Edited by K. J. Moore. Washington, DC: Potomac Books, Inc., 2006. (Note: Romanov was the Soviet submarine's deputy designer at the Rubin Design Bureau and he defends his agency's design against the Soviet Navy's initial claims that "numerous technical imperfections" caused the accident.)
- Gary Weir and Walter Boyne, Rising Tide: The untold story of the Russian submarines that fought the Cold War, New York: Basic Books,(2003)
- INRO Staff (1991). "New Historic Information on the Soviet Navy". Warship International. XXVIII (3): 240–271. ISSN 0043-0374.
External links
- Project 685 (Plavnik) – Mike Class
- GlobalSecurity article
- Federation of American Scientists Archived 26 November 2015 at the Wayback Machine
- Энциклопедия кораблей
- Книга памяти – K-278
- Mizokami, Kyle, "Russia Has Destroyed..."[1]
- TED Case Studies: Komsomolets Submarine and Radiation Leakage
- А. С. Николаев (2002–2003). "Проект 685 "Плавник" (NATO – "Mike")". «Штурм Глубины». deepstorm.ru. Retrieved 6 April 2011.
- А. С. Николаев, И. С. Курганов (2002–2008). "К-278, "Комсомолец" проект 685". «Штурм Глубины». deepstorm.ru. Retrieved 6 April 2011.
- А. С. Николаев, И. С. Курганов (2007). "604 экипаж проекта 685 "Плавник"". сайт «Русский Подплав». submarines.narod.ru. Retrieved 6 April 2011.
- Н. А. Черкашин (1997–2001). "Пламя в отсеках". «Российский подводный флот». submarine.id.ru. Archived from the original on 27 September 2011. Retrieved 6 April 2011.
- "Обследование затонувшей АПЛ "Комсомолец" силами ВМФ". Центральный Военно-Морской Портал. grinda.info. Archived from the original on 26 April 2011. Retrieved 6 April 2011.
- "Вахтенный журнал". Центральный Военно-Морской Портал. grinda.info. Archived from the original on 17 August 2011. Retrieved 6 April 2011.
- МГТУ им. Баумана, отдел Подводные системы. "Проект локализации АПЛ "Комсомолец"". aqua.sm.bmstu.ru. Archived from the original on 12 September 2011. Retrieved 6 April 2011.
- Н. Мормуль. "Возможен ли подъём "Комсомольца"?". «Российский подводный флот». submarine.id.ru. Archived from the original on 27 September 2011. Retrieved 6 April 2011.