Russian Mini-Sub Stuck on Sea Floor

[Madame Butterfly 0]

Russian Mini-Sub Stuck on Sea Floor

U.S. Navy to Help With Effort to Rescue Seven Crew Members

By YEVGENY KULKOV, AP

 

 

 

 

 

VLADIVOSTOK, Russia (Aug. 5) -- The U.S. Navy will send an unmanned rescue vehicle to help efforts to save a Russian mini-submarine stuck on the floor of the Pacific with seven crew members on board, a Russian navy spokesman said Friday.

 

Capt. Igor Dygalo said in remarks broadcast on Russian television that a U.S. plane will fly to a base in San Diego to pick up a robotic rescue vehicle and then deliver it to the accident site off the Kamchatka Peninsula.

 

The Russian navy said the seamen had enough air to survive for one more day.

 

Pacific Fleet spokesman Capt. Alexander Kosolapov said contact had been made with the sailors, who were not hurt, and that authorities were preparing to send down a similar vessel to assess the situation.

 

The sub's propeller became entangled in a fishing net Thursday, trapping the craft, said Capt. Igor Dygalo, a spokesman with the Russian navy.

 

The mini-sub, called an AS-28, was too deep to allow the sailors to swim to the surface on their own or for divers to reach it, officials said.

 

Dygalo's statement about the amount of air remaining, which he said came after ''all the information was checked,'' followed conflicting statements from officials who said there was enough air for anything from one to five days. The range of estimates may have come because there were seven people aboard the vessel; the crafts usually carry three.

 

The accident occurred early Thursday after the mini-submarine was launched from a rescue ship during a combat training exercise, Kosolapov said.

 

Kosolapov said nine warships were in the area to aid the rescue operation.

 

Officials said the accident occurred in Beryozovaya Bay, approximately 100 miles south of Kamchatka's capital, Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky.

 

The accident occurred almost exactly five years after the nuclear submarine Kursk sank to the bottom of the Barents Sea after explosions on board, killing all 118 seamen aboard in a painful blow to the Russian navy. Some of the Kursk's sailors survived for hours after the accident as oxygen ran out, and Russian authorities came under sharp criticism for their handling of the crisis.

 

The same type of vessel that is now stuck, called a Priz, was used in the rescue efforts that followed the Kursk disaster, Interfax reported.

 

The AS-28, which looks like a small submarine, was built in 1989. They are about 44 feet long and 19 feet high and can dive to depths of 1,640 feet.

 

Russian news agencies reported that Japan decided to send four ships in a response to a request for help. A Japanese Marine Self Defense Force spokesman, Mitsyasu Yokoe, said the press service had no information on such a dispatch and could not comment.

 

 

08/05/05 08:28 EDT