Rescuers Speed to Aid Russian Sailors Trapped Underwater

Naval officials scrambled early today to rescue seven men trapped in a small submersible deep beneath the Bering Sea, in an attempt to avert a nightmarish replay of a Russian submarine tragedy five years ago.

With air running out inside the mini-submarine that had become entangled in fishing net and antenna cables, naval ships sought to tow it to shallower water. Meanwhile, rescue vehicles summoned from San Diego, Britain and Japan raced to the scene, but it was unclear whether they would get there in time.

The efforts suffered a setback when it became apparent that the submersible, an AS-28 rescue and research vehicle, could not be wrested from an underwater antenna system anchored by two 60-ton anchors. After towing the entire mass at a crawl for a mere 60 yards late Friday night, rescuers began concentrating instead on trying to cut the vessel free.

The seven submariners trapped in the increasingly cold, damp cabin more than 600 feet underwater were in communication with the surface and were in good condition, authorities said, as rescuers worked through the night to save them from suffocating in their 43-foot-long undersea trap.

Here in the capital of the Kamchatka peninsula, Marina Kononenko, a reporter for the local Internet news site Kamcity, said a Russian military plane had arrived this afternoon with equipment that could “help lift the submarine to the surface.”

“Everyone’s calm. Everyone’s working. There’s no panic,” she said.

Kononenko said the military planned to finish work by 9 p.m. and it was her understanding that “there’s enough air until 9 p.m.”

At the airport, some local residents expressed confidence.

“I think we’re going to rescue them.... They’re taking all the necessary measures in time,” said Sergei Lomakin, a 40-year-old aviation technician.

But a more pessimistic man in town disagreed.

“The situation will be the same as with the Kursk,” said Sergei, who declined to give his last name. “The military was quiet about it. They’ve taken too long and they tried to hide that this accident happened.... It’s going to take them a few hours to sail to that place. The guys in the submarine were ordered to lie down and stay still, not to move, to save air.”

The 2000 Kursk submarine disaster in the Barents Sea left 118 sailors dead.

Earlier, Viktor Fyodorov, commander of Russia’s Pacific Fleet, said, “The situation is not simple. I don’t want to dramatize it too much. I also don’t want to say this is an easy case. But it’s doable. We’re working to rescue our comrades who today are prisoners of this situation. They are courageous men.”

The commander of the mini-sub was identified as 25-year-old Vyacheslav Milachevsky, a lieutenant-captain who had commanded six previous submersible missions.

He is the father of twin girls who will be 2 years old in September, said his wife, Yelena Milachevskaya, who was interviewed by the Russian news agency, RIA Novosti.

“He is obsessed with the Navy. He was awarded a certificate of merit for his skills,” Milachevskaya said.

Russian analysts, while applauding the navy’s decision to call for international assistance, also expressed dismay that five years after the Kursk disaster, Russia had not significantly upgraded its submarine rescue capability.

“What is terribly disappointing is that the Kursk tragedy did not teach the leadership of the navy much about caring for the safety of submariners,” retired Adm. Yury Senatsky, who oversaw the raising of at least five major submarines as former head of navy rescue services, said in an interview.

“Today I have recalled an article ... which said that instead of spending money on any kind of rescue equipment, Russian submariners would be better off equipping themselves with fast-acting poison,” military analyst Alexander Golts told Echo of Moscow Radio.

“This seemed to be hyperbole, some kind of artistic license. However, under the current circumstances, it doesn’t seem like this anymore.”

Russian authorities initially sent a submersible craft equipped with cameras down to the vessel, trapped off the coast of Kamchatka, to try to identify what had entangled it.

Authorities insisted throughout the day Friday that the only problem was a fishing net that had become tangled in the propeller.

By Friday evening, it became apparent that the submersible was trapped not only in a net, but in a tentacle of a large undersea antenna, most likely of the kind designed to detect the movements of foreign submarines off the coast of the top-secret military bases of Kamchatka.

The antenna itself was weighted down by the two anchors, leaving authorities with the options of towing them, blowing them up or cutting the submersible free. Shortly after midnight, rescuers were leaning toward the last option. By then, they had said they believed the submariners still had enough air to last through Saturday morning or possibly even to Monday.

Contact with the crew shortly before dawn today revealed they were in “stable” condition with temperatures in the vessel at about 41 degrees, Navy spokesman Igor Dygalo told Itar-Tass.

Estimates of the amount of air left in the submersible have fluctuated. Submarine experts said the vessel, which set out early Thursday, theoretically had enough air on board for five days and nights. But officials said a lot of energy had been expended in trying to free the sub, possibly cutting into its ability to regenerate oxygen.

Fyodorov said Russian officials had begun the rescue on their own about 18 hours after the initial distress calls Thursday night, fearing that the superior equipment being sent by plane from San Diego and Glasgow, Scotland, might not arrive in time.

“We have to be realistic in assessing the kind of help that can be provided,” he said. “Considering the large distances involved, and with the time that it will take for them to arrive, we anticipate that this will happen [by midday today]. But we will implement our own measures right away, beginning today.”

American and British planes were expected today, but the Japanese ships were not likely to arrive before Monday.

If initial efforts to free the vessel prove unsuccessful, authorities do not rule out other attempts to try to free the crew, perhaps through a docking maneuver with another submersible.

The U.S. Navy was also dispatching a team of frogmen, contracted through the firm Phoenix International, which specializes in deep-water operations. The New Orleans-based divers have special equipment enabling them to descend to 1,200 feet.

The AS-28 submersible was itself designed for submarine rescue missions and includes a three-seat pilot compartment and a separate, 20-seat compartment designed for rescued crew members. A hatch allows it to dock with downed submarines for rescue operations. It can operate at depths of up to 3,200 feet and remain underwater unassisted for up to 120 hours.

The vessel most likely set off from the Russian Pacific Fleet’s submarine base at Vilyuchinsk, 11 miles north of the Kamchatkan capital of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky. The initial rescue efforts began in the first half of the day Thursday, Alexander Kosolapov, head of the Pacific Fleet’s press service, said in a telephone interview. International help was not requested until Friday.

On board the stranded vessel were five crew members, a staff officer and a member of the plant that designed and built the craft.

The submersible’s mission was unclear. Kosolapov told Associated Press that the mini-submarine had been launched from a rescue ship during a combat training exercise. Senatsky said it would be reasonable to assume the vessel had been monitoring or doing some work on the antenna in which it was eventually caught.

“Here is a primitive possible scenario: There was a hose, most likely for air, and it had to be taken from the surface ... to be connected to some device on the monitoring system. Then ultimately, something went wrong and this hose got tangled up around the craft,” Senatsky suggested, emphasizing that he had no direct information about how the incident had unfolded.

“The Russians as well as the United States have put down seafloor arrays of cables and transducers all over their coasts, and we’ve put them all over the world’s oceans, almost, primarily to detect submarines in the area,” said Norman Polmar, a submarine analyst and author based in Alexandria, Va.

The incident brought back memories of one of the worst tragedies to strike the Russian navy -- almost exactly five years ago -- when the nuclear submarine Kursk suffered explosions on board and sank.

Several of the 118 crew members survived for hours after the accident, knocking on the hull of the vessel for help, and the Russian military’s delay in seeking international help was blamed for ending any hope of rescuing the men.

The Kursk was in water only about 350 feet deep, as opposed to the 620 feet of water that rescuers must penetrate to save the crew trapped off of Kamchatka.

“It’s just like the Kursk,” said Igor Kudrik, an expert on the Russian navy with the Bellona environmental group. “And I also wonder whether they really have any communication with the ship. Because the word ‘communication’ -- in such terms it revives the whole Kursk thing. In that case, when they said they had established communication, it meant the crew was trying to hammer on the hull of the submarine.”

After the Kursk disaster, he said, Russian authorities acquired deep-water rescue equipment to respond to such incidents involving the Northern Fleet, along Russia’s northwest coast.

“But the Pacific Fleet, it seems, hasn’t been so prioritized,” Kudrik said.

Water pressure at 620 feet below the surface is far too high for divers, and crew members who attempted to exit the vessel without proper equipment or time to decompress would quickly perish, analysts said.

The Pentagon on Friday dispatched two U.S. Navy “Super Scorpio” mini-submarines and 30 sailors from the North Island Naval Air Station in Coronado, near San Diego, to aid the rescue mission.

The unmanned submarines, capable of diving to 5,000 feet, have robotic arms capable of cutting inch-thick steel cables. U.S. military officials hope the vessels can help free the trapped submersible.

After the 10- to 12-hour flight aboard a large C-5 transport plane to the Russian coast, the U.S. submarines were expected to be loaded on Russian ships for the 62-mile trip to the location of the trapped vessel.

The Super Scorpios have been used frequently to aid civilian rescue operations.

“I would say we’re absolutely optimistic,” said Lt. Ryan Perry, spokesman for the U.S. Pacific Fleet in Hawaii. “The plan is to free the vessel itself so that it will be able to reemerge. If we’re able to kind of assist in just making the vessel capable of coming back under its own power, to potentially untangle it, that would be the plan.”

Murphy reported from Moscow and Holley from Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky. Times staff writers Mark Mazzetti in Washington and Natasha Yefimova in Moscow contributed to this report.

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(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

Undersea rescue

Seven Russian sailors trapped in a mini-submarine off the Kamchatka peninsula are the subject of a multinational rescue effort.

Against the clock

Russian officials sought international assistance soon after the mini-submarine became trapped at the ocean bottom.

Thursday

Russian AS-28 mini-submarine is snagged 620 feet beneath the surface.

Russian navy asks U.S. and other countries for help.

Friday

Russia begins rescue effort. It confers with U.S.; alternative

rescue plans are examined.

U.S. Air Force C-5 departs at 2:30 p.m. PDT with two Super Scorpio rescue vehicles and 30 personnel.

Saturday

Arrival of U.S. team expected at 2:30 a.m. PDT today.

U.S. team set to join rescue.

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Troubled history

Date: July 4, 1961

Cause: Coolant system leak of ballistic missile submarine K-19 damages reactors

Killed: 8

*

Date: Sept. 8, 1967

Cause: Fire in the hydraulic system of attack sub K-3

Killed: 39

*

Date: April 11, 1968

Cause: Ballistic missile sub K-129 sinks northwest of Oahu, Hawaii

Killed: 90

*

Date: May 24, 1968

Cause: Reactor accident in K-27

Killed: 9

*

Date: April 12, 1970

Cause: Attack sub K-8 sinks in the Bay of Biscay during a tow attempt

Killed: 52

*

Date: Feb. 24, 1972

Cause: K-19 catches fire in the North Atlantic

Killed: 28

*

Date: June 13, 1973

Cause: Cruise missile sub K-56 is involved in a collision

Killed: 27

*

Date: Sept. 26, 1976

Cause: Cruise missile sub K-47 catches fire

Killed: 8

*

Date: June 24, 1983

Cause: Cruise missile sub K-429 sinks in the northern Pacific

Killed: 90 believed dead

*

Date: Oct. 6, 1986

Cause: Ballistic missile sub K-219 explodes in the Atlantic

Killed: 4

*

Date: April 7, 1989

Cause: Attack sub K-278 catches fire and sinks north of Norway

Killed: 42

*

Date: Aug. 13, 2000

Cause: Cruise missile sub Kursk sinks in the Barents Sea

Killed: 118

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Sources: GlobalSecurity.org, Associated Press, lostsubs.com, Military Periscope. Graphics reporting by Tom Reinken