Thread: Russia battles fire on nuclear submarine

Russian sub had nukes during Dec. fire: report

By Vladimir Isachenkov - The Associated Press
Posted : Monday Feb 13, 2012 8:45:19 EST

MOSCOW — A fire at a drydocked Russian nuclear submarine in December could have sparked a radiation disaster because it was carrying nuclear-tipped ballistic missiles and other weapons, despite official statements to the contrary, a Russian news magazine reported Monday.

The respected Kommersant Vlast said the fire aboard the Yekaterinburg could have triggered powerful explosions that would have destroyed the submarine and scattered radioactive material around a large area.

Related reading
Russia nuclear sub fire out; no radiation leak (Dec. 30)
When the fire erupted on Dec. 29, Russia’s Defense Ministry said all weapons had been unloaded before the submarine was moved to a drydock for repairs at the Roslyakovo shipyard in the Murmansk region.

The ministry declined immediate comment on the magazine’s claim.

It took hundreds of emergency workers more than 20 hours to extinguish the massive blaze that shot orange flames up to 66 feet into the air. The Defense Ministry said an unspecified number of crew members remained inside the sub during the fire and that seven crewmen were hospitalized after inhaling carbon monoxide fumes from the blaze.

The fire, which authorities later blamed on a breach in safety regulations, erupted at wooden scaffolding around the sub and quickly engulfed the vessel’s rubber-coated outer hull.

With the sub’s hydraulic systems incapacitated, the crew had to manually remove heavy torpedoes from tubes in the bow to prevent them from exploding as temperatures were rising quickly.

The magazine said that an explosion of torpedoes, each carrying 660 pounds of TNT would likely have destroyed the bow and could have triggered a blast of nuclear-tipped missiles in the midsection and the vessel’s two nuclear reactors.

“Russia was a step away from the largest catastrophe since Chernobyl,” Komersant Vlast said, referring to the 1986 explosion at a nuclear power plant in then-Soviet Ukraine.

The magazine said that weapons are normally removed from submarines before repairs, but the navy wanted to save time on a lengthy procedure to unload the missiles and torpedoes. It said the repairs were supposed to be relatively minor and the Northern Fleet wanted the Yekaterinburg to be quickly back to service.

I assume the USN does not follow this practice of leaving fish in the tubes during a dry dock event?

Originally Posted by blidgepump

I assume the USN does not follow this practice of leaving fish in the tubes during a dry dock event?

Cant help you there Blidge, You would have to ask a bubblehead. IMO, I might say its possible for them to be aboard if in drydock for a short period but I would doubt in the tubes themselves and unknown if they would carry a nuke into a drydock unless it was a emergency.

In either case apparently their fire watch has something to be desired.

IMO, I would not imagine the USN keeping a live projectile in a gun, drydocking and then welding or cutting in the same area as that gun. I dont believe they would with a fish in the tube of they were welding or cutting in that same area either. IMO, your asking for an accident, not necessarily due to the fact of the obvious, just the entire set of possible conditions that could exist. This ofcoarse is just my opinion.

More on the fire emerges...


Photos shed light on cause of fire aboard Russian nuclear submarine;
questions of whether missiles onboard remain

Photographs posted by a blogger of the Russian nuclear submarine that caught fire last week while in dry dock have shed more light on what possibly caused the intense 20-hour blaze and demystify some of the initial speculation surrounding the breath of the fire and its implications.
Charles Digges, Igor Kudrik, 04/01-2012
The photographs, which appear on Blogger51.ru show flames belching from the interior of the port side of the Yekaterinburg nuclear submarine while it was located for repairs in dry dock in Roslyakovo near Severomorsk 1500 kilometres north of Moscow. Blogger51 is an alternative news web site covering events in northeastern Russia not carried by the official press.

Another photograph shown by Blogger51 of the submarine, which was taken before the fire, shows that an enormous hole had been cut in the port side of the submarine’s forward section, making an opening the submarine’s hydro-acoustic chamber.


An opening in the area of submarine’s hydro-acoustic chamber. The part of the outer hull in the bow section of the submarine is removed. This part of the outer hull is made of fiber-plastic. Above is the metal part covered with rubber which also caught fire later.
Blogger51

Bellona’s Alexander Nikitin a former Russian submarine captain said after reviewing the photographs that the fire appears to have spread to the submarine’s hydro-acoustic chamber, located in the space between the inner and outer hulls of the submarine. The chamber is filled with water while the sub is at sea.

The navigational chamber is located very close to the torpedo compartment which is placed in the inner hull in the bow part of the submarine.


This is another Delta class submarine. Here, the division of the inner and outer hulls can be clearly seen, including the torpedo shafts protruding from the inner hull. The hydro-acoustic chamber is located below in between the inner and outer hull.
Сайт ра�ход�щих�� тропок // Balancer.Ru

The official explanation for the fire was that unsafe welding works set a wooden scaffolding around the submarine ablaze, which then spread to the rubber outer hull of the submarine. The Emergency Service’s Ministry reported that it had submerged the submarine up to its conning tower on Thursday night, when the fire broke out, but battled smoldering flames between the outer hull and the inner hull until Friday morning.

According to the analysis by Nikitin, who is also chairman of Bellona’s Environmental Rights Center Bellona in St. Petersburg, this explanation is essentially untrue: There was no wooden scaffolding. The scaffolding was made of metal. The hydro-acoustic chamber, he said, is typically filled not only with water, but heavy oils and other contaminants that are found in the waters near naval ports. The antennas themselves also contain a certain amount of oil for isolation. In additions there are high-pressure air tanks located in between the inner and outer hulls.

This, said Nikitin would explain the duration and intensity of the fire: The oil residues that were left behind after the water was taken out of the acoustic chamber would have burned for a long time, and damaged air pressure tanks would have accounted for the intensity and height of the flames reported by witnesses via various internet social networks.

Flames of up to 10 meters at some periods and were seen from kilometers away as the fire blazed. The fire was initially reported to the local branch of the Emergency Service Ministry by civilians, not the navy.

Weapons onboard?

Reports today indicate that the submarine has left dry dock in Roslyakovo and is headed toward the Okolnaya base, to proceed further for extensive repairs at Severodvinsk in Arkhangelsk Oblast.

Okolnaya is a base equipped with cranes designed to remove ballistic missiles from submarines.

According to Nikitin, it is typical to leave weaponry aboard a submarine when it puts in for only short terms repairs, as was the case with the Yekaterinburg as it has now been removed from dry dock so quickly.

But whether the vessel contains intercontinental ballistic missiles with nuclear warheads or simply test missiles remains in question.

The Defense Ministry when reached by Bellona on Wednesday maintained there were no weapons on board and would not confirm if the vessel was being moved to Okolnaya.

The 18,200 tonne Yekaterinburg, a Delta-IV class submarine, is built to carry 16 intercontinental ballistic missiles with four warheads a piece and 12 torpedoes.

President Dmitry Medvedev has charged Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin with conducting a thorough investigation into the Yekatriburg fire.

Photos shed light on cause of fire aboard Russian nuclear submarine; questions of whether missiles onboard remain - Bellona

Russia came close to nuclear disaster....

As a Russian magazine reports the country came close to nuclear disaster in December following a fire on a submarine, Channel 4 News speaks to an engineer who worked on the salvage of the Kursk. Russian officials said at the time that all nuclear weapons aboard the Yekaterinburg nuclear submarine had been unloaded well before a fire engulfed the 167-metre vessel.

The public was told there was no risk of a radiation leak.

But now the respected Vlast weekly magazine quoted several sources in the Russian navy as saying that throughout the fire on 29 December the submarine was carrying 16 R-29 intercontinental ballistic missiles, each armed with four nuclear warheads.

"Russia, for a day, was on the brink of the biggest catastrophe since the time of Chernobyl," Vlast reported. The 1986 disaster in modern-day Ukraine is regarded as the world's worst nuclear accident.

John Large is an engineer who worked the salvage of the Kursk - Russia's worst post-Soviet submarine disaster which resulted in 118 deaths.

He told Channel 4 News he had "no doubt" there were nuclear weapons on board at the time.

"This could have been a very significant event," he said.

Blame game.....

The fire started when welding sparks ignited wooden scaffolding around the 18,200-tonne submarine at the Roslyakovo docks, 900 miles north of Moscow.

The rubber covering of the submarine then caught fire, sending flames and black smoke 10 metres above the stricken vessel. Firemen battled the blaze for a day and a night before partially sinking the submarine to douse the flames.

Vlast reported that immediately after the fire the Yekaterinburg sailed to the navy's weapons store, an unusual trip for a damaged submarine supposedly carrying no weapons and casting doubt on assurances that it was not armed.

"K-84 was in dock with rockets and torpedoes on board," the magazine said, adding that apart from the nuclear weapons the submarine was carrying torpedoes and mines as well as its two nuclear reactors.
The magazine said that if one of the torpedoes had exploded it could have threatened the nuclear missiles, leading to an extremely dangerous nuclear accident.

John Large said there would now be a "blame game" going on and that the decision not to tell the public the truth at the time was risky: "The big thing about a potential radiation release is the longer you leave it without admitting it, the less effective your precautionary measure, like evacuation, become."

Neither the Russian Defence Ministry nor the office of Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin, who has responsibility for military matters, would immediately comment on the report.


Russia came 'close to nuclear disaster' - Channel 4 News

nothing unusual, russia comes close to some kind of disaster very often, no one seems to pay much attention to ecological disasters that rassia experiencing since....they build factories.

Officer on Atomic Submarine Commits Suicide
14 February 2012

The Moscow Times
A senior lieutenant serving on the Gepard atomic submarine, part of the Northern Fleet, hanged himself in his cabin, Northern Fleet Investigative Committee spokesperson Alexander Kuratov said Monday, RIA-Novosti reported.

Maxim Galkin was found dead by his cabin mate late Saturday. No suicide note was found by investigators, Kuratov said.

Last month, the Gepard submarine caught fire during a technical inspection while stationed at the Northern Fleet's submarine headquarters in the Murmansk region. No one was injured in the incident.



Read more: Officer on Atomic Submarine Commits Suicide | News | The Moscow Times
The Moscow Times

It would have been an ecological disaster had the weapons or the reactors caught fire, but it would have been unlikely to have a nuclear detonation - the conventional explosives would have dispursed radioactive materials - with the amount of explosives on a boomer like this - the disaster could have resembled Chernobyl or been even worse - widely dispersing tons of reactor core materials, and many kilos of concentrated plutonium or HEU from the pits of the nuclear weapons. The nuclear weapons with their chemical detonators would probably disperse the materials even further than those from the reactor - which isn't literally wrapped in explosives and mounted directly on top of tons of missile propellants. Remember - Uranium burns - sort of like like magnesium - except it is easier to ignite, once it catches fire - it is hard to put out, and the smoke is highly radioactive.

Originally Posted by USSWisconsin

It would have been an ecological disaster had the weapons or the reactors caught fire, but it would have been unlikely to have a nuclear detonation - the conventional explosives would have dispursed radioactive materials - with the amount of explosives on a boomer like this - the disaster could have resembled Chernobyl or been even worse - widely dispersing tons of reactor core materials, and many kilos of concentrated plutonium or HEU from the pits of the nuclear weapons. The nuclear weapons with their chemical detonators would probably disperse the materials even further than those from the reactor - which isn't literally wrapped in explosives and mounted directly on top of tons of missile propellants. Remember - Uranium burns - sort of like like magnesium - except it is easier to ignite, once it catches fire - it is hard to put out, and the smoke is highly radioactive.

And the scary part is more then likely someone else would have to detect it and report just like the Chernobyl melt down. That alone spoke volumes about lack of responsibility and accountability even then.