In May 1983, an experimental deep-sea nuclear submarine (NPS) of project 685 was launched in Severodvinsk. K-278, later named Komsomolets, was the only boat of this class. The boat was built for an unusually long time, and in the navy it was nicknamed the "goldfish". The case was made of pure titanium, and many difficulties arose during the development of this metal. It is aggressive to other metals, and the pairing of titanium structures with serial equipment required new technical solutions. When titanium was saturated with hydrogen, cracks formed, so welding was carried out in a special gaseous environment. With a diving depth of up to 1,000 m, Komsomolets was the deepest combat submarine in the world. An unprecedented record in the history of diving was set on August 5, 1984. According to the navigator of the Komsomolets, Captain 3rd Rank Alexander Borodin, the compression was such that the bunk arched like a bow. The hydroacoustician, who listened to the submergence of the boat from the supporting surface ship, said: "Because of you, I almost turned gray ... There was such a creak, such a rattle ..." At the same time, it was the least noisy Soviet nuclear boat. On board K-278 there was one nuclear plant, and armament included torpedoes and missiles that could be launched from torpedo tubes located in the bow. Despite the presence of nuclear weapons, the boat was not intended for delivering nuclear strikes along the coast: its combat mission was to protect against enemy submarine missile carriers - "city killers". The boat was equipped with a pop-up rescue camera for the entire crew, installed in the middle of the wheelhouse. The unique titanium ship was compared to an orbital space station. Its main purpose was to study a complex of scientific, technical and oceanological problems. It was at the same time a laboratory, a test bench and a prototype for future ships of the submarine fleet.
The technical design was approved in December 1974. The construction of the boat was carried out at the largest military shipyard "Sevmashpredpriyatie" in Severodvinsk, Arkhangelsk region. In August 1983, the boat was launched, and on August 5, 1984, upon completion of fitting-out work afloat, it was transferred to the 1st flotilla Northern Fleet. Even during the period of sea trials, with designers and builders on board, the boat plunged to 1040 meters, setting an absolute record in depth for underwater warships.
The nuclear-powered ship was built in a single copy in order to run the ship and its crews - main and replacement - at great depths. In the future, on the basis of the "project 685" it was supposed to create a more advanced deep-sea submarine modification.
For five years of service as part of the Komsomolets association with the main crew, he repeatedly dived to a depth of 1000 meters. No one had any doubts about the reliability of the ship.
Basic tactical and technical data:
Surface displacement - 7800 tons;
Underwater displacement - 9700 tons;
Length - 110 m;
Width - approx. 12 m;
Power plant - pressurized water reactor;
Underwater speed - 26 knots (according to other sources 36-38 knots);
Immersion depth - up to 1000 m;
Armament - 6 bow torpedoes for torpedoes and missile torpedoes;
Crew - ok. 65 people
On February 28, 1989, the boat K-278, which received the title of “excellent ship” with the main crew, which is very revered in the fleet with the right to wear the corresponding sign on the superstructure and the name by which it is now known, took on board a replacement crew and went on another autonomous voyage.
April 7, 1989, while in combat service, K-278 followed at a depth of 386 meters at a speed of 6-8 knots. In the morning, the combat shift kept watch as usual.
At 11.00, the officer on duty, lieutenant commander Alexander Verezgov, received reports from the compartments. From the seventh sailor Nodari Bukhnikashvili reported: “The seventh was inspected, the insulation resistance and the gas composition of the air are normal. There are no comments." Those were his last words.
Between 11.00 and 11.03 a fire broke out in the aft compartment. At 11.03 a signal was lit on the watch mechanic's console: "The temperature in the seventh compartment is more than 70 degrees." The watch mechanic, captain of the 3rd rank Vyacheslav Yudin, immediately announced: “Emergency alarm”. At the main command post, a mechanical engineer, captain of the 2nd rank, Valentin Babenko, tried to contact the emergency seventh compartment via general ship communications. The seventh did not answer. The commander of the submarine, Captain 1st Rank Evgeny Vanin, in a matter of seconds made the only correct decision in this situation: to use a boat volumetric chemical fire extinguishing system (LOX) in the emergency compartment. But the system, which in theory should neutralize a high-intensity fire, turned out to be powerless in the face of the elements. Due to a sharp increase in temperature, the sealing of the high-pressure pipeline was broken, and the emergency compartment immediately turned into a kind of open-hearth furnace.
The fire spread to the sixth compartment. The steam generator was immediately stopped. The left turbogenerator turned off by itself. The automatic protection of the reactor worked. In addition to this, the vertical rudder jammed, the inter-compartment communication was interrupted, the hose breathing apparatus system was damaged, as a result of which part of the crew received severe poisoning.
The boat, increasing its course, began to emerge. However, at a depth of about 150 meters, the emergency protection of the reactor worked, and the K-278 lost speed.
The ship's commander, Captain 1st Rank E.A. Vanin, reported this to the headquarters of the Northern Fleet. Aviation was raised into the air, the fastest ships of the USSR Navy, including the Kirov nuclear missile cruiser, were sent to the disaster area. The hydrographic vessel "Kolguev" and the mother ship "Aleksey Khlobystov" came to the rescue from nearby areas.
12.26 - the boat began to give coded distress signals that could not be accepted by foreign rescue services.
14.20 - the commander of the rescue aircraft established contact with the commander of the submarine. The boat reported that although the fire continues, it is controlled by the crew, who do not allow the fire to grow. There are no requests.
When the Komsomolets surfaced, the crew managed to localize the fire in the seventh compartment, give freon to the sixth compartment and seal the rest.
14.40 - the crew of the rescue aircraft discovered the submarine. She stood motionless strictly from north to south with a barely perceptible roll to starboard. At the left side in the area of the 6th and 7th compartments, abundant foaming of water was observed. From the conning tower, deflected by the wind, a tail of light smoke stretched.
One by one, the emergency parties pulled the burnt and poisoned sailors into the fresh air. The doctor, senior lieutenant Leonid Zayats, without stopping for a minute, did artificial respiration to the sailors. Most of the crew was brought upstairs. Many have been brought back to life. But they, weakened and not yet recovered, will die later in cold water, when superhuman efforts are required from each. On deck they smoked in silence, swallowing the smoke with tears. Steam continued to pour thickly from the seventh compartment. “Apparently, a gap has formed there,” says sailor Semyon Grigoryan, “through which water gushed. In that place, I think, the cable cables that went outside burned out.
It seemed that the worst was over. No one thought that in a few hours everyone would be in the icy water of the Norwegian Sea.
14.50 - by this time there are already 3 aircraft in the air. The other two, located in the sky between Medvezhy and Murmansk, relayed the negotiations of the boat commander and the fleet headquarters, and also guided surface vessels to the accident area. Their captains calculated the approximate time of arrival - 18 hours.
15.20 - the boat continues fighting the fire. Its commander constantly keeps in touch with the shore via aircraft. His mood is confident, only one request was received - the tugboat needs to approach them. This could only mean one thing: the submarine had lost its course. Apparently, fearing the consequences of a fire, the reactor was shut down on it.
16.00 - the boat commander unexpectedly requested freon. The rescue aircraft contacted the ships, they promised to find the right amount in their stocks.
16.35 - the pilots suddenly noticed that the boat began to sink to the stern. From that moment on, events began to develop rapidly.
From high temperature the glands of the pipelines connecting the interior of the boat with the outboard environment burned out. Water began to spread rapidly through the compartments adjacent to the emergency ones. It became clear that the tightness of the durable case was broken. Probably, the titanium plating could not withstand the temperature difference (several hundred degrees in the seventh compartment and only plus two overboard). The boat surfaced, but its position became more and more dangerous every minute: the stern part went into the water before our eyes, and the bow rose higher and higher. It became clear that there was no hope of saving her.
“Everybody leave the compartments! Rafts on the water!” - ordered the commander of the ship. Semyon Grigoryan began to disconnect them from the hull of the boat - it took too much time. The fasteners didn't budge. The ship was sinking, the stern part falling down. The sailors jumped into the icy water. Finally, the raft managed to be disconnected, but it was carried away from the boat by a wave.
The sailors began to jump into the icy water. Lucky, he managed to climb onto a life raft. The rest could only hope for the arrival of rescue ships.
4:44 p.m. — The submarine dives with a strong trim towards the stern. Water came up to the base of the conning tower.
16.47 - the conning tower half disappeared into the water.
16.50 - the submarine commander transmits a radiogram: "I am preparing 69 people for evacuation."
17.00 - two deployed rescue rafts, for 20 people each, appeared next to the boat. Sailors began to evacuate from the boat in a continuous stream.
The Orion reconnaissance aircraft from the Norwegian Air Force base in Ando received an order to fly to the Bear Island area to clarify the situation.
August 17 - the submarine sank at a depth of 1685 meters. The crew, with the exception of 4 people who died in a fire, ended up in water, the temperature of which is plus 2 degrees.
17.30 - Minister of Defense of Norway Yu.J. Holst received information about the fire on the Soviet submarine through his own military channels.
17.50 - The Norwegian "Orion" arrived in the disaster area, where it found a raft covered with people, and 100 meters from it - two lifeless bodies.
18.20 - 30 of the surviving sailors were taken aboard the floating base "Aleksey Khlobystov". Three of them died on the way to Severomorsk. Of the 69 crew members of the K-278 Komsomolets, 27 survived.
Dear colleagues, I present to you my next model. This is the Soviet multipurpose nuclear submarine The 3rd generation of project 685 "Fin" (according to NATO classification - Mike), made in 1/350 scale by the domestic company Polar Bear.Prototype:
K-278 "Komsomolets" - Soviet nuclear submarine of the 3rd generation, the only boat of the project 685 "Fin". The boat holds the absolute record for diving depth among submarines - 1027 meters (August 4, 1985). She died in a fire in the Norwegian Sea on April 7, 1989.
In August 1966 the command Navy issued a tactical and technical assignment for the design of an experimental deep-sea submarine (project 685), the maximum immersion depth of which is 2.5 times higher than the corresponding indicator of other nuclear torpedo submarines. The work that received the code “Fin” was carried out at TsKB-18 (TsKB Rubin).
Titanium alloys became the main structural material for project 685.
The boat had a two-hull architecture. Carefully developed outer contours of the ship, combined with the use of a single-shaft power plant, provided low hydrodynamic resistance, as well as high speed qualities that exceeded the capabilities of American counterparts. Outside, the light hull was lined with a rubber coating that increased the stealth of the ship.
The rugged case was divided into seven compartments:
1st - torpedo, divided by two decks. On the upper deck there were breech parts of the TA, torpedo racks and part of the communications equipment, and on the lower deck there was a battery for 112 cells;
2nd - residential, divided by two decks. At the top, there was a wardroom, a galley and sanitary facilities, and at the bottom - cabins for personnel. The hold housed a provisional pantry, fresh water tanks and an electrolysis plant;
3rd - the central post, divided by two decks, on the upper of which the control panels of the main post and the computer complex were located, and on the lower there was an emergency diesel generator;
4th - reactor. It housed a steam generating plant with all the equipment and pipelines of the primary circuit;
5th - compartment of auxiliary mechanisms that ensure the functioning of the cooling system;
6th - turbine compartment. In its diametrical plane, the main turbo-gear unit was located, and on the sides - two autonomous turbogenerators and two main condensers;
7th - aft. The line of the main shaft passed along it and the drives of the rudders were placed.
Ballast tanks were inside a strong hull. For emergency (within 20-30 s) creation of positive buoyancy at great depths, when sea water entered the boat, a system was installed for blowing the ballast of one of the tanks middle group using powder gas generators. It was decided to abandon the torpedo-loading hatch and a solid cabin. The entrance to the boat was carried out through the VSK (pop-up rescue chamber). All this made it possible to minimize the number of holes in the rugged case.
Cutouts for horizontal bow rudders, niches for torpedo tubes, scuppers were equipped with shield closures.
The submarine had a pop-up chamber capable of accommodating the entire crew, ensuring their rescue from a depth of up to 1.5 thousand meters and equipped with an autonomous power supply system.
The torpedo armament of the nuclear submarine consisted of 6 automated torpedo tubes of 533 mm caliber with self-acting pneumohydraulic firing devices and quick-loading systems. The ammunition consisted of 22 rocket-torpedoes and torpedoes (typical loading option - 2 rocket-torpedoes RK-55, 2 Shkval, 2 SAET-60M torpedoes in the torpedo tube, as well as 6 rockets and 10 torpedoes on racks). Rocket and torpedo weapons were used in the entire range of submarine diving depths with single shots and a volley.
Total built: 1 boat of this project.
TTX nuclear submarine:
Displacement:
surface: 5 680 (5880?) t
underwater: 8,500 t
Length: 118.4 m
Width (body): 11.1 m
Draft (DWL): 7.4 m
Speed:
surface: 14 knots
underwater: 30.6 knots
Immersion depth:
working: 1,000 m
limit: 1 250 m
Crew: 64 (57?) people
Autonomy: 90 (80?) Days
Armament: 6x533 torpedo tubes (22 torpedoes and rocket-torpedoes)
Learn more about the ship's service here: SERVICE HISTORY
Kit:
The hull of the boat is made in one piece with a cabin and aft plumage. Separately, there are only a propeller, an NGR and several VUs. There are no decals in the set, there are a few indistinct stickers.
The model is 330 mm long and 30.5 mm wide. The model is made of very hard resin, the surface is not smooth, sanding is not possible everywhere because of the fear of losing thin elements of handrails, hatches, etc. The stitching on the hull is, frankly, a trench.
Assembly:
Assembly assembly took place on our website:
Everything is the same as on previous boats of this manufacturer. Processing of NGR, KGR - removal and grinding of trailing edges.
Elimination of the seam from the joint of the molds. Mountain putty, tedious grinding. Auxiliary propulsion propellers were made from scratch. Also, VUs were made from medical needles, rods and tubes from stocks. I restored from plastic one of the "horns" broken off during storage on the hull in the aft part of the hull. Since I did not want to suffer and restore the stitching of individual elements, I imitated them from self-adhesive foil.
Many thanks to our colleague Danila for making a boat propeller! The complete one is simply nothing compared to the homemade one.
Coloring:
Model primed by Mr. Surfacer 1200. Painted with Tamiya, Gunze Mr. enamels. color. Traces of use - Tamiya powder boxes.
The propellers were first painted with Alclad II Titanium Gold paint. The result surprised me a little - the color of chrome turned out, without any hint of a golden hue. Repainted Tamiya X-31 Titanium Gold. The result is what you need.
Otherwise, everything is as usual - the coloring of WL, the lower and then the upper part of the body.
So, colleagues model in front of you - enjoy watching! Criticism, comments and suggestions are welcome as always. All excellent mood!
April 7 - Day of Remembrance of the dead submariners of the Navy
22 years ago, K-278 ("Komsomolets") died.
Large nuclear submarine of the 3rd generation K-278 is the only nuclear submarine of project 685 "Fin » . K-278 holds the absolute record for diving depth among submarines - 1027 meters. On March 16, 1976, K-278 was included in the lists of the Navy ships as a cruiser submarine. On April 22, 1978, it was laid down on the slipway of shop No. 42 of the Sevmashpredpriyatie production association in the city of Severodvinsk. On May 30, 1983, she was solemnly taken out of the workshop, and on June 3 she was launched. From July to August, mooring trials were carried out on the submarine. Raised in August Naval ensign and the submarine began sea trials. On December 28, 1983, the acceptance certificate was signed and K-278 entered service. On January 18, 1984, it was included in the 6th division of the 1st flotilla of nuclear submarines of the Red Banner Northern Fleet.
The performance specification for the design of an experimental boat with an increased immersion depth was issued by TsKB-18 in 1966. The design process ended only in 1974. Due to the increased immersion depth, the 48-T titanium alloy with a yield strength of about 720 MPa was chosen as the material of the strong body. The use of titanium made it possible to significantly reduce the weight of the hull. It amounted to only 39% of the normal displacement, which did not exceed the corresponding figure for other nuclear submarines. The experience gained during the creation of this submarine was supposed to be used to create a project for deep-sea boats suitable for serial construction. The project received the number 685, code "Fin".
In Severodvinsk, three special dock chambers were built, one of which had a diameter of 5 m and a length of 20 m, the other, respectively, 12 and 27, and the third, 15 m and 55 m. with a single load and 200 kgf / cm? - under cyclic load. The second docking chamber had a working pressure of 200 kgf / cm? and the third -160 kgf / cm?. They tested large-scale, semi-natural and full-scale submarine compartments, carried out experimental verification of the static, cyclic and dynamic strength of structures.
Structurally, the submarine was a double-hull, single-shaft. Carefully developed outer contours of the light hull reduced hydrodynamic resistance, which had a positive effect on the speed characteristics of the nuclear-powered ship. Rugged body had enough simple design. In the middle part, a cylinder with a diameter of 8 meters, which, at the bow and stern ends, was mated with truncated cones ending in spherical bulkheads. The angle of conjugation of the cylinder and cones did not exceed 5 degrees. Ballast tanks were inside a strong hull. For emergency (within 20-30 seconds) creation of positive buoyancy at great depths, when sea water entered the boat, a system was installed for blowing the ballast of one of the tanks of the middle group using powder gas generators. Nasal horizontal rudders are retractable. It was decided to abandon the torpedo-loading hatch and a solid cabin. The entrance to the boat was carried out through the VSK (pop-up rescue chamber). All this made it possible to minimize the number of holes in the rugged case. The light hull was also made of titanium alloys and consisted of 10 kingstonless main ballast systems, fore and aft ends, permeable parts and retractable devices fencing. Niches of torpedo tubes, cutouts for horizontal horizontal rudders, scuppers were equipped with shield closures. The light body was lined with a rubber anti-hydroacoustic coating. The rugged hull was divided into seven compartments:
1st - torpedo, divided by two decks. On the upper deck there were breech parts of the TA, torpedo racks and part of the communications equipment, and on the lower deck there was a battery for 112 cells;
2nd - residential, divided by two decks. At the top were located the wardroom, galley and sanitary facilities, below the cabins of the personnel. The hold housed a provisional pantry, fresh water tanks and an electrolysis plant;
3rd - the central post, divided by two decks, on the upper of which the control panels of the main post and the computer complex were located, and on the lower there was an emergency diesel generator;
4th - reactor. It housed a steam generating plant with all the equipment and pipelines of the primary circuit;
5th - compartment of auxiliary mechanisms that ensure the functioning of the cooling system;
6th - turbine compartment. In its diametrical plane, the main turbo-gear unit was located, and on the sides - two autonomous turbogenerators and two main condensers;
7th - aft. The line of the main shaft passed along it and the drives of the rudders were placed.
The second and third compartments were limited by transverse bulkheads, designed for pressures up to 40 kgf / cm? (“shelter compartments” or “rescue zone”). The construction of the boat was carried out by the block method. Each finished unit has been extensively tested in docking chambers. The boat had a system of air-foam and volumetric chemical fire extinguishing. In fact, the boat was an analogue nuclear submarine of the project 945, but without the bulbous fairing on the stern. The main power plant consisted of a pressurized water reactor OK-650B-3 with a thermal power of 190 MW with four steam generators, a main turbo-gear unit with a shaft power of 43,000 hp. and two autonomous turbogenerators with a capacity of 2 MW each. To prevent emergency ingress of outside water into the pressure hull, a double-circuit system of heat exchangers of the main power plant and onboard equipment was used. Fresh water circulated in the primary cooling circuit with heat removed to two outboard water-to-water coolers. In addition, there was also a backup power plant, consisting of an emergency diesel generator DG-500 with a capacity of 500 kW and a group of batteries located in the first compartment. At the ends of the horizontal tail, in two waterproof capsules, there were electric motors with a power of 300 kW each, driving the propellers. With the help of this backup propulsion boat could reach speeds of up to 5 knots.
K-278 served as a base for experiments in the field deep diving. On August 4, 1984, the boat under the command of Captain 1st Rank Yu. Zelensky set an absolute world diving depth record - 1020 m. At the same time, torpedo firing was successfully carried out. At such a depth, the boat was inaccessible to other submarines and other anti-submarine weapons, and was also practically not recorded by hydroacoustic detection tools. Along with participation in experiments, the boat was intensively used for fleet exercises and combat service, in particular, it participated in anti-submarine guarding of SSBNs from submarines of a potential enemy.
On December 14, 1984, she arrived at her permanent home base, by which time the submarine's surfacing was 107 running days, including about two months of sailing without civilian specialists on board. In accordance with the joint decision of the Navy and the Ministry of Shipbuilding Industry, the management of trial operation was entrusted to the chairman of the selection committee - the commander of the 1st submarine flotilla and was carried out according to the special program developed by the General Staff of the Navy and the Ministry of the shipbuilding industry. On June 29, 1985, the crew passed the course tasks and was introduced into the first line of ships of constant combat readiness, and began preparations for a deep-sea dive. In July 1985, tests were carried out to undock a pop-up camera in Zapadnaya Litsa Bay. From July 31 to August 7, 1985, K-278 passed deep-sea tests. On July 31, she entered the Norwegian Sea for deep-sea tests. On August 4, completed the deep-sea diving program. At 12.43 the submarine sank to a depth of 1000 meters and remained there for 51 minutes, reaching a maximum depth of 1027 meters. When surfacing at 800 meters, she fired blanks at torpedo tubes. On August 7, she returned to her base. In August - November 1985, she audited the mechanisms at the Sevmashpredpriyatie Production Association in Severodvinsk. In December 1985, she performed a docking operation at SRZ-10 in the city of Polyarny and moved to her permanent base in Lopatkin Bay. In 1986, during the period of experimental tactical exercises, she performed tests of an emergency gas-generating system for ascent from a working depth of 800 meters in the Norwegian Sea. From November 30, 1986 to February 28, 1987, she completed the tasks of the Combat Service. In June 1987, trial operation was completed and K-278 was put into operation for its intended purpose. In August-October 1987, she completed the tasks of the Combat Service. During the period of performing the tasks of the Combat Service, on September 25, she made a short call at the base point to transfer an officer to the shore, due to the exacerbation of his symptoms of heart failure. January 31, 1989 received the name "Komsomolets".
On February 28, 1989, she entered combat service with 604 crew under the command of Captain 1st Rank E.A. Vanin. She died on April 7, 1989 while returning from military service in the Norwegian Sea. As a result of a fire in two adjacent compartments, the main ballast tank systems were destroyed, through which the boat was flooded with outboard water. Further assessment of the causes of the disaster in various sources varies significantly - the leadership of the Navy blamed the designers and shipbuilders for the imperfection of the boat, the latter, in turn, announced the inept and sometimes even illiterate actions of the crew.
11:00 - a fire broke out in the 7th compartment, the true cause of which remained unidentified. An electrical fire was cited as a possible cause.
11:12 - an emergency alarm was announced on K-278, the boat began to float to a depth of 50 meters. For a number of reasons, it was not possible to extinguish the fire by supplying the LOH (Boat Volumetric Chemical Fire Extinguishing System), the fire spread, as a result of which the power electrical systems got into the fire zone, due to their damage at a depth of 150 meters, the emergency protection of the steam turbine plant worked and the submarine lost move. For further ascent, a command was given to blow out a group of tanks of the main ballast, which to a large extent served as the culminating moment in the development of the tragedy. Objective data indicate that when this command was executed, a rupture of the high-pressure air pipeline (HPA) of the main ballast tank No. 10, located in the 7th compartment, occurred, as a result of which compressed air began to flow into the high-pressure compartment, which led to the outgrowth of a local fire in bulk. Due to a sharp increase in pressure, air mixed with combustion products began to enter the oil drain tank of the main machine, located in the adjacent compartment 6, the excess pressure forced the oil back into the compartment and sprayed it over the equipment.
11:16 - K-278 surfaced, two compartments were already on fire - the 6th and 7th, there was smoke in the 2nd, 3rd and 5th compartments, at about the same time the control panel in the 3rd compartment ignited and flash of combustible gases in the 5th. Already in the surface position, the emergency protection of the reactor worked, the main electrical circuits were disconnected, the power was transferred to the battery. The command was given to start the emergency diesel generator, which the crew carried out for more than two hours.
11:37 - was the first time signaled an accident. However, due to the destruction of the hydraulic systems at that moment, the retractable devices began to sink under their own weight, perhaps this is the reason for the unreliability of the transmission of the emergency signal - on the shore it was received and decoded only after 8 times.
12:19 - through the destroyed pipeline, hot air from the 7th compartment enters the main ballast tank No. 10 of the starboard side, blows it, which leads to a roll to the port side. Without finding out the reason for the formation of the roll, they try to level it by blowing the opposite tanks, which leads to the entry of a fresh portion of air under pressure into the burning compartments. By this time, the personnel are included in hose breathing apparatus, into the system of which combustion products enter - the personnel begins to fail as a result of poisoning, the work of emergency parties is organized to remove the victims from the compartments. The command was belatedly given to switch to individual breathing apparatus (IDA), but the first victims had already appeared in the crew.
11:54 - the crew of the pilot, Major G. Petrogradsky, was alerted. It was announced to all air and naval rescue forces. A task was set at the command post: a fire broke out on a Soviet nuclear submarine near Medvezhiy Island. The ship surfaced, the crew is fighting for survivability. Need to get out of the area emergency ship, establish contact with him and continuously report the situation, the commander's requests to the fleet headquarters. At the disposal of the rescue aviators were helicopters capable of landing on water, seaplanes. But it was decided to send a multi-engine aircraft capable of delivering cargo a long distance from the coast. The reason is that the helicopter will not have enough fuel, because the emergency happened 980 kilometers from the Soviet border. The seaplane speed is almost 2 times less than that of the Il-38. In addition, according to the commander's report, the situation on board the boat did not cause much concern.
12:43 - Petrogradsky tore off his IL-38 from the runway. It takes 1 hour and 20 minutes to prepare such a machine for an emergency flight. But the crew managed to keep within 49 minutes. And this despite the fact that it was necessary to remove the weapons, and in its place to install dumped rescue containers.
13:20 - the command of the Northern Fleet transmits the coordinates of K-278 to the floating base "Aleksey Khlobystov", which goes to the site of the accident.
14:20 - The commander of the airship has established contact with the commander of the submarine. The submarine reported that although the fire continues, it is controlled by the crew, which does not allow the fire to grow. There are no requests. In response, Petrogradsky said that he had the task of directing a ship to the boat and had already begun work.
14:40 - Having broken through the lower edge of the clouds, the crew of the IL-38 aircraft established visual contact with the K-278. She stood motionless strictly from north to south with a barely perceptible roll to starboard. At the port side in the area of the sixth and seventh compartments, abundant foaming of water was observed. From the conning tower, deflected by the wind, a tail of light smoke stretched. The aircraft commander handed over a weather report to the shore: visibility: 5-6 kilometers, the lower edge of the clouds - 400 meters, a wave - 3 points, swell. From time to time charges of snow, then visibility is reduced to one and a half kilometers. On the boat at that time, attempts continued to eliminate the roll and carry out reconnaissance of the emergency compartments, meanwhile, water began to enter the robust hull of the 7th compartment, the list began to move to the starboard side, the trim aft increased to 2 degrees. The boat has run out of LOC refrigerant, high pressure air.
14:50 - by this time there were already three aircraft in the air. Other crews were led by majors Vladimir Votintsev and Anatoly Malyshev. They were located in the sky between Medvezhy and Murmansk, relaying the negotiations of the submarine commander and the fleet headquarters. The crew of Major Petrogradsky began difficult work. He not only helped organize communications, but also flew around the water area, directing surface vessels to the area of the accident. Their captains calculated the approximate time of arrival - 18 hours.
15:20 The boat continued to fight the fire. Its commander constantly keeps in touch with the shore via aircraft. There was only one request - a tugboat to approach them. This could mean only one thing: the submarine lost its course. Apparently, fearing the consequences of a fire on it, they drowned out the reactor.
16:00 - the submarine commander suddenly asked for freon. Petrogradsky contacted the courts, they promised to find the right amount in their stocks.
16:35 - the pilots suddenly noticed that the boat began to sink to the stern. From that moment on, events began to develop rapidly.
16:38 - there is a trim to the stern and starboard side.
16:40 - an order was given to the ship to prepare for the evacuation of the boat, prepare a pop-up rescue chamber (VSC), and leave the compartments. The personnel began to give life rafts, but managed to launch only one of them. The raised bow of the boat appeared out of the water, the trim to the stern increased.
16:44 - the trim is even greater, the water has risen to the base of the conning tower.
16:47 - The conning tower is half hidden in the water.
16:50 - the submarine commander transmits a radiogram: "I am preparing 69 people for evacuation."
17:00 - next to the boat appeared two deployed rescue rafts, for twenty people each. Sailors began to evacuate from the boat in a continuous stream. IL-38 drops an aviation rescue container.
17:08 - K-278 with a trim to the stern of up to 80 degrees sank rapidly at a point with coordinates 73.721389 gr.s.l. 13.264167 gr. o.d. 73°43"17""N 13°15"51""E 73.721389, 13.264167 at a depth of 1,858 meters. There were 59 people in the water. Five, including the commander of K?-278 Vanin E.A., remained in the VSK, of which only one person survived after the ascent of the camera (midshipman Viktor Slyusarenko). Captain 3rd rank Ispenkov remained inside the strong hull, until the last minutes he ensured the operation of the diesel generator.
18:20 - "Alexey Khlobystov" arrived at the scene of the accident and proceeded to rescue people. By this time, 16 people had died from hypothermia and drowned, 30 survivors and 16 dead sailors were taken aboard the Alexei Khlobystov.
On May 12, 1989, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR issued a decree on awarding all members of the Komsomolets crew with the Order of the Red Banner.
The boat's reactor was securely shut down, but the torpedo tubes contained rocket-torpedoes with a nuclear warhead. As a result of corrosion, there was a possibility of depressurization of warheads, which would lead to contamination of the surrounding area with plutonium.
On June 6, 1990, she was expelled from the Navy. In the area of the destruction of the nuclear submarine "Komsomolets" in the Norwegian Sea, deep-sea manned submersibles "Mir" conducted seven expeditions in 1989-1998, during which they installed measuring and recording equipment and sealed torpedo tubes, which contain torpedoes with nuclear warheads, in order to ensuring radiation safety. During the last expedition in 1998, it was discovered that there were no recording stations, only neatly undocked anchors remained from them. Probably, the instruments were removed or cut off using other underwater vehicles or uninhabited remote-controlled robots. An unauthorized visit to the sunken submarine by foreign submarines was also found.
April 7, 1989 - the date of the death of the nuclear submarine K-278 ("Komsomolets") was proclaimed in Russian Federation, as "Day of Remembrance of the Lost Submariners". Along with the "Day of the submariner", the death of the nuclear submarine K-278 became an occasion to once again pay tribute to those submariners who fought to the end for the Fatherland and those who participated in the elimination of the consequences of submarine accidents, paying for it with their lives.
A Soviet nuclear-powered torpedo submarine of the Northern Fleet was lost in the Norwegian Sea as a result of a fire. Of the 69 people on the team, only 27 were saved.
K-278 ("Komsomolets") was a unique nuclear submarine (PLA) that was a quarter of a century ahead of its time. Titanium hull, immersion depth of more than 1000 meters, underwater displacement of 8500 tons, speed of more than 30 knots, ammunition load of 22 torpedoes, some of which could be replaced by Granat cruise missiles. This boat, despite some excess in noise compared to the American ones, was not detected by any means at its working depth of immersion and was inaccessible to any weapon with a conventional explosive (BB). Subject to the successful completion of its trial operation, a decision should have been made to build a series of such submarines.
The general concept, referred to in the contours of the design idea "Plavnik", then "Project 685" and widely known as "Komsomolets", was born in the 1960s in the context of the growing confrontation between the USSR and the USA. At that time, the submarine forces of the US Navy had an overwhelming advantage. The Americans have not only reliably run the missiles and the reactor in the submarine's robust hull, having survived the disaster of the Thresher nuclear submarine and the death of its crew during sea trials in the Atlantic in 1963, but also surfaced at the geographical point of the North Pole on the Skate submarine.
To eliminate the backlog, the construction of third-generation submarines began in the USSR. As conceived by the designers, the deep-sea nuclear submarine "Project 685" was intended to fight enemy submarines and protect their own ships. Its secrecy and maneuverability was ensured by an unprecedented working depth of immersion - 1000 meters and the maximum - 1250, previously available only to bathyscaphes. Despite the colossal costs, domestic developers decided to prepare the so-called durable body made entirely of titanium. The five-year operation of the ship in experimental mode fully confirmed the correctness of this decision. The titanium case demonstrated a number of undeniable advantages: the strength-to-weight ratio of titanium is much better than that of steel, in addition, titanium is non-magnetic, which, with the low noise level of the Komsomolets, practically eliminated the possibility of its detection.
The technical design was approved in December 1974. The construction of the boat was carried out at the largest military shipyard "Sevmashpredpriyatie" in Severodvinsk, Arkhangelsk region. In August 1983, the boat was launched, and on August 5, 1984, upon completion of fitting-out work afloat, it was transferred to the 1st Flotilla of the Northern Fleet. Even during the period of sea trials, with designers and builders on board, the boat plunged to 1040 meters, setting an absolute record in depth for underwater warships.
The nuclear-powered ship was built in a single copy in order to run the ship and its crews - main and replacement - at great depths. In the future, on the basis of the "Project 685", it was supposed to create deep-sea submarines of a more advanced modification.
For five years of service as part of the Komsomolets association with the main crew, he repeatedly dived to a depth of 1000 meters. No one had any doubts about the reliability of the ship.
On February 28, 1989, the boat K-278, which received with the main crew the title of “excellent ship” very revered in the fleet with the right to wear the corresponding mark on the superstructure and the name by which it is now known, took on board a replacement crew and went on another autonomous voyage.
April 7, 1989, while in combat service, K-278 followed at a depth of 386 meters at a speed of 6-8 knots. In the morning, the combat shift kept watch as usual.
At 11.00, the officer on duty, lieutenant commander Alexander Verezgov, received reports from the compartments. From the seventh sailor Nodari Bukhnikashvili reported: “The seventh was inspected, the insulation resistance and the gas composition of the air are normal. There are no comments." Those were his last words.
Between 11.00 and 11.03 a fire broke out in the aft compartment. At 11.03 a signal was lit on the watch mechanic's console: "The temperature in the seventh compartment is more than 70 degrees." The watch mechanic, captain of the 3rd rank Vyacheslav Yudin, immediately announced: "Emergency alarm." At the main command post, a mechanical engineer, captain of the 2nd rank, Valentin Babenko, tried to contact the emergency seventh compartment via general ship communications. The seventh did not answer. The commander of the submarine, Captain 1st Rank Evgeny Vanin, in a matter of seconds made the only correct decision in this situation: to use a boat volumetric chemical fire extinguishing system (LOX) in the emergency compartment. But the system, which in theory should neutralize a high-intensity fire, turned out to be powerless in the face of the elements. Due to a sharp increase in temperature, the sealing of the high-pressure pipeline was broken, and the emergency compartment immediately turned into a kind of open-hearth furnace.
The fire spread to the sixth compartment. The steam generator was immediately stopped. The left turbogenerator turned off by itself. The automatic protection of the reactor worked. In addition to this, the vertical rudder jammed, the inter-compartment communication was interrupted, the hose breathing apparatus system was damaged, as a result of which part of the crew received severe poisoning.
The boat, increasing its course, began to emerge. However, at a depth of about 150 meters, the emergency protection of the reactor worked, and the K-278 lost speed.
At 11 hours and 16 minutes after blowing out the tanks of the main ballast, she surfaced to the surface. From 11:20 a.m. to 12:17 p.m., the boat transmitted the established signal of an accident eight times, but the first of them was heard at the Main Headquarters of the Navy and at the Northern Fleet command post only at 11:41 a.m. In this case, the signal was illegible. A legible signal about the accident was received on the shore only at 12 hours 19 minutes. From that moment on, measures were taken at all levels to provide assistance and rescue the boat and its crew.
Here is what the head of the chemical service, Vitaly Gregulev, said: “When the fire broke out, I was sleeping. Hearing the alarm signal, he ran to his post. My task is to ensure a normal level of gas composition in the boat and control of the radiation situation. I ran to the gas composition of the air, which affects the life of people, tried to start it. In vain. She became debilitated. I looked at the instruments of the radiation situation - normal, no deviations. Then there was a short circuit. The radiation level was normal. My colleagues, Igor Orlov and Sergei Dvorov, personally made sure that the nuclear reactor was safely shut down. As for torpedoes with a nuclear charge, they were not on a combat platoon, therefore they do not pose any danger.
When the Komsomolets surfaced, the crew managed to localize the fire in the seventh compartment, give freon to the sixth compartment and seal the rest. One by one, the emergency parties pulled the burnt and poisoned sailors into the fresh air. The doctor, senior lieutenant Leonid Zayats, without stopping for a minute, did artificial respiration to the sailors. Most of the crew was brought upstairs. Many have been brought back to life. But they, weakened and not yet recovered, will die later in cold water, when superhuman efforts are required from each. On deck they smoked in silence, swallowing the smoke with tears. Steam continued to pour thickly from the seventh compartment. “Apparently, a gap has formed there,” says sailor Semyon Grigoryan, “through which water gushed. In that place, I think, the cable cables that went outside burned out.
It seemed that the worst was over. No one thought that in a few hours everyone would be in the icy water of the Norwegian Sea. Leaving the compartments of the submarine, everyone was sure: the titanium hull of the Komsomolets was the most durable in the world, as the designers assured. The sailors were sure that the nuclear-powered ship would not go down, because they knew that in the entire history of the development of the world's nuclear fleets, not a single nuclear-powered ship that had a fire had sank, especially in a matter of hours. It is for this reason that the submariners went upstairs without wetsuits. For many, this was a fatal mistake.
From the high temperature, the glands of the pipelines connecting the interior of the boat with the outboard environment burned out. Water began to spread rapidly through the compartments adjacent to the emergency ones. It became clear that the tightness of the durable case was broken. Probably, the titanium plating could not withstand the temperature difference (several hundred degrees in the seventh compartment and only plus two overboard). The boat surfaced, but its position became more and more dangerous every minute: the stern part went into the water before our eyes, and the bow rose higher and higher. It became clear that there was no hope of saving her.
“Everybody leave the compartments! Rafts on the water!” - ordered the commander of the ship. Semyon Grigoryan began to disconnect them from the hull of the boat - it took too much time. The fasteners didn't budge. The ship was sinking, the stern part falling down. The sailors jumped into the icy water. Finally, the raft managed to be disconnected, but it was carried away from the boat by a wave.
The sailors began to jump into the icy water. Lucky, he managed to climb onto a life raft. The rest could only hope for the arrival of rescue ships.
Commander Yevgeny Vanin went down inside to hurry those who remained in the compartments.
The cabin was half in the water when Alexander Kopeiko shouted: “The commander and several other people are in the boat. What to do?" They answered him: “Close the hatch, they will escape in the auxiliary chamber!”
Kopeiko still did not close the hatch. He yelled for people to rush out. When it was already dangerous to wait, he realized that if he did not close the hatch, those remaining in the boat would not get out. And he sealed the chamber.
At 17.08 the boat sank.
The only way to get into or out of the submarine was through the rescue pop-up chamber. This rather large steel capsule, which can withstand the pressure of extreme depth, was designed to save the entire crew. If the boat sank and lay on the ground, then all 69 people would be able to accommodate in the cell, sitting in a circle in two tiers, closely clinging to each other. After that, the mechanics would give up the mount, and the camera, like a huge balloon, would soar through the sea to the surface. But everything happened differently ...
Vanin slipped down the multi-meter ladder to the central post. Five more remained in the abandoned compartments: Captain 3rd Rank Ispenkov, who started the diesel generator, Captain 3rd Rank Yudin, midshipmen Slyusarenko, Chernikov and Krasnobaev.
Everyone except Ispenkov (he did not hear the command to go upstairs in the roar of the diesel generator) climbed the ladder through the pop-up chamber. And then the submarine began to sink. First, she stood upright. Everyone who was on the ladder fell down - into the rescue chamber. In the next seconds, the boat went down, under the water.
Midshipman Slyusarenko got into the cell last. Or rather, they dragged him in. Through the haze of burning, he could hardly distinguish the faces of Vanin and Krasnobaev - both were sitting on the upper tier. Below, Captain 3rd Rank Yudin and Midshipman Chernikov pulled with all their might the line tied to the hatch cover, trying to slam it shut - a quarter of a ton! - as tight as possible. Through the open gap, air was forced inwards, driven out by water from the compartments. With every hundred meters, the pressure grew, everything around was covered with cold steam. Still, the lid was pulled up and the hatch was battened down.
Deserted, with only corpses on board, with compartments flooded, the nuclear submarine was completing its last dive. “Comrade commander, how far is it to the ground?” Slyusarenko shouted up. "One thousand five hundred meters," Vanin replied.
Midshipman Chernikov read aloud the instructions for separating the camera from the body: “Give ... Open ... Disconnect ...” But the stopper did not give in. Yudin and Slyusarenko bent the key into an arc ...
The depth was rapidly increasing, and with it the monstrous pressure. Suddenly the hull of the boat shuddered - water burst into the last compartment.
“Everyone, put on your breathing apparatus!” shouted Yudin.
Slyusarenko and Chernikov hung on bibs with spray cans, threaded their heads into the "collars" of the breathing bags, pulled on the masks and opened the valves of the oxygen-helium mixture. And in the next second, Yudin, who hesitated with the apparatus, drooped and sank. Midshipmen immediately picked him up and laid him on the lower tier.
Slyusarenko began to pull the mask of the respiratory apparatus on Yudin, but it was not easy to do this without the help of the victim himself. Together with Chernikov, they suffered for several minutes until they realized that they were trying to pull it on a corpse. They looked back at the commander - Vanin was sitting, hunched over on the upper tier, and wheezing. Next to him, a computer technician, midshipman Krasnobaev, who closed his eyes forever ...
“If Yudin hadn’t shouted:“ Get involved in the apparatus! ”, I would not have done anything, I would not have moved my hand. I would have gone silly from the smoke and died, ”Slyusarenko later said. - But he shouted, and I, like a robot, began to act. But something messed up…”
Later, doctors will come to the conclusion that Yudin, Vanin and Krasnobaev died from carbon monoxide poisoning. The chamber was filled with smoke, and carbon monoxide under pressure kills in seconds ...
And yet the camera suddenly broke away from the submarine and flew up, piercing the monstrous water column! “I hardly remember what happened next,” Slyusarenko continued his story. - When thrown to the surface, the pressure inside the chamber tore out the upper hatch. After all, he was only on the latch ... I saw Chernikov's legs flash by - a stream of air threw him out of the cell. Then they threw me out, but waist-deep. Cylinders, an air bag, hoses were torn off by the edge of the hatch ... And Chernikov died - half a skull was blown off on the edge of the hatch ... "
Slyusarenko was saved by the fact that he put on his apparatus incorrectly, so he held his breathing bag in his hands. With him, who served him as a lifeline, the fishermen raised him from the water. Slyusarenko became the only person in the world who managed to escape from a boat lying at a kilometer depth ... The camera stayed afloat for five to seven seconds. The open hatch was flooded with waves, and the titanium capsule went forever into the depths of the Norwegian Sea...
The first boat to surface was discovered by the Orion patrol aircraft of the Norwegian Air Force. The torn hatch of the Komsomolets was still smoking with white smoke.
Help arrived in time only after 40 minutes. The mother ship "Aleksey Khlobystov" picked up sailors one by one.
Andrey Stepanov, the commander of the electric navigation group of the Komsomolets navigational combat unit, recalled:
“The fire started in the aft compartment. The senior sailor Nodar Bukhnikashvili, a watchman, died immediately. Blazed in the sixth. Then it came to the fifth: oil vapor suddenly flared up, and the fire (it was something like an explosion) doused everyone who was there. People's clothes burned like paper.
It was a real firebox. The emergency party pulled out of the compartment two unconscious and several wounded. All were badly burned. Those of the fifth who were still on their feet climbed to the upper deck, where the "infirmary" was set up, with great difficulty: their hands were burned so that they could not touch the ladder. They were bandaged and dressed. Who was unconscious, tried to bring to life. I remember that sailor Volodya Kulapin was given artificial respiration and an injection in the heart by our doctor Lenya Zayats. Kulapin and midshipman Sergei Bondar “turned on” to the stationary respiratory system and poisoned themselves: it depressurized and carbon monoxide got into it. They died.
In the fourth, reactor compartment, there were only portable breathing devices from protective equipment; other equipment was not supposed to be stored there. When the smoke began, Lieutenant Andrei Makhota and midshipman Mikhail Valyavin tried to get into the neighboring compartments. In the fifth it was impossible, they rushed into the third - and saw a veil of smoke through the viewing window. Remained in the fourth. They hid from the smoke in a hermetically sealed enclosure located directly above the reactor, but they had little air supply. Then the emergency batch got them out very on time.
I remember someone said: "Now the mother ship will do." By that time we had already surfaced. We wait. They began to look for warm underwear, to prepare for the evacuation. Then, when it became clear that the boat was sinking, the command came to prepare the rafts and leave the ship. The rafts were heavy and tightly fastened to the hull of the boat. With great difficulty, several people pulled one out.
I went downstairs, still unable to collect my "secrets". Andrei Zaitsev, an engineer of the survivability division, came up (he monitored the roll and trim of the boat), and said: “We are sinking ... Decide what is more important to you: secrets or life. And then in five minutes you will stay here forever.
He went upstairs, and the water was already on the lower edge of the cabin. And the boat is sinking so fast! A few seconds later I go out of the wheelhouse door to the upper deck, and the water is up to my waist. At that moment, the raft was thrown from the port side by a wave to my side: six people held it there, but could not hold it. Well, I think if I can’t get on the raft, I can immediately order a cross for myself. He swam up to him, strengthened himself.
The raft was constantly covered by waves, we were all lying in the water. Many lost consciousness from the cold, the water was ice cold. Several people from the raft were simply washed away. Those who lost consciousness in the water were doomed, most of them drowned.
They helped each other, but everyone had little strength. While they were waiting for the mother ship, they held on as best they could. Andrey Zaitsev was hanging on board the life raft, and when his hands went numb, he grabbed someone's overcoat with his teeth ... Finally, they waited for the mother ship. As soon as I saw her on the horizon, I immediately turned off. I don't remember how the fishermen approached us, how they lifted us on board.
I came to my senses already at Khlobystov. I was wearing five blankets and three heating pads. We were warmed, rubbed, soldered with French cognac. They brought hot soup, but I refused: the body was warm, but my hands were shaking so that I could not put a spoon in my mouth. My sister looked at my torment and ran away somewhere. She brought a jar of condensed milk with two holes in the lid: on, she says, maybe at least eat this. Then the people slept a little, began to walk. Three - Nezhutin, Molchanov and Grundul - went out to smoke and then died. Then the doctors found that due to severe hypothermia, irreversible changes occurred in their bodies.
On the Khlobystov, and then on the Kirov, the lists of the dead were clarified for a long time. There were misunderstandings, such as, for example, with Igor Kalinin, who was ranked among the dead. Kalinin, during the evacuation from the boat, went upstairs in one sweater. He gave all the documents to Misha Smirnov for safekeeping. Smirnov died at sea. When his body was taken to the floating base, they found documents in his pocket and informed the fleet headquarters by radio: Kalinin was killed. And his mother at that time worked in Severomorsk in the naval hydrometeorological center. I accidentally caught the conversations of the floating base with the headquarters on the radio. And for almost a day she considered her son dead ... "
27 rescued sailors were being treated in the naval hospital of the Northern Fleet, in the morgue - 19 guys who died from hypothermia, injuries and heart failure. Not all sailors managed to survive.
What was the state of the Soviet submariners brought to Severomorsk from the crash site? Here is what the chief therapist of the Armed Forces of the USSR, Major General of the Medical Service Professor V. Ivashkin said:
“Immediately, as soon as the crew members were taken aboard the mother ship “Aleksey Khlobystov”, the ship's doctors began to fight to save the sailors, ten of whom were without signs of life. Three could not be saved, although qualified doctors, delivered to the scene on the cruiser Kirov, did their best. On the way to Severomorsk, we used all the medical means suitable in such a situation. Produced a thorough grinding. The sailors were placed in warm baths. The doctors were on duty around the clock.
The condition of the three sailors was of moderate severity. They were treated in the intensive care unit. The condition of the remaining 24 members of the team is quite satisfactory. All the children underwent thorough medical, psychotherapeutic, reflexotherapy treatment. Only one of the victims had a slight burn.
Military doctors and sailors who have been in various alterations and emergency situations were shocked by the stamina of the team. They admired such people as sailor Yuri Kozlov and midshipman Semyon Grigoryan, lieutenant commander Alexander Verezgov and senior sailor Artur Savin ... It's incomprehensible how they managed to spend almost an hour and a half in icy water!
The work of the government commission to investigate the causes of the disaster at Komsomolets, chaired by Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU Oleg Baklanov, revealed a tangle of unresolved problems in the theoretical, technological, constructive and information support the survivability of the ship, primarily its explosion and fire safety, stability and unsinkability.
The commission found that the fire that arose in the end seventh compartment of the boat due to the ignition of the electrical equipment of the steering system drive, led to the ignition of combustible finishing materials. Within two or three minutes, the temperature in the compartment reached almost 1000 degrees, which, due to design flaws, led to depressurization of the high-pressure air line. High-pressure air entering the compartment increased the intensity of the fire, which could not be eliminated. Insufficient temperature resistance of the ship's structural elements and fire fighting equipment did not allow the crew to effectively withstand the growing accident.
During the first 30 minutes of the development of the emergency, the rudder control and communication between the compartments failed, it became impossible to remotely control the general ship systems of the aft compartments, the main power plant stopped working, a fire developed in the sixth and local fires broke out in the fifth, fourth and third compartments, almost in In all compartments, the content of carbon monoxide far exceeded the maximum allowable rate. In addition, intense heat caused a loss of tightness in a number of systems and devices in the seventh and sixth compartments and the main ballast tanks adjacent to them, which led to the flow of sea water into the stern ballast tanks and into the submarine's strong hull. Because of this, at 1708 hours she sank at a depth of 1685 meters, 106 miles southwest of Bear Island, having exhausted her reserve of buoyancy.
Meanwhile, the investigation into the criminal case initiated by the Chief Military Prosecutor's Office was extremely difficult, since the submarine is located in the Norwegian Sea at a depth of 1655 meters. Her rise and examination is now impossible. Firstly, the cost of raising the boat from the bottom of the Norwegian Sea is estimated by various sources from 300 million to 2 billion dollars. Secondly, the lifting of the Komsomolets will not help to establish the cause of the fire, since the seventh compartment is a cooled blast furnace, where everything was baked into one lump. Thirdly, a regular inspection of the boat with the help of Mir deep-sea submersibles shows that its titanium hull has large cracks that arose from the detonation of torpedoes with conventional explosives. When trying to lift the Komsomolets, its hull will break and self-start of a nuclear reactor will become possible. Then the actual danger of the boat for all living things will increase hundreds of times. I agree with this conclusion. CEO Central Design Bureau "Rubin" (where it was created) Academician Igor Spassky. Fourthly, the radiation situation around Komsomolets is still calm. In the unlikely situation of a successful lifting of the boat, it will require a difficult, long and dangerous towing of it into the White Sea. In this case, the Norwegian, Barents, Kara and especially the White Seas will be contaminated with radiation. Fifthly, the most terrible thing will begin when this radioactive rubbish is brought to Severodvinsk. There are already about 100 submarines that have been decommissioned from the Northern Fleet and are awaiting disposal. The dismantling of Komsomolets will take all the meager funds that would be required for these submarines in a few years.
Therefore, the option proposed by Vice-Admiral, Doctor of Technical Sciences Tengiz Borisov back in 1991, the method of preserving Komsomolets on the ground, where it lies now, is quite reasonable. The titanium plugs placed on the torpedo tubes, where two torpedoes with nuclear warheads lie, were placed during one of the first inspections of the boat (with the help of Mir submersibles), significantly reduced the leaching of weapons-grade plutonium from them. Further, the PLA compartments must be filled through pipelines from the surface with a liquid special composition, which, upon contact with sea water, crystallizes and hardens, isolating everything inside the boat from the external environment.
As a result, the investigation was suspended on January 26, 1998 due to "the failure to identify the person to be brought in as an accused", and the fact that "it is not possible to establish the true causes of the fire and flooding before the submarine is lifted and inspected".
The submarine "Komsomolets", which still holds the world record for diving to 1032 m, suddenly sank, as they say, out of the blue.
More than 90% of the oceans have depths over 200 m. And the development of these depths is tantamount to conquering heights in aviation. However, the task of creating a deep-sea submarine posed even more complex problems for scientists and designers than in aviation. After all, water is 800 times denser than air and the pressure at depth is by no means comical.
In 1966, the command of the USSR Navy issued a tactical and technical assignment to designers for the creation of an experimental submarine of project 685 (code "Fin") with a maximum diving depth 2.5 times greater than that of other boats. Design began at TsKB-18 (now TsKB MT Rubin) under the leadership of N.A. Klimov, and in 1977 he was replaced by Yu.N. Kormilitsyn. A huge contribution to the creation of the Project 685 ship was also made by the employees of the Central Research Institute named after Academician A.N. Krylov and the Central Research Institute of Structural Materials "Prometheus".
The boat, which received the K-278 index, was laid down on April 22, 1978, and was launched on June 3, 1983. At the end of December of the same year, she entered service.
The submarine had two hulls. Strong in the middle part was a cylinder with a diameter of 8 m, at the ends - truncated cones, ending in spherical bulkheads. To minimize holes that reduce strength, they abandoned the large loading hatch. For emergency ascent from great depths, a system was installed for blowing one of the tanks of the middle group with powder gas generators. The outer, also titanium hull consisted of 10 kingston tanks of the main ballast, bow and stern ends, and retractable device fencing. Niches of torpedo tubes, cutouts for bow horizontal rudders and scuppers were equipped with shield closures.
The boat was equipped with a pop-up rescue chamber, accommodating the entire crew and designed to rise from depths up to 1500 m. In the 2nd and 3rd compartments, a so-called rescue zone was formed, limited by transverse bulkheads that can withstand high pressure. All seven compartments had means of extinguishing fires.
What happened on April 7, 1989 on a submarine? The chronology of the day will help you track the events:
11.54. The commander of the aircraft, Major G. Petrogradsky, was informed that a fire broke out on a submarine near Medvezhiy Island. She surfaced, the crew is trying to save the ship. It is necessary to go to the disaster area, contact the commander of the submarine and report to the headquarters the situation and the requests of the sailors.
12.43. Petrogradsky tore off a heavy car from the runway. It takes 1 hour and 20 minutes to prepare for the flight. The pilots kept within 49 minutes - they removed their weapons and took emergency rescue equipment.
14.20. Having reached Medvezhye, which is about 980 km from the coast, Petrogradsky contacted the submarine and broadcast a message to the base: “The fire is controlled by the crew. There are no requests."
14.40. Having broken through the lower edge of the clouds, the aviators saw the Komsomolets. The boat stood with a slight roll to the starboard side, white smoke stretched from the conning tower, on the left, at the 6th - 7th compartments, sea water was foaming. Petrogradsky handed over a weather report to the shore: visibility 5 - 6 km, the lower edge of the cloudiness 400 m from the sea, waves 2 - 3 points, swell, sometimes snow charges fly in.
14.50. There are already three planes in the air, their crews are broadcasting the negotiations of the Komsomolets commander E. Vanin with the fleet headquarters, directing surface ships to the boat. estimated time their approach - 18.00.
By three o'clock in the afternoon it seemed that all the worst was over. Three Soviet planes were circling over the area, the ships were rushing at full speed to the accident site, the fire, although not extinguished, was localized. Help should have arrived soon.
Most of the crew was on the upper deck without life jackets. The people who got out of the smoky compartments were confident in the unsinkability of the Komsomolets and did not assume that they would soon have to leave the ship.
15.20. Vanin asks for tugboats, since the boat has lost speed, because of the fire, the reactor had to be shut down.
16.00. Vanin unexpectedly asked for freon. Petrogradsky contacted the ships going to help - they promised to find it.
16.35. The pilots noticed that the boat was sinking astern.
As a result of a powerful fire, the tightness of the strong hull of the boat was broken, and the flooding of the Komsomolets began. It happened rapidly.
16.38. The trim to the stern and roll to starboard are increasing.
16.40. A stem emerged from the water.
The boat commander gave the order to prepare for the evacuation of the crew, prepare a pop-up rescue chamber (VSC), and leave the compartments. The personnel began to give life rafts, but managed to launch only one of them.
16.44. The waves are already washing the base of the felling.
16.47. Cutting half in the water.
16.50. Vanin's radiogram: "I am preparing 69 people for evacuation."
17.00. The crew without personal life-saving equipment began to evacuate to the life raft. Two life rafts float next to the boat, accommodating 20 people each. Petrogradsky threw them a container with an inflatable boat (he could not splash down on a land vehicle), the submariners began to board it. At the next call, the pilots did not see the boat, one raft turned upside down. Containers were dropped from the second plane, but no one could use them.
17.08. At 17:08 K-278 "Komsomolets" rapidly went into the depths. 61 people found themselves in the icy water of the Norwegian Sea. People who did not even have life jackets, poisoned by carbon monoxide during a fire, burned, held on with their last strength.
About an hour later, the first group of submariners was raised by the fishing floating base "Aleksey Khlobystov", which hurried to the aid of military sailors. The rest were fished out of the cold water one by one. 27 people were rescued.
K-278 was equipped with a pop-up rescue chamber, which allows the entire crew of the boat to escape from the depths. At that moment, when the Komsomolets went to the bottom, there were five in the VSK: boat commander Yevgeny Vanin, captain of the 3rd rank Yudin, midshipmen Slyusarenko, Chernikov and Krasnobaev.
Captain Vanin rushed inside the boat, hearing the voices of people in it. Those who remained on the surface barely had time to batten down the hatch behind him - only this left the chances for those remaining inside to escape with the help of a rescue chamber. Yudin, Slyusarenko, Chernikov and Krasnobaev, who were climbing the ladder at the time of the flood, were literally thrown down due to the fact that the sinking boat stood almost vertically. Midshipman Slyusarenko was dragged into the cell last. Yudin and Chernikov desperately tried to close the bottom cover of the chamber, which weighed more than 250 kg. They managed to do it with incredible difficulty.
The chamber, covered with smoke, went down to the bottom together with the boat, which in this place was at a depth of more than one and a half kilometers. The submariners tried to disconnect the camera from the boat.
Captain 3rd rank Yudin suddenly shouted: “Everyone, turn on the breathing apparatus!” Only Slyusarenko and Chernikov managed to do this - the rest, including Yudin himself, died. Submariners died due to carbon monoxide, whose action increases many times with increasing pressure.
The camera separated from the boat almost at the bottom, when the Komsomolets hull was damaged under the pressure of the water column.
The escape pod was thrown to the surface like a champagne cork. The top hatch cover, fixed on one latch, was torn off, and Chernikov and Slyusarenko were thrown out with it. But the first one died, hitting his head, and only Slyusarenko survived, ending up in the water. The rescue chamber was overwhelmed by waves, and after a few seconds it finally went to the bottom.
Midshipman Slyusarenko was later picked up by rescuers. Viktor Fedorovich Slyusarenko is the only person in the world who escaped from a submarine that sank at a depth of one and a half kilometers.
The dead were honored, the Komsomolets crew was awarded, the deputy head of the emergency rescue service of the Navy lost his post. The State Commission began to work, which included Minister of Defense D. Yazov, Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU O. Baklanov, Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR I. Belousov. It was expected that it was she who would dot the "i" in the death of "Komsomolets". But when the commission completed its work, only a brief message appeared in the press: “... The cause of the disaster was a fire in the stern compartment of the submarine. It is most likely that it arose due to the ignition of electrical equipment.
Meanwhile, passions raged on the pages of the press. It all began, perhaps, with the fact that the former commander of the nuclear submarine A. Gorbachev told readers that such a case was by no means the first, only before everything was hidden behind a veil of secrecy.
The four surviving sailors wrote open letter, dismissing the assumption that the fire ended in tragedy due to poor training of the crew, and shifting the focus to the design flaws of the ship.
Now we are unlikely to find out why the fire broke out. The bilge engineer, senior sailor N. Bukhnikashvili and the technician of the remote control group, midshipman V. Kolotilin, who were on duty in the ill-fated 7th compartment, would not say anything either - they remained at their posts forever.
The date of the death of "Komsomolets" was proclaimed in the Russian Federation as the Day of Remembrance of the dead submariners. Eternal memory to them!
