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| Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia | |
| Efforts on to save Russian sailors | |
| 2005-08-06 | |
| A Russian ship has snagged a mini-submarine trapped far under the Pacific Ocean and was trying to tow it to shallower waters where divers could free the seven people trapped in it for two days, the commander of the Russian Pacific fleet said. The statement by Admiral Viktor Fyodorov to the NTV television channel followed a day of desperate rescue efforts and widely varying estimates of how much oxygen remained on the tiny vessel. A British military plane carrying a sophisticated unmanned underwater rescue vehicle took off for the disaster scene in Russia's Far East late on Friday and the US Navy was scrambling to send another. Both could reach the site off the Kamchatka Peninsula within time - if earlier estimates that there was enough oxygen to keep the seven alive for 24 hours held true. However, Fyodorov said early on Saturday that there was oxygen for "at least 18 hours," a distinctly less optimistic statement than his earlier assertion that the air would last into Monday.
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| Posted by:Fred |
| #4 Come to think, it's more likely a Russian version of the SOSUS line, considering the location. Perhaps the sub was doing maintenance. Maybe a prayer is in order if you got 'em. |
| Posted by: Yaseen Wattoo 2005-08-06 20:05 |
| #3 3dc Ultra Low WaveLength? |
| Posted by: Shipman 2005-08-06 11:35 |
| #2 UPDATE from CBBC There is a race against time to save seven members of the Russian submarine crew who are trapped on a sea bed. It was originally thought that the Priz submersible was stuck in a fishing net, but now rescuers believe it is trapped by an underwater antenna. Special deep-sea rescue crews from Britain and the US are being flown into the area on Saturday. An earlier attempt to drag the sub free by a cable attached to a ship has failed. The men are running out of air. Meanwhile CTV.ca is reporting: The Russian navy is attempting to either sever a cable which became tangled in the sub's propeller on Thursday, or blow up a heavy weight anchoring it, according to Russia's Pacific fleet commander, Admiral Viktor Fyodorov. Authorities plan to use unmanned American and British specialized underwater craft, called Super Scorpios, to investigate the accident site and possibly cut the sub loose from the cable that has held it some 625 feet below the surface since Thursday. The U.S. submersible has specialized equipment like arm-like manipulators with cable-cutters and cameras for navigation. Nothing said about how they intend to demolish the 60 ton concrete anchor. |
| Posted by: GK 2005-08-06 10:51 |
| #1 The Russkes play go "beat the clock" with the Brits and US. Learning from the last incident, they inform everyone at the last freakin minute. |
| Posted by: Captain America 2005-08-06 01:45 |