The first nuclear submarine of its kind was launched in 1954. Being a formidable weapon in the waters of the world's oceans, submarines pose a danger to humanity and their own crew. Due to a fire on the deep-sea vehicle of the Russian Defense Ministry "Losharik" on July 1 of this year, 14 naval sailors died. In this regard, we decided to recall the 10 largest submarine accidents.
10. SS-109 (USS S-4), USA (1927)
Until 1944, submarines spent most of their service above water, diving only to attack or hide from the enemy. The American SS-109 sank off Cape Cod after being rammed by a Coast Guard ship. Forty servicemen died as a result. Amazingly, the boat returned to service a year after the accident and served until its decommissioning in 1936.
9. "Pike" C117, USSR (1952)
The C117 is the progenitor of one of the largest submarines in the world. During the sinking of the Soviet diesel-electric submarine with torpedoes, 52 sailors went missing. The cause of the disaster and the location of the ship's demise are still unknown. The incident occurred in December 1952 during preparations for training maneuvers in the Sea of Japan.
Before reaching the training site, the S-117 commander reported that the right engine was faulty, so the combat unit was going to the designated square on one diesel. After some time, the captain reported that the malfunction had been fixed. After that, there was no more communication with the team. The search for the Shchuka, which was conducted until 1953, ended in nothing.
8. "Thresher" SSN-593, USA, (1963)
The wreck of an American nuclear submarine claimed 129 lives during an exercise off the coast of Massachusetts, USA. SSN-593 had gone to sea to test the strength of its hull at extreme depths. Due to mechanical damage to the hull, the submarine quickly sank and exploded underwater at a depth of 732 meters. As photographs from the accident site at a depth of 2.5 km showed, the explosion was powerful and caused the scattering of large debris in a circle with a radius of 300 m.
7. K129, USSR (1968)
The K-129, with a diesel engine and nuclear warheads, sank on March 8, 1968 in the Pacific Ocean (near the Hawaiian Islands) along with a crew of 96 to 98 submariners (data vary). The cause of the accident remains unsolved, but several theories have been put forward, one of which is a collision with an unknown US ship.
According to the official report of the American Navy, which was able to find K-129 in 1974, the tragic catastrophe that happened to the Soviet submarine was caused by an explosion on board. When the vessel was raised by the American Navy, the submarine broke into two parts, but some parts of large units were delivered to one of the enemy fleet locations. During their inspection, the bodies of six Soviet sailors were recovered, and the Americans later buried them at sea with full honors.
6. "Scorpion" SSN-589, USA (1968)
The US military lost its second submarine and 99 sailors on May 21, 1968, in the Atlantic Ocean 740 km southwest of the Azores. The crew was supposed to return to base in 5 days, but fate decreed otherwise. Later, the sunken vehicle was searched for in vain for about six months by about 60 ships and 30 aircraft. Soon, Scorpion was found at a depth of about 3,000 meters using sonar.
As often happens, the cause of the disaster has not yet been determined. The most likely explanation was considered to be a torpedo detonation, but some experts saw in this a carefully concealed fact of the destruction of the Scorpion by the Soviet submarine fleet.
5. K-8 (project 627A “KIT”), USSR (1970)
The first sad loss of the USSR's nuclear navy was the sinking of the K-8 along with all those on board (52 people). On April 12, 1970, while on patrol in the waters of the Mediterranean Sea, the submarine was ordered to redeploy to the Bay of Biscay to participate in large-scale exercises called "Ocean-70".
The ship's main task was to identify potential enemy forces breaking through underwater to the USSR's maritime borders. The nuclear vessel sank before the start of training maneuvers scheduled for April 14 as a result of a fatal fire. K-8 "KIT" sank 500 km from Spain, having lost longitudinal stability and overall buoyancy. While dying, the crew managed to neutralize the nuclear reactors.
4. K-278 Komsomolets (Project 685 Plavnik), USSR (1989)
42 Soviet servicemen died a heroic death (mostly from hypothermia), 27 team members were saved.
The third-generation nuclear submarine, equipped with fast-loading torpedo tubes, was at that time the record holder for the deepest dive among others - 1027 meters - the record was set in 1985. Despite its capabilities, the Komsomolets perished and sank in the Norwegian Sea after a fire broke out in two adjacent compartments.
It happened on April 7, 1989, when the machine was moving at a speed of 14.8 km/h (8 knots) at a small depth of 380 meters. As a result of the emergency, the main ballast tank systems were damaged, through which the submarine was filled with seawater.
3. "Kursk" K-141 (project 949A "Antey"), Russian Federation (2000)
The service of the nuclear-powered missile-carrying submarine was tragically interrupted on August 12, 2000, during tactical exercises in the Barents Sea at a depth of just over 100 meters. Fuel leaking from the torpedo engine caused two fatal explosions, and most of the crew (of 118 people on board) died suddenly.
Twenty-three submariners managed to move to an undamaged compartment in the rear, where they waited for a long week for help to arrive. They died from lack of oxygen, without waiting for the successful completion of the rescue operation that unfolded in the waters between Russia and Norway. In terms of the number of deaths among submariners, this accident was one of the largest on nuclear submarines in the post-war history of the Russian Navy. "She sank" ... This is how V.V. Putin answered the question of an American journalist, "What happened to the Russian submarine Kursk?" live on CNN.
The process of raising the K-141 took place over 12 months in several stages and involved twenty countries. The cost of the search and raising operation at that time was estimated at hundreds of millions of dollars. After the ship's remains were removed, one hundred and fifteen dead submariners were found and buried. Three sailors were never found. The submarine's potentially dangerous weapons and reactors with nuclear fuel (2 units) were evacuated.
2. "Ming 361", China (2003)
On April 16, 2003, during a routine naval exercise in the Bohai Bay (Yellow Sea, northeastern coast of China), an emergency occurred on the Ming 361 submarine – a diesel engine failure. The malfunction contributed to a rapid reduction in oxygen levels. The entire crew (70 people) subsequently lost their lives from suffocation.
Then the Chinese authorities made public the fact of the submarine disaster for the first time. According to the data published on May 2, 2003, "Ming 361" was found by local fishermen who accidentally caught the periscope in their nets on the 9th day after the tragic incident.
1. San Juan, Argentina (2017)
The captain of the San Juan stopped communicating on November 15, 2017, complaining of power supply problems. At the time, the submarine with a crew of 44 people was en route from the naval base in Mar del Plata, 1,400 km from the capital of Argentina. A day later, contact with them was not established. Almost two weeks after the submarine went missing, it was reported that the rescue operation for the sailors was being stopped, since oxygen reserves were estimated to be sufficient for only a week.
The Argentine Navy submarine was discovered by sonar only in November 2018, a year after it disappeared, on the ocean floor. The causes of the emergency became known recently, from a report by the German company that manufactured the sunken submarine. Experts believe that the flooding of the compartments began through a valve in the battery compartments. This led to a short circuit, and, accordingly, to an explosion.
The commander of the missing Argentine submarine San Juan promised his mother before preparing for his final voyage that this would be his last trip to sea...
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