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View Full Version : Quest 167 has a special on the recovery of a Russian sub trapped on seabed 2006


NutLoose
30th Dec 2014, 19:48
just a heads up in case anyone is interested at 9pm

barnstormer1968
30th Dec 2014, 20:03
Thanks
Watching now :)

Always a Sapper
30th Dec 2014, 20:07
Cheers, sat with a brew and watching it now.

air pig
30th Dec 2014, 21:25
Interesting website, about international submarine rescue organisation.

International Submarine Escape and Rescue Liaison Office (http://www.ismerlo.org/)

unclenelli
31st Dec 2014, 13:07
...on Saturday 03 Jan 2015 at 1100hrs.

Too bad they got the year wrong - it was 4-9th August 2005.
I should know - I ran the Jetplans to get the C17 there and back, and I have a write-up of the the event from the Co-Pilot.

However, I may be wrong if this is about a totally different sub rescue, 1 year later.

NutLoose
31st Dec 2014, 14:05
If it involved getting there then finding they had no way to offload the gear, so had to go scrounging from the Americans that arrived prepared, that's the one. Though it was our kit that did the job so kudos all around.

unclenelli
31st Dec 2014, 14:12
Nutloose
That's the one I planned in 2005.
We borrowed a K-Loader from the yanks who arrived before we did, while they spent a lot of time faffing around.
The Japanese said they would be there in 3 weeks!!!

When Putin awarded the medals at No10, I heard someone from M&S was also there and Sqn Ldr H and Cdr R also received 10% discount for life at M&S.
http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2005/oct/05/russia.world


I'm looking forward to seeing the documentary on Saturday - I missed it last night.

There was a BBC News page about 1yr ago about the Sub-rescue guru who was the consultant along for the ride which I forwarded to the Co-Pilot.

NutLoose
31st Dec 2014, 14:53
That's the one, it showed Putin at No10 presenting the medals at the end to those involved.

unclenelli
31st Dec 2014, 14:55
Nutloose
Check your PMs

dragartist
31st Dec 2014, 15:11
I enjoyed the programme.


here is a link to another group of interesting people. Great bunch they are too.


Submarine Parachute Assistance Group (http://www.subescapetraining.org/SPAG.html)


will also find some stuff on You tube of the Gib Ex earlier this month.


Re the unloading sketch - years back did we not have air portable MEXE trailers that could have been used for this 6 ton container. or am I dreaming again?


I also recall back in the mid 90s that we had a small manned sub to send down that required a Galaxy or AN124 to move. I think all ramp toe extensions are still in the hangar at Brize. Well done to the JATE Air Portability section for getting a mention in the Honours announced this morning.


Drag

unclenelli
31st Dec 2014, 17:22
Crew report (names removed):
[B]99 Squadron's Mission to Russia, 5 - 9 August 2005{/B]
Sometime during the night of Thursday 4th August, as Britain slept, a Russian AS28 maintenance submarine, operating around 50 miles off the Eastern coast of the Kamchatka peninsula became entangled in some discarded fishing nets and was stuck 200m below the ocean surface. Still reeling from harsh global criticism over their handling of the Kursk affair 5 years ago, the Russians were quick to act, requesting international assistance. The MOD was quick to respond, and a plan was swiftly hatched.

The UK Submarine Rescue Service, based near Prestwick, operate the remotely controlled Scorpio-45 rescue submarine, and it was quickly determined that they would need to be dispatched to Russia. Although the sub equipment and team could be transferred by other means, it was determined that a C-17 was the only aircraft capable of taking all together in the time available, namely a direct route, departing on Friday night.

The first I heard of any of this was at about 1030 (ASCOT Ops/BZN Ops learned of this at around 0930hrs) on Friday morning. My sole purpose in visiting the squadron was to check that there were no changes to my Sunday evening trip to Incirlik, a job that I assured my wife at home, would take no longer than half an hour. By this time, the standby crew had already been told they were departing for Russia at mid night. In the meantime, a jet was to be sent to Prestwick, loaded with the team and their equipment, and then flown back to RAF Brize Norton. This task was as yet without a co-pilot, at least until I walked in. Joined by Flt Lt D (Captain), Air Loadmasters Flt Sgt Q and Sgt D and ground crew Sgt S with SVC Jnr Tech A we crewed in and set off to flight planning to gather the necessary charts for Prestwick. We were also joined by Cpl D who was coming along just for the ride.

We got as far as engine start when a message was passed from ATC to shutdown and contact the squadron. It seemed events had overtaken us. The initial estimate of the oxygen supplies remaining inside the sub were a little optimistic and if there was to be any chance of reaching the submarine on time, we would have to leave within the next hour. Naturally the 99 Squadron Operations room was frantic, and now boasted the presence of the Station Commander. "You have 30 minutes to get home and pack whatever you can get your hands on", we were told.

The rumour-generating machine was now in full swing. Nobody knew how much time we had, or whether it was already too late. Fellow pilots Sqn Ldr H and Flt Lt F were given similar ultimatums, as was ALM Sgt Mc. Cpl D it seemed, was now coming along to as our second SVC. Thirty minutes later, having grabbed nowhere near enough clothes, we were all on the jet, engines running, and awaiting the delivery of an emergency imprest and route bag from Ops.

Our brief was simple: "Get to Prestwick, get the kit loaded, then get to Russia, and don't stop until you get there!" Only a few minor points remained: we had no charts for our proposed route, and only sketchy detail of the destination airfield itself, which was NOTAMed as closed during our scheduled arrival time. Moreover, we were limited to our choice of diversion, and we only had verbal diplomatic clearance. It was an area none of us had operated in before and was outside the aircraft database of magnetic variation, meaning the aircraft would operate in a 'Grid1’ mode. Once at Prestwick, we set to work on remedying some of these problems. The loading of the aircraft, carried out under the watchful eyes of the local press, was completed in just over 3 hours.

Meanwhile the pilots set to work on planning the next leg. Our route was to take us north, hand-railing the Norwegian coast, then round the Northern Russian coast, over flying the Barents Sea, the Arctic ocean and Siberia, before reaching the airfield of Yelizovo, next to Petropavlosk-Kamchatsky on the Kamchatka Peninsula. Once past Norway, the route was over essentially a vast expanse of nothing, with all potentially usable en-route diversion air-fields too far to the South to be considered. We were met at Prestwick by a Hercules K carrying an interpreter and a team of 4 RAF Police from RAF Henlow. A Nimrod, diverted from a training task into Bristol airport, had also brought along RN Commander R.

We got airborne at 1520 on Friday afternoon, still completely oblivious as to the actual situation in Russia. We were at the maximum aircraft weight of 585,000lbs, over 235,000lbs of which was fuel, and we would be needing all of it. Our destination airfield was nearly 4500 miles, and 10 hours flying away. Once level at an initial altitude of 26,000ft, we realised we still had over 9 hours to go, and the four pilots rotated between operating the aircraft and the crew-rest area, which enabled each of us to get a couple of hours sleep during the cruise. The airfield itself has an elevation of 131ft, but is surrounded by volcanoes, and has a 25-mile safety altitude of 12,900ft. To add to the workload, the cloudbase upon our arrival was 500ft, and the ILS precision approach aid was out of service, meaning we had to carry out a non-precision NDB approach to the field. The Russians pass all height in metres, which we had to convert into feet, and proceeded to talk us around the approach procedure, step by step - apparently a hang up from the cold war when Soviet pilots were not issued charts or approach plates through fear of them defecting to the West.

We landed at 0620 UK time, which (allowing for the 12 time zones we had just crossed) meant it was now 1820 local time, and after being in work for over 18 hours, it was finally beginning to get dark. It was literally the other side of the world, and we were all exhausted. We were greeted by a group of uniformed personnel wearing some of the biggest hats we had ever seen. Sadly, rather than welcome us, they wanted to know who we were and why we were there. After a brief delay, Martin the interpreter had explained we were there to help, and we were allowed to offload. A few moments later a team of Russians appeared with eager looks, but with nothing more than a crane and a flat bed lorry - both completely useless. We had over 60,000lbs of equipment in the cargo bay, and without a K-loader, a pallet-moving vehicle, it was going nowhere.

Luckily, we were saved by the Americans. Although they arrived just under 2 hours after us, they agreed to lend us the use of their K-loader and a few of their guys to help with the offload. Once on the ground, the pilots' work was done, and I watched all of this from the bunk as the Loadmasters controlled the offload. Caffeine was no longer working. The jet was finally sealed up for the night at 2330 local time (1130 UK time) and we had worked for over 25 hours. We then stood on the pan in the drizzle and watched the equipment and submarine rescue team make there way to the port, still with no idea as to whether it was already too late. A second bus took the Americans back to their aircraft, and we were told it would return in about 5 minutes to collect us. About 30 minutes later a lone Landrover returned. The Americans are keeping the bus, he explained, through our interpreter, leaving us with no transport. Not many people found this funny, and the Russians quickly seemed to pick up on the vibe and swiftly arranged to ferry us in their Landrovers to the mess for an evening meal.

After we were later to discover was a standard meal, whatever the time of day, comprising meat, rice and mashed potato, followed by a cup of tea and an apple, we were accomŽmodated in the Officers Mess. Although the building was near derelict, some rooms had been recently refurbished. We each had a bed or a sofa, in a twin room, with a WC and shower between 4 people. Basic, but it was certainly better than the tents in Basrah and Afghanistan that we have come to know and love. After a few samples of the local beer and Vodka, we went to bed. Nobody, it was agreed, planned to make breakfast.

The base of Yelizovo is located near to Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, a large town populated by the majority of the 400,000 inhabitants of the Kamchatka peninsula. The peninsula was originally colonised by the Russians in 1724, as a gateway to Alaska (also part of the Russian Empire at the time). During the Cold War the town was 'closed' to all but those posted in and out. The base itself was home to the Pacific fleets of both the Russian Air Force and Navy and would have been the first line of defence against any US-led attack. Today the town is growing steadily, and benefits from the local tourism trade where people escape Moscow, and visit the town as a path to the surrounding countryside, protected under world conservaŽtion orders, with the premise of walking, salmon fishing or meeting a bear. The peninsula is on the Oceanic and Continental plate boundary and houses 29 active volcanoes, with regular eruptions and lava flows.

Today the base stands in a dilapidated state, with a large proportion of its funding withdrawn over 10 years ago, although still fully functional, and houses a large number of aircraft and submarines. The next day we were given a tour of the local area by our Russian hosts. The first stop was lunch, and through our interpreter we asked the restaurant waitress to "feed us". Naturally accompanied by some local beer we were served a spread of egg salad, lamb fat soup, fried rice and lamb cutlets with salad. We were then given a present of 2 bottles of Vodka by the restaurant owner who paid us an emotional thanks for coming to save the 7 people trapped. As a former Navy man it meant a great deal to him that the British had come to the Russians' aid. Needless to say, we needed no encouragement to toast his speech, and neither bottle made it as far as our next stop, the local volcanic springs. Those with swimming kit were able to swim in what was basically a really hot swimming pool with a water slide, which swiftly became the place to avoid by the locals. Whilst being driven back to our accommodation, Sqn Ldr H received a crackly telephone call from the Commander to let us know the operation had been a success.

That evening we were hosted by the Russians at the local on-base club, where we received many an emotional thank you, normally accompanied by a toast with Vodka. The next day we prepared for the following morning's trip home. Although we had a little more time to prepare this time, we encountered different obstacles. Firstly, the nearest fax machine was over 3 miles away in a communications centre consisting of 5 phones and one fax machine. There was no Internet access. After receiving our jetplan home, together with weather reports and NOTAMS, we made our way to the supermarket. The airport could not offer us any in-flight catering, and all of the food we had brought out from Brize had defrosted and expired. The only option was to carry out a supermarket sweep, raiding the supermarket for enough food to get us home. Twenty-eight people can eat a lot over 10 hours, and with no freezer we were unable to buy any frozen food. About 8 trolleys full later we joined the queue armed with bottled water and drinks, dry noodles, bread, sweets, salad, ham and cheese. The supermarket would only accept cash in local currency, which we had already exchanged from the US Dollars we carry that are normally accepted universally around the world. As we queued, people started coming in to the supermarket to watch as we made our way through the checkout.

We then took our haul to the jet where it was stored away for the flight home. That evening the Loadmasters met the rescue equipment at the jet and loaded the aircraft, while the engi-neers again fuelled the aircraft to the maximum for the way home. This time however the fuel was free, a gift from the Russians as at token of how grateful they were for our help. Little did they know however, that we had no local money left, and by not accepting credit cards, they weren't getting paid anyway.

The pilots got an early night. We didn't get to meet the Navy again until the next morning, as we prepared the aircraft for flight. After a farewell ceremony, and the presentation of some more tokens of thanks by some very senior Russian officers, we got airborne for Prestwick. Over the next 10 hours we were able chat to the rescue team and hear their story. After leaving us, they completed a 2-hour drive to the port. They then loaded the equipment on the boat via crane and sailed for 5 further hours to reach the submarine, in some of the worst conditions on board that they had ever experienced. During this time they welded their crane to the deck and prepared their remotely controlled Scorpio-45 mini-sub for action.

Once on site they were able to quickly find the Russian sub in the clear water and
start cutting away the fishing net. The operation took just over 4 hours, and almost ended in drama. One final piece of the net was under the sub and could not be reached. With only 5-6 hours of oxygen remaining the only solution was to tell the sub to 'drop its ballast', filling the tanks with air and forcing out the water that holds the sub down, and allowing the sub to sur-face. This was a pretty brave call given their air situation, but luckily it worked and the line snapped as they surfaced. The other concern throughout the operation was that, due to the lie of the seabed, the sub had to 'swim' over the top of the sub, and then back on itself to access the nets. This meant the 'umbilical cord connecting the sub to the command ship above was positioned over the sub, meaning that if the sub lifted at any point, the cord would be cut, and the mini-sub lost. In spite of all this, the operation was a success. The Navy spent the next few days in a hotel in town enjoying their success.

Many got no sleep whatsoever as when it got dark in Russia, it got light in the UK so the phone started ringing. We landed at Prestwick at 9am to a media storm, and said goodbye to our Navy friends. Back at Brize, some 4 hours later we were again met by the media. This time it was the local press, and for the first time people seemed interested in our story. Naturally much of the media attention, entirely justifiably, had been focused on the actions of the Navy on location. The fact that we had worked so hard to get them there in the first place had been largely overlooked by the media..

After a few photos and interviews we were finally able to make our way back to the Squadron. Being involved in the operation was a fantastic experience, especially in knowing that without the actions of 99 Squadron, RAF Brize Norton and the RAF as a whole, the operation would never had even started. As I popped in to work on Friday morning, the last place I expected to be 24 hours later was Russia. Over the course of a few short hours, a crew and an aircraft had been generated, the route plotted and planned from scratch, an emergency route bag prepared, diplomatic clearances obtained, and strings pulled at every level to ensure the aircraft left Brize Norton. Once at Prestwick, the full scale of the operation became apparent, with the involvement of the Hercules K and the Nimrod, and potential problems that the crew had not yet had the chance to consider were already solving themselves. In the words of ALM Sgt Mc, upon first opening the aircraft door at Yelizovo, "Whoever thought of sending an interpreter deserves to get promoted". His services were invaluable.

Over the 4 days, we got to see a part of the world we never thought we would, whilst being part of something much bigger and more important. We used the C-17 in the role it was born to perform - to rapidly deliver outside loads on an operational scale. It takes more than the air craft to rise to the challenge however, and the contribution of the RAF as a whole to the operation was crucial and effective. As I left the Squadron building to make my way to my car, and to pick up my phone which I had left behind in the rush only 4 days ago, the Space Shuttle Columbia was making its touch down at Edwards AFB in California. It seemed our 15 minutes of fame were already drawing to a close. We were already old news.

Flt Lt A Mc

unclenelli
5th Jan 2015, 00:59
The TV Documentary gave me a new light on the maritime view (and problems) of the events, but the write-up above will hopefully give a new light to Ppruners on the aviation aspect of getting the team there and back which is missing from the TV. (3xRAF turned up, 1xtook-off, landed, took us home)

The docu was a bit misleading to Joe Public on the actual route - it showed the C17 in climb-out overlaid over a 50-60N track across Europe, Russia.
The actual route took it a lot further North, up the N Sea, hand-railing the Svaalbards, across the Arctic Ocean at 85N (reported as being "white, very white, nothing but white" - even in August!), crossing N Siberia, then Sea of Okhostk, entering Kamchatka peninsula from the west to Petropavlovsk-Kamchatskiy/Yelizovo (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky_Airport) - The approximate Great Circle route - All with limited/minimal/non-existant divs into "hostile" Russian territory.

The original plan had been to go to Prestwick and pick up the sub, the return to Brize for a new fresh crew to cross the Pole, but events overtook us.
So lots of kit and personnel were arriving at Brize throughout the day - Satellite phones, imprest, fresh crew with appropriate clothing, interpreters etc, even the actual Jetplans!, which were then transferred to Prestwick to catch-up the mission. All prompted by the "shutdown and contact the squadron" call.


The other concern throughout the operation was that, due to the lie of the seabed, the sub had to 'swim' over the top of the sub, and then back on itself to access the nets. This meant the 'umbilical cord connecting the sub to the command ship above was positioned over the sub, meaning that if the sub lifted at any point, the cord would be cut, and the mini-sub lost. In spite of all this, the operation was a success. - missing from the TV Docu.

----------------

As I said, I was a part of the planning process at BZN involved in getting the aircraft and cargo there and back, but thanks must go the the crew, RN/James Fisher Rumic, USAF/USN, ASCOT and BZN Ops, which included a veteran of Op Black Buck (1982) - "Potential problems that the crew had not yet had the chance to consider were already solving themselves" - No substitute for experience!