Floating dock PD50 that has sunk - one hell of a salvage job.

https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....5bcfe59b83.jpg

I had never heard of the HMS Endurance incident. I looked it up:

BBC News - HMS Endurance flood a 'near loss' incident, report says

Interesting article on the sinking and it’s consequences.....

Russia's Dry Dock Accident Could Have Far Larger Repercussions Than A Damaged Carrier - The Drive

Oh, that is one BIG problem they’ve got!

Eggs and baskets springs to mind, especially if typically the critical basket isn’t well maintained.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/r...shap-t8vp37bcr

Russia faces loss of its only aircraft carrier after crane mishap

Russia could be without an aircraft carrier for the first time in more than four decades after an accident during repairs in the Arctic left a hole in its flight deck.

Admiral Kuznetsov was damaged after the floating dock where it was being worked on sank last week, causing a 70-tonne crane to crash on to the vessel, killing one person and critically injured two others. Russian officials have downplayed the damage to the ship, but admit that the crane tore a 5m (16ft) hole in its deck. A week after the accident near Murmansk, pictures that emerged yesterday showed the crane still lying on the flight deck.

The carrier’s woes have sparked predictions that it could be scrapped. It has been transferred to another shipyard, where an unnamed engineer told the local website b-port.com that it was unclear how long repairs would take. “It’s not realistic right now to assess the damage caused,” the engineer said.

The vessel, commissioned by the Soviet navy in 1985, has a long history of technical problems and was undergoing a multimillion-pound upgrade. It is due to go back in service in 2021. The carrier was deployed to the Mediterranean in 2016 to support Russian airstrikes against Syrian rebels, and was dubbed the “ship of shame” by Michael Fallon, defence secretary, when it returned through the English Channel.

Repairs to Admiral Kuznetsov will be hugely complicated by the sinking of the dry dock, which was built for the Soviet Union by Sweden in the 1980s. One of the largest such facilities in the world at 330m long, it is reported to be the only dry dock in Russia big enough to accommodate the carrier.

“The Admiral Kuznetsov, it appears, has come to the end of its life,” wrote Sergei Kravchuk, a columnist with the opposition-friendly Snob website.

Novaya Gazeta, Russia’s oldest independent newspaper, claimed that Moscow had intended to send Admiral Kuznetsov into the waters off the western Norway during Nato military exercises, the biggest since the Cold War, which are due to end tomorrow. “But now it stands, lame and lop-sided, with a hole 4x5 metres, and the accident is an example of Russia’s monstrous technical degradation,” wrote Yulia Latynina, a columnist for the newspaper.

The Soviet Union’s first aircraft carrier, Kiev, entered service in 1975, before being sold to China in 1996, where it was converted into a luxury hotel.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/r...yard-hdpjmxgx6

Russia’s only aircraft carrier could be heading for scrapyard

Russia’s only aircraft carrier could be decommissioned because there is no way to repair it.

The Admiral Kuznetsov was taken out of service temporarily last year and is moored at a shipyard in Murmansk, in the northwest of the country. Work had to be halted in October when the PD-50 floating dock to which the ship was attached flooded and sank after a power cut. A 70-tonne crane on the dock collapsed on the aircraft carrier, gouging a 15ft hole in its deck......

The Izvestiya newspaper reported that the fate of the carrier was in doubt because there was no suitable replacement for the PD-50, one of the biggest floating docks in the world. A similar one, the PD-41, is stationed thousands of miles away in Russia’s Far East, making it an unrealistic alternative. The carrier could potentially go to a commercial dry dock in Belokamenka, near Murmansk, for its multimillion-pound refit, which was scheduled to be completed by 2021. However, it is unclear if the yard there is big enough, or if it can accept a military ship.

There are questions about whether it is worth repairing the ageing carrier, launched in 1985, at all. “Not everyone thinks that continuing the refit is expedient,” a military source told Izvestiya. “There are differing opinions, including those who think that it would be better to use the money to build a pair of frigates and an atomic submarine.”......