I title it as an incident as the submarine seems to save been saved/salvaged, but part or all the crew lost. RIP.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...vy-submersible

Russia has revealed a fire onboard a top-secret navy submersible has left 14 sailors dead in a rare public incident involving one of the country’s most shadowy military projects. The Russian defence ministry did not identify the submersible by name, simply calling it a “deep-sea research vessel”. Several independent Russian media outlets, including RBC and Novaya Gazeta, identified the vessel as the Losharik, citing sources.

The Losharik spy submarine is believed to be nuclear powered, capable of diving to extreme depths and possibly involved in the tapping and severing of underwater communications cables.

The fire broke out on Monday while the vessel was carrying out research in Russia’s northern territorial waters, the defence ministry said. The sailors died from inhaling poisonous gas as a result of the fire, the ministry said. Russian officials did not say what caused the blaze, although they did say the vessel was performing bathymetric measurements in a study of the ocean floor.

The submersible is now at the Russian northern fleet’s base in Severomorsk on the Barents Sea.

The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, cancelled a scheduled appearance and summoned his defence minister to be briefed on the situation. He ordered an inquiry into the incident.......

https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....84b6d91f1.jpeg

So, what we know is:

1) A Russian sub' has sunk after 'catching fire' - 14 dead. May their god bless them.

2) @VP cancels everything & heads back to White House

3) Putin is in an emergency mtg with his defence team.

4) EU Commission Security is sitting in an unscheduled mtg


Online chatter suggests 2 USAF FEST Foreign Emergency Support Teams (C-32B) are now airborne.

WWW

https://news.usni.org/2019/07/02/14-...lear-submarine

A fire that broke out on a secret Russian submarine has killed 14 sailors, according to a statement from the Ministry of Defense in Moscow.

“On July 1, 14 submariners – sailors – died in Russian territorial waters as a result of inhaling combustion products aboard a research submersible vehicle designated for studying the seafloor and the bottom of the World Ocean in the interests of the Russian Navy after a fire broke out during bathymetric measurements,” read a translation of the statement from the state-controlled TASS news service.

The fire was extinguished “thanks to the self-sacrificing actions of the team,” the ministry said. The incident is believed to have occurred off Russia’s northern shore in the Barents Sea on Monday, but the MoD has not specified. The submarine was towed to the Russian North Fleet headquarters in Severomork and an investigation is underway, according to the news agency.

According to a report in the state-controlled Sputnik news service, Russian President Vladimir Putin said seven captains of the first rank and two Heroes of Russia have died in the incident. Putin stated. “This is a great loss”, Putin said.

A U.S. 6th Fleet spokesperson told USNI News he was unaware of any requests for assistance from the Russian government........

Your bad manners are of course up to you.
When anything happens to US air- or seamen in such accidents I always feel sorry.

???? Who told you that? No US help was requested AFAIK, and what for? The submersible was in the Russian waters and it has not sunk (neither lost). There was a fire that was shut down but some crew members were poisoned by the fire products.

A highly specialist vehicle - and doubtless crew. I would assume most would hold the rank because they were PhDs or equivalents in their won fields. Given the depth the vehicle is designed to operate at I would suspect they breathe a highly specialised mix, and wonder if that may have been a factor in the accident.

Referring again to my link above:

”.....The boat was identified by Russian-language news service RBC as Losharik (AS-12), a nuclear-powered submarine that is widely believed to be a key asset for the Russian Main Directorate of Deep-Sea Research, also known as GUGI. GUGI develops and operates a fleet of specialized submarines that Russia uses for deep sea and Moscow’s most covert operations. The organization reports directly to Russian military intelligence — the GRU — rather than the Russian Navy.

Losharik is among the most mysterious of the closely guarded fleet. Fielded in the late 1990s, specifics for the nuclear-powered boat are few. It’s estimated to carry a crew of about 25 and can dive to thousands of feet below the surface, according to the Military Russia blog. The about 2000-ton boat can travel slung under the belly of a specially modified Delta III nuclear ballistic missile submarine, according to open source intelligence analysts. The purpose and capabilities of Losharik are shrouded in mystery.......

The deep-sea missions the sub is sent on leads Western military analysts to believe the interior of the sub is actually made up of a series of possibly seven orb-shaped spaces, according to Sutton’s Covert Shores. The sub’s name is derived from a popular Russian cartoon horse that’s made out of juggling balls. The use of orb-shaped compartments, while diminishing the amount of space for living quarters, operating equipment and the propulsion unit, makes the sub stronger and able to dive deeper than a traditional submarine hull.

As for what Losharik does, it’s suspected the Russian government has used the sub’s deep-sea diving capability to extened Russia’s territorial claims to the sea floor under the Arctic Ocean. In 2012, Losharik was part of a large Russian naval exercise in the Arctic, collecting samples to prove the Lomonsov and Mendeleyev Ridges on the sea floor are part of the Russian continental shelf, according to Unconstrained Foreign Direct Investment: An Emerging Challenge to Arctic Security, a 2017 report by CNA.....

“.........The vessel is the most advanced Russian submersible, under a heavy veil of secrecy, and it is believed to have entered service in 2010. It is named after a Soviet-era animated cartoon horse that is made up of small spheres. The name is apparently derives from the unique design of its interior hull, which is made of titanium spheres capable of withstanding high pressure at great depths.

In 2012, the Losharik was involved in research intended to prove Russia’s claim on the vast Arctic seabed. It collected samples from the depth of 2,500 meters (8,202 feet), according to official statements at the time. Regular submarines can typically dive to depths of up to 600 meters (2,000 feet). Some observers speculated the Losharik was even capable of going as deep as 6,000 meters (19,685 feet), but the claims couldn’t be independently confirmed......”


https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....3d74422dd.jpeg

Just looking at the design, and the missions working on cables, I was wondering if any of the spheres were for deep divers - where the record depth is over 2000ft.


https://web.archive.org/web/20081005...20anglais.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_diving

”Deep diving can mean something else in the commercial diving field. For instance early experiments carried out by Comex S.A. (Compagnie maritime d'expertises) using hydrox and trimix attained far greater depths than any recreational technical diving. One example being the Comex Janus IV open-sea dive to 501 metres (1,644 ft) in 1977.[2]
[3] The open-sea diving depth record was achieved in 1988 by a team of Comex divers who performed pipeline connection exercises at a depth of 534 metres (1,752 ft) in the Mediterranean Sea as part of the Hydra 8 programme.[4] These divers needed to breathe special gas mixtures because they were exposed to very high ambient pressure (more than 50 times atmospheric pressure).“.....

Van

Know that Sultan isn’t representative of the general US public. He’s actually an outlier and his comments are an embarrassment.