Russia submarine accident retrial opens

[Jimbuna]

Possibly not as well known as the Kursk tragedy but twenty deaths none the less.

A retrial has begun in the eastern Russian city of Vladivostok of two men accused of causing an accident on a nuclear submarine in which 20 people died in 2008.
Another 21 people were injured when the K-152 Nerpa's fire extinguishing system was activated, releasing a deadly gas.
Captain Dmitry Lavrentyev and engineer Dmitry Grobov are accused of causing "death by negligence".

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-20676677

[eddie]

I'm glad I'm not in their shoes!

[Stealhead]

I bet that it was Halon that stuff will displace oxygen very quickly which of course kills fires but also any humans unlucky enough to be exposed to it as well.

Freon is not a gas specifically it is a copyrighted name for refrigerant sold by DuPont it can be a gas or a liquid depending on its temperature.They must have been using Halon which is shorting of the name Halomethane which is found in some refrigerants but by itself Halomethane is a gas which is why it is used as a fire suppressant.The author of the article made a mistake there.



The US military used to use Halon in many of its sensitive electronics facilities but stopped some time in the 1980s or so I have been told.Some private companies use it in high value electronics facilities as well though generally where there are few people roaming around as without a breathing apparatus you will suffocate in seconds.

The fact that a Russian sub would have such a system throughout implies that the Soviet and then Russian Navy relies very heavily on draft sailors with poor skill sets unlike the US Navy, Royal Navy and most western navies which have mostly professional sailors that do not need constant supervision by SNCOs and officers they are also very well trained in damage control which would include fire fighting and any western submariner is easily twice as skilled at damage control as the typical sailor.

[Kazuaki Shimazaki II]

If I remember correctly, Tom Clancy's Submarines does mention halon firefighting systems in LA class submarines in addition to AFFF (in Russian the closest equivalent to the latter will be "VPL")

[Stealhead]

That is certainly possible but my guess is that on a US sub the crew would most likely have their gear on before it ever got activated. My assumption is that someone on the Russian sub activated the system when they should not have an a halon system should never be used for any other reason than an actual fire.

[CCIP]

Originally Posted by Stealhead

The fact that a Russian sub would have such a system throughout implies that the Soviet and then Russian Navy relies very heavily on draft sailors with poor skill sets unlike the US Navy, Royal Navy and most western navies which have mostly professional sailors that do not need constant supervision by SNCOs and officers they are also very well trained in damage control which would include fire fighting and any western submariner is easily twice as skilled at damage control as the typical sailor.

Actually that is very untrue. While there are many branches of the Russian military which do rely on untrained personnel,the submarine force is not one of them. In fact the Russian submarine force, on average, is a made up of more highly-specialized professionals than Western equivalents - which is why, among other things, you'll notice that Russian submarines generally have much smaller crews than Western subs, relying more on automation and specialized skills of smaller teams. There are actually very few 'sailors' aboard to be supervised at all, as most of the crew is made up of specialist NCOs and officers. Personnel standards in the Russian submarine fleet are very high, and have some of the most robust training in the entire Russian military. So the skill and training is not the issue - although the personnel doctrine no doubt still played into the equation here. I don't doubt the reliance on automation aboard the sub and smaller crew size had something to do with how things turned out here.

[AVGWarhawk]

So the skill and training is not the issue

I seems to me the subs themselves are the issue.

[CCIP]

Yeah, there's a lot of issues on the materiel side for the Russian submarine force. It's not even the subs themselves by design as much as the navy's inability to maintain and service them properly. That is the real difference with the West - Western manufacturing and maintenance facilities and standards are miles ahead of Russia's. It's there, not among the crews, where lack of highly qualified personnel typically rears its ugly head.

[AVGWarhawk]

That is what I was getting at CCIP. Maintenance or lack there of.