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Post by DixonHill on Aug 5, 2005 12:53:09 GMT -5
MOSCOW (Reuters) - The Russian military raced against time on Friday to rescue seven sailors trapped on a stranded mini-submarine 190 metres (623 feet) down in Russia's Pacific waters with possibly less than 24 hours of air left.
The AS-28 mini-submarine, itself a rescue vessel, ran into trouble on Thursday when its propeller got entangled in fishing nets during a military exercise off the Kamchatka peninsula.
More than 30 hours after the mini-submarine snagged on the Pacific sea floor, two Russian ships were sweeping the sea bed in an effort to cut through a cable from a fishing net that had ensnared the propeller.
The United States and Britain were rushing deep-sea rescue vehicles to the site by air.
"The sailors have enough air to keep them running for around 22 hours," chief naval spokesman Igor Dygalo was quoted as saying by Itar-Tass news agency. "I hope there will be enough time for the rescue operation to succeed."
But later the Pacific Fleet commander, Admiral Viktor Fyodorov, was quoted as saying there was enough air to last until Monday.
Though much smaller in scale, the accident had uncomfortable echoes of the disaster involving the Kursk nuclear submarine almost exactly five years ago.
All 118 seamen on the Kursk died in the accident in August 2000 in the Barents Sea that occurred after explosions on board.
INTERNATIONAL HELP COMING
Russia, which said it had 10 ships in the rescue effort, asked Japan as well as the United States and Britain for help.
A spokesman for Japan's Defence Agency said four military vessels had been sent to join the rescue operation. But he said it would take three to four days for them to reach the site of the accident.
Britain, responding to a request from the Russians, was sending a Scorpio remote-controlled underwater vehicle.
The Defence ministry said the Scorpio, which can operate to a depth of 925 metres (3,035 feet), would be flown out from Prestwick Airport near Glasgow in Scotland and was expected to reach the site of the rescue operation in around 11 hours.
A U.S. Navy spokesman in Washington said that a Super Scorpio, an unmanned deep diving submarine, would be airlifted to the scene from San Diego naval base in California.
Dygalo has said the 'Super Scorpio', capable of diving to an ocean depth of 1,515 metres (5,000 feet), could reach Kamchatka in 13 hours at earliest.
After the Kursk disaster, Russian navy command faced strong public criticism for being too slow to appeal for foreign help.
"Pending the arrival of reinforcements, a plan is being drafted relying on our own resources," Dygalo told NTV television. "This plan can be put into action within next five hours."
Dygalo said the crew of the submarine was safe and was told to switch to minimal energy consumption pending their release.
At 190 metres (623 feet), the AS-28, a 13-metre-long (43 feet) vessel capable of diving to depths of 1,000 metres (3,281 feet), was too far down to allow the crew to evacuate.
"The operation will continue non-stop until a result is reached," Dygalo said.
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Post by DixonHill on Aug 7, 2005 7:48:56 GMT -5
Russians saved in deep-sea rescue
Seven Russians trapped deep in the Pacific for three days have been rescued after their mini-submarine was cut free of nets it was snagged in.
They were able to climb out of the vessel unaided when it resurfaced. Fears for their safety had mounted because of dwindling oxygen supplies.
Military doctors were on standby to treat the men, who had also faced temperatures as low as 6C (43F).
Russian officials thanked the UK team whose robot craft enabled the rescue.
The vessel, trapped 190m (620 ft) down off the Kamchatka peninsula in the Russian Far East, surfaced at 1626 (0326 GMT).
Earlier Russian efforts to rescue the sub's crew, which included looping a cable onto the vessel to drag it to higher waters, had failed.
A senior navy official, Vladimir Pepelyayev, said all the men were in a satisfactory condition.
As he came ashore, the mini-sub's commander Vyacheslav Milashevsky saluted. The Associated Press said he looked pale but walked confidently and told journalists he felt "fine".
Lt Milashevsky's wife Yelena was overjoyed at the news of his safe return.
"I danced. I was glad, I cried and I danced for joy," she told Russian Channel One TV.
Pinned to the seabed
The Russians said the Priz submersible - itself a rescue vehicle - was on a training exercise when it became trapped underwater on Thursday.
Initially officials said the vessel was trapped in vast fishing nets. But later reports said it was also caught up in a network of underwater antennae forming part of a military coastal surveillance system.
The network was described as a two-tier antennae lattice covering an area of 750 sq m.
The British Scorpio craft involved in the rescue was flown to Kamchatka and taken out to sea on a Russian vessel.
The managing director of the British firm involved in the rescue - Rumic - told the BBC the operation had taken several hours.
"There were a lot of fishing nets which we had to cut away, but there were no steel cables, although some of it did look like steel. Initial reports could have suggested there were steel rather than nylon nets," Roger Chapman told the BBC.
"But it was a fairly long operation, with quite a lot of cutting, but eventually when most of it was freed, the submarine blew a ballast tank and came free and shot to the surface."
The BBC's Sarah Rainsford in Moscow says the rescue is something few in Russia had dared hope for.
For many, this episode revived memories of the sinking of the Kursk submarine almost exactly five years ago, when all 118 men on board died.
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