[Mb-civic] CBC News - CREWS LOWER RESCUE VESSEL TOWARD TRAPPED RUSSIAN SUB

Sat Aug 6 16:47:13 PDT 2005

This email has been sent to you by harry.sifton at sympatico.ca
The following is a news item posted on CBC NEWS ONLINE
at http://www.cbc.ca/news
____________________________________________________
CREWS LOWER RESCUE VESSEL TOWARD TRAPPED RUSSIAN SUB
WebPosted Sat Aug  6 18:53:20 2005

---A robotic undersea vehicle is being lowered to a trapped Russian
submarine, in a bid to rescue seven sailors before their oxygen runs out.

The Super Scorpio, sent by the British navy, arrived late Saturday night
at the site off the Kamchatka Peninsula on Russia's Pacific coast.

British and Russian naval crews began lowering the remote-controlled
vessel at about 11:30 p.m. local time, a Russian navy spokesman, Capt.
Igor Dygalo, told Interfax news agency and the Associated Press.

Rescue crews hope the Scorpio will be able to cut through the metal and
cable that has snagged the Russian Priz mini-submarine about 190 metres
below the ocean's surface since Thursday.

It has been caught too deep for the sailors to try to escape or for
divers to try to free it. Russian naval ships have been trying various
methods to get the sub to shallower water, including by attaching cables
in a bid to raise it on Saturday.

But the submariners' best hope seemed to rest with Britain's Scorpio and
others from the U.S. navy that are being ferried by boat to the rescue
site in Beryozovaya Bay, about 16 kilometres off the peninsula's coast.

Sailors okay, Russian navy says

It wasn't clear whether the British vessel would be able to reach the
submariners before their oxygen ran out. Russian naval officials have
given conflicting estimates of how much longer the crew could last,
ranging from Saturday evening to Monday.

Earlier Saturday evening, Russian officials said they had spoken with
the sailors.

They said all seven men were alive and in satisfactory condition.

U.S. and British navies sent planes with the Super Scorpios to the city
of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky on the Kamchatka Peninsula on Friday night.

CBC News learned that two divers from the Canadian subsidiary of
OceanWorks, which specializes in submarine rescue and deep-sea diving
work, had joined the U.S. team.

Glen Viau, of the Vancouver-based office, said the divers had been
training U.S. Navy personnel in San Diego and were asked to help.

Sub stuck on antenna, later reports say

There have been conflicting reports of how the submarine was trapped. The
military initially said the vessel became snarled in a fishing net.

But officials told the Russian news media on Saturday that it was stuck
on an underwater antenna that was part of a coastal monitoring system.

None of the sailors was hurt in Thursday's accident, which occurred while
the 13-metre-long sub, which normally carries only three crew members,
was on a training exercise.

The plight of the mini-sub is evoking memories of a disaster in August
2000, when all 118 people aboard the Russian nuclear submarine Kursk died
after it sank and rescue efforts failed.