K-278 Komsomolets was the only Project 685
Плавник (
Plavnik, meaning "
fin", also known by its
NATO reporting name of "Mike"-class)
nuclear-powered attack submarine of the
Soviet Navy. The boat sank in 1989 and is currently resting on the floor of the Barents Sea with its nuclear reactor and 2 nuclear warheads still on board.
Design
thumb|left|scheme of Mike-classProject 685 was tasked with developing an advanced submarine that could carry a mix of torpedoes and cruise missiles with conventional or nuclear warheads. The order to design the submarine was issued in 1966 and design was completed in 1974. The first (and only) keel was laid down on
22 April 1978 at
Severodvinsk.
K-278 was
launched on
3 June 1983 and
commissioned on 28 December 1983.
K-278 had a double hull, the inner one being composed of
titanium, which gave her an operating depth far greater than that of the best American submarines. The pressure hull was composed of seven compartments with the second and third protected by stronger forward and after bulkheads creating a "safety zone" in case of an emergency situation. An
escape capsule was fitted in the
sail above these compartments to enable the crew to abandon ship in the event of an underwater emergency. Initial Western intelligence estimates of
K-278’s speed were based on the assumption that it was powered by a pair of
liquid-metal lead-
bismuth reactors. When the
Soviet Union revealed that the submarine used a single conventional
pressurized-water reactor, these estimates were lowered.
In October 1988,
K-278 was honored by becoming one of the few Soviet submarines to be given an actual name:
Комсомолец (
Komsomolets, meaning "a member of the
Young Communist League"), and her commanding officer, Captain 1st Rank Yuriy Zelenskiy was honored for diving to a depth of 1020 meters (3,345 feet).
Sinking
On
7 April 1989, while under the command of Captain 1st Rank Evgeny Vanin and running submerged at a depth of about southwest of
Bear Island (Norway), fire broke out in the aft compartment, and even though watertight doors were shut, the resulting fire spread through
bulkhead cable penetrations. The reactor
scrammed and propulsion was lost. Electrical problems spread as cables burned through, and control of the boat was threatened. An emergency
ballast tank blow was performed and the submarine surfaced eleven minutes after the fire began. Distress calls were made, and most of the crew abandoned ship.
The fire continued to burn, fed by the
compressed air system. Several hours after the boat surfaced, it sank again in of water. The commanding officer and four others who were still on board entered the escape capsule and ejected it. Only one of the five to reach the surface survived.
Rescue aircraft arrived quickly and dropped small rafts, but many men had already died from
hypothermia in the 2
°C (36
°F) water of the
Barents Sea. The ship
Aleksandr Khlobystsov arrived 81 minutes after
K-278 sank, and took aboard 25 survivors and 5 fatalities. In total, 42 men died in the accident.
Environmental threat
In addition to her eight standard torpedoes
K-278 was carrying two torpedoes armed with nuclear warheads. The site of the accident is one of the richest fishing areas in the world, and the possible leakage of
plutonium from the torpedoes' warheads or enriched
uranium and
fission products from the reactor could destroy the local fisheries for up to 700 years, costing billions of dollars annually. Under pressure from
Norway, the
Soviet Union used
deep sea submersibles operated from the oceanographic rescue ship
Akademik Mstislav Keldysh to search for
K-278. In June 1989, two months after the sinking, the wreck was located. Soviet officials stated at the time that any possible leaks were "insignificant" and no threat to the environment. However Russian officials now say in 2009 that there could be a threat.
Examination of the wreck in May 1992 revealed cracks along the entire length of the titanium hull, some of which were of 30-40 centimetres (12-16 inches) wide, as well as possible breaches in the reactor coolant pipes. An oceanographic survey of the area in August 1993 survey did suggest that waters at the site were not mixing vertically, and thus the sea life in the area was not being rapidly contaminated. However, that survey also revealed a hole over six metres (20 feet) wide in the forward torpedo compartment.
An expedition during the summer of 1994 revealed some
plutonium leakage from one of the two nuclear torpedoes. That expedition was successful in sealing some of the holes in the submarine's hull. On
24 June 1995 yet another mission set out to seal the hull fractures, and declared success at the end of July 1996. The Russian government has declared the risk of radioactive contamination of the environment negligible until 2015 or 2025.
In 1993, Vice Admiral (ret.) Chernov, commander of the submarine group of which the
Komsomolets was part, founded the
Komsomolets Nuclear Submarine Memorial Society, a charity to support the widows and orphans of his former command. Since then, the Society's charter has expanded to provide assistance to the families of all Soviet and Russian submariners lost at sea. Also, the 7th of April has become a day of commemoration for all submariners lost at sea.
See also
