When investigating the causes of the death of the Soviet atomic submarine "Komsomolets", members of its crew blamed the creators of the submarine for the tragedy. Those, on the contrary, viewed the incident as a consequence of the inept actions of the crew members. And the truth was somewhere in between.
The Soviet nuclear submarine Komsomolets (K-278) was launched in December 1983, five and a half years before the terrible tragedy. At that time, it was the most modern ship in its classification. Suffice it to say that Komsomolets still holds the absolute world record for diving depth - 1020 meters in order to assess its technical capabilities. In addition, the security systems on this nuclear submarine at that time were considered one of the best in the world.
Fire at "Komsomolets"
On April 7, 1989, at 11.03 am, the instruments on the watch mechanic's console recorded a sharp rise in temperature in the seventh compartment up to seventy degrees Celsius. There could be no doubt - it was a fire. An emergency alert was announced on the boat.
The commander of the crew, Captain First Rank Evgeny Vanin, made a decision to send LOH, a volumetric chemical fire extinguishing system, to the compartment. Freon contained in this system, as a rule, instantly localizes any fire. But this time the irreparable happened. The fire damaged the LOCH air duct and compressed air rushed into the emergency compartment, blocking the supply of freon. The fire flared up with even greater force and spread to the adjacent sixth compartment. The emergency protection system of the reactor worked and the boat completely lost its course.
Then there was a fire in the fifth and fourth compartments. The vertical steering wheel jammed, one after the other the devices on the central control panel went out of order.
The commander of the "Komsomolets" gave the order to float to the surface. This was done with great difficulty. At 11-20 a distress signal was sent to the headquarters of the Northern Fleet. He is very weak and they could hear him at the headquarters of the fleet only an hour later.
All this time, the crew courageously takes on the rescue of the submarine. But neither their efforts, nor the help that came by air, make it possible to extinguish the fire. At 17-08 Komsomolets went under water forever
Accident investigation results
Immediately after the death of Komsomolets, the USSR Military Prosecutor's Office set up a special commission of inquiry. First, the investigators interviewed the surviving sailors at the hospital. From their words, a rough picture of the tragedy was compiled.
The first claims were made to the designers who designed this model of the submarine. But all the flaws made in the design of the Komsomolets were not significant enough to cause the death of this ship.
It also turned out that six months before the tragedy, "Komsomolets" underwent a scheduled inspection, which revealed serious factory defects. So, for example, a freon leak from their LOCH emergency fire-fighting system was discovered. That is, at the time of extinguishing the fire, freon could not be there at all.
As for the actions of the submarine crew itself in a critical situation, the specialists have many questions about this. Investigators' attention was drawn to the logbook, which, in their opinion, was either forged or filled out after the tragedy. So, for example, it was completely established that a fire in the 7th compartment began, and therefore was discovered, much earlier than it was noted in the logbook. Moreover, it turned out that, according to the verdict of the special commission on the readiness of the crew for this campaign, he should not have been admitted to it.
Apparently, the combination of all these circumstances led to the tragedy.
