From the ship’s log:
1115—Close shut-offs 1, 2 on aft ring.
1116—“Listvennitsa” communication with stern out. Switched to reserve. Depth twenty meters.
1116—Rose to surface. Periscope raised. No communication with stern. Hydrophone operator. System deenergized.
The command to prepare for use of the aft ring of the ship’s general ventilation system was given. The submarine rose to the surface with the starboard No. 10 main ballast tank partially blown and the port tank not blown. Hot gases entered only the starboard No. 10 main ballast tank from compartment seven through the damaged emergency blowing pipe, purging this tank. This is the only explanation for the list to port immediately after surfacing, and for the subsequent peeling of the lining plates (tiles) on the outer hull only on the starboard side. Only this can explain the air bubbles coming out of the starboard No. 10 main ballast tank. For what amount of time could the starboard side of the No. 10 main ballast tank be blown through the ruptured piping system? Calculations show that ten to twelve minutes is sufficient when the pressure in the accident compartment is equal to 6 kg/cm2.
Captain Lieutenant A. G. Verezgov (interrogation tape recording):
Sheets of the lining material were swaying with the waves. They began to come off. Then the ship began listing to port.
Question: When did this begin?
Answer: Around five, six minutes after surfacing.
Question: Was air being released from the stern?
Answer: Initially there was none. But later air began coming out, as if starboard No. 10 was being blown. A huge bubble came out of the right side.
The port main ballast tank No. 10 never did get blown. There may be different reasons for this, and it is difficult to attach a preference to any particular one. The emergency blow pipe for the starboard tank No. 10 may have been plugged up by partially burned remains of provisions and supply items. It is possible that the side valve for blowing the tanks remained closed either after the completion of the possible repair work conducted before the combat cruise, or it just happened to be closed during the loading of provisions and supply items into compartment seven. While the side valve is closed, the emergency pipe for blowing the port side No. 10 main ballast tank may fail if the temperature is reduced below freezing, due to the so-called “blind effect.”
6. Komsomolets’ superstructure over Compartment Seven
The periscope was raised. The “Bukhta” radar mast was probably raised, although there are no entries to this effect in the ship’s log.
The nuclear reactor’s emergency shielding was activated at this time. The automatic section switching system deenergized the disconnectable load section of the No. 2 main distribution panel. All systems using electric power supplied by the nondisconnectable load sections of the main distribution panel were switched to storage batteries. The sonar complex was deenergized.
The system of loudspeaker communication with the stern failed. Communications! They are hardly noticed when they are there, and we find ourselves totally helpless when they’re not. It is impossible to overstate the harm done to submarine damage control by the absence of communications, and how it influenced the making of particular decisions. Consequently, we need to discuss communications in greater detail.
The Naval Communications Directorate holds a monopoly on all forms of communications, including shipboard. The submarine designer is deprived of the possibility for independently selecting or ordering the form of communications he requires. He is compelled to take what is prescribed to him by this naval directorate. This brings events of almost twenty years ago to mind. Designers were actively opposed to installing the “Listvennitsa” loudspeaker communication system aboard submarines. It was pointed out in this case that the “Kashtan” loudspeaker communication system used earlier was more flexible in control and more dependable in operation, while the new “Listvennitsa” system had practically no advantages. Nonetheless, with some arm-twisting the Naval Communications Directorate forced the designers to accept its newborn “retard” for submarines. The accident aboard the submarine Komsomolets provided an evaluation of this system. It showed that even highly reliable two-way telephone communication is not much use in a fire. Numerous short circuits in most of the varied electric circuits create a large level of interference, and for practical purposes, put the system out of commission. The submarine Komsomolets was supplied with three portable “Prichal” radio sets in accordance with naval norms, but it is impossible to establish communication among seven compartments with three radio sets. Moreover, as a rule they are stored not where they would be needed, but from where they cannot be stolen. This is not slander but bitter reality.
The question that naturally follows is this: Was it really not until the accident aboard the submarine Komsomolets that the complete unreliability of shipboard communication during a fire revealed itself? The answer is no.
Decision No. 702/41/003855 was adopted on August 25, 1983, by the Navy and the USSR Ministry of Shipbuilding Industry after one of a number of submarine accidents. Item 20 of Attachment No. 1 to this decision reads: “To make official the decision of the Navy and the USSR Ministry of Communications Equipment Industry to develop a special intercompartment radio communication station out of the 68RTN-2-4m radio station with devices making it possible to use the radio station while wearing self-contained breathing masks. Responsibility shall be borne by the Naval Communications Directorate, and the deadline shall be the fourth quarter of 1983.”
This is something needed by submariners because when they wear breathing masks today they are practically mute and deaf. But nine years have passed, and the bureaucracy is still going around in circles about it. Moreover, the problems of creating a new shipboard loudspeaker communication system based on fiber technology had to be dealt with, though this was after the loss of the Komsomolets. Now, agreement has been reached with a certain production association to develop this system. Use of such a communications system would have made it possible to exclude interference and significantly upgrade the quality and reliability of communications, especially during fires. The Naval Communications Directorate became an insurmountable obstacle on the path of creating this shipboard communication system. The Directorate leadership ordered installation of a new shipboard communication system that was already being designed on the basis of an order from the Navy. They are not concerned that the “new system” they proposed is being created out of old components, and that it will have the same deficiencies as the “Listvennitsa” system. And if a shipboard communication system that is highly reliable in the presence of fire comes into being, it will do so not owing to, but despite the efforts of the Naval Communications Directorate.
Where are you, Captain 1st Rank S. I. Bystrov, editor of the naval department of the newspaper Krasnaya Zvezda? Where is that photograph of the deceased signalman of the submarine Komsomolets you carried in your March 15, 1990, edition of the newspaper with the following text, addressed “to a certain interested party unfortunately standing in opposition to the Navy”: “Those who are attempting to cover up their mistakes at the price of accusing the submariners of poor occupational training need only look into the eyes of the deceased”? Send it, please, to the Naval Communications Directorate, and ask the workers of this directorate to look into the eyes of the deceased, and answer this question: When will submariners be supplied with reliable shipboard communication resources?
How did the submarine’s leadership react to the abrupt pressure increase in compartment seven and then in compartment six, to Warrant Officer Kolotilin’s last report, to the listing to port, to the fall in pressure in the high pressure air tank groups, to the bleeding of air out of the starboard No. 10 main ballast tanks, and to sloughing off of the lining tiles on the starboard side in the vicinity of this tank? Weren’t they able to put all of these processes together to make the appropriate conclusions, to work out, and then to implement the necessary damage control measures? All of these questions have to be answered in the negative.
Throughout the entire time of the accident, the three valves in compartment three that shut off the air lines passing into compartment seven were never closed—that is, the primary step identified in case of fire by Article 59 of the RBZh-FL-82 was not carried out. The requirement of Article 21 of the RBZh-FL-82 to bleed air overboard from a damaged high-pressure air cofferdam was not carried out. The decision to change the lines of defense was not made. No attempt was made to establish the cause of listing to port.
How is all of this explained? The only explanation is the combination of insufficient effort by the crew on damage control problems in the absence of the “Manual on Combat Use of Technical Resources,” the crew’s poor knowledge of the submarine’s equipment, and the low level of crew occupational training. Everyone in BCh-5 saw and heard that air was bleeding into compartment seven, everyone was talking and reporting this to one another, but no one did anything to stop the bleeding. The impression is created that there was not a single person in the entire BCh-5 who knew about the high-pressure air system to even the minimally necessary level.
“We went through the full course of combat training, we prepared several years for our first independent major cruise, we studied at the training center and completed the course problems with good and excellent grades, and we carried out combat exercises. Training was carried out in full correspondence with the guidelines,” declared Captain 1st Rank Kolyada in a letter published in the journal Morskoy Sbornik (No. 2, 1990). What can be said about this declaration? If people who have undergone the full course of combat training, and who have completed course problems with good and excellent grades, turn out to be so defenseless and incapable of active struggle in the face of an accident, then this means that the course itself, the crew manning system, and the course grading system do not satisfy the necessary level of submariner occupational training. Unfortunately, the naval leaders responsible for crew combat training say everything is all right with the training. They say the crew was trained as it should have been and all pieces of paper confirming this are present. Obviously, in order to change the crew combat training situation we will have to start by replacing the people responsible for this training.
Something should also be said here about the “Submarine Damage Control Manual” (RBZh-PL-82), the principal document on maintaining the viability of submarines. This “manual,” and especially its section on firefighting, is written with an eye on the actions to be taken by personnel in response to a small “clean” accident, that is, without other emergencies superimposed over it. The personnel turn out to be unprepared for complex emergencies. Every submariner knows the golden rule: “If a fire starts, expect an increase in pressure in the compartment; and if pressure begins to fall in a compartment, expect water to flood in.” Unfortunately, this rule is not reflected in the RBZh-PL-82, nor does it contain any radical recommendations on forestalling the possible consequences of an accident, including the case of a rise in pressure in a compartment and entry of water into it.
From the ship’s log: “1117—Prepare the diesel generator. Telephone communications being established.”
The attack center was trying to establish communications with the stern. Compartment six was silent. There was no news from Captain Lieutenant Dvorov.
The command to prepare the diesel generator was given simultaneously. A diesel generator with an emergency starter was installed aboard the submarine Komsomolets. In the absence of electric power and high-pressure air, with the hydraulic system not working and with low temperature in the compartment, one person can start up the diesel generator and supply power in not more than ten minutes. It took the crew two hours and sixteen minutes to start up the diesel generator and begin supplying power. And this was with all forms of electric power and high-pressure air available, with the hydraulic system working, and with a normal temperature in the compartment. This fact alone says something about the level of combat training of the crew, and about the quality of the submarine damage control problems in which they had been trained.
From the ship’s log:
1118—Man the radar watch. Raise the “Anis,” “Kora,” “Sintez.” Prepare Signal No. 6. Signal No. 6 ready. Periscope deenergized. 1120—Rescue chamber hatch opened.
The conning (fairwater) hatch and the hatch in the rescue chamber were opened. The time in the ship’s log noting when the hatch of the rescue chamber was opened did not coincide with the time of blowing the aft ballast tanks (1114) according to this log. A six-minute difference is too large a difference and cannot be explained. The hatches were opened by the senior member of the hold (below decks) command team, Warrant Officer V. S. Kadantsev. Therefore, here is the time to look at the actions of the senior member of the ready command and his damage control people in compartment three of the submarine. The emergency alarm sounds. What should the personnel of the compartment do?
RBZh-PL-82, Article 22: The personnel, except for the people located in the casualty compartment, should quickly proceed to their command and combat posts in accordance with the damage control schedule and carry out damage control action, without orders, under the leadership of the Main Command Post.
Warrant Officer V. S. Kadantsev (explanatory note):
When the emergency alarm sounded, I went to the middle panel in compartment three, surveyed it, and accepted the reports about combat readiness from the hold from Seaman [R. K.] Filippov and from Seaman [A. V.] Machalev. I then reported the compartment’s combat readiness to the main command post.
And that’s all. Not a word about fulfilling actions without orders as stipulated in Article 91, RBZh-PL-82. What else can a sergeant of the hold command do?
Warrant Officer V. S. Kadantsev (explanatory note):
By order of the main command post, I arrived at the hatch of the fore chamber and, at a depth of 270 meters, I began opening the hatches of the fore chamber and the lower hatch of the rescue chamber. After rising to the surface, the commander’s assistant opened the upper hatch of the rescue chamber in accordance with directions. It was located at the footway. I looked over the submarine and spotted blistering in the region of compartment seven. I received the order to cast off the containers with the rafts from the commander’s assistant. At that time Lieutenant Kalinin came to the top [bridge] and said that the “Korund” in the TsP (control room) was burning. Ten to fifteen minutes later I went below.
From Warrant Officer Kadantsev’s explanatory notes, it follows that from practically the time of the alarm signal to at least 1132, the sergeant of the hold command and the only damage control specialist in the division knowing the ship’s system, was occupied with everything except the damage control of the submarine. This is one of the reasons why full measures were not taken to close off the compartment, as stipulated by Articles 89, 90, 91, and 120 of RBZh-PL-82. Beyond that, the information from Warrant Officer Kadantsev does not coincide with the notes of the ship’s log at 1120, which again returns us to the question of a false ship’s log or about entering notes that do not correlate with time parameters and factual events.
The submarine was now in cruising position. The radar station was on. Because the disconnectable sections of the main distribution panel were deenergized, there was no power to the periscope turning gear. The radar station cooling system was not working for the same reason. No steps were taken to support its operation. An order was given to raise the communication antenna, but there is no entry in the ship’s log of the time at which it was raised. The mechanical raising time is less than one minute. A coded distress signal was prepared for transmission, but it was not transmitted. The distress signal was not transmitted until 1137—that is, twelve minutes after it was prepared.
“Well, here is what I have to say about that,” said one person in an anonymous interview with the writer N. Cherkashin. “It was he [division political department chief Captain 1st Rank T. A. Burkulakov—D.R.] who insisted that the message about the fire should be radioed immediately. He’s not one of those who always believes that something that might prove embarrassing shouldn’t be broadcast over the air waves. The fact that he did not delay with the report is what saved everyone taken off of the raft.”1 It follows from this that the delay in transmitting the signal about the accident may have been even longer. But Captain 1st Rank Kolyada believes that everything was done properly: “If the commander had lost it [composure] or issued incorrect orders, I as the senior officer aboard would have been obligated to assume command… . There was no need for such actions: Vanin made good decisions. In any case, the same ones I would have made. Therefore, my participation in ship damage control was limited only to advice.”2 However, Captain 1st Rank Kolyada asserts in a report sent to the commander of the Northern Fleet that the distress signal was transmitted at 1120. This is inconsistent with reality, and says something only about the absence of any justifiable motives for delaying transmission of the distress signal. It would not make any sense to go into the moral side of the issue again.
When was the distress signal received and fully decoded?
Fleet Admiral V. N. Chernavin:
I was suddenly summoned and told that the headquarters of the Northern Fleet and the Main Naval Staff received a signal from the submarine at 1141. It was highly distorted, making it difficult to sort it out. However, it was already clear that some sort of misfortune had occurred… . At 1219 a clear signal was received from it, after which it became immediately clear as to what submarine this was, its location, and that there was a fire aboard it.”3
Such is the official time the Navy received and fully decoded the distress signal.
How truthful are these data?
Lieutenant A. V. Zaytsev (explanatory report):
We managed to open the fittings of the ventilation system by means of the hydraulic system, and raise the retractable “Kora” and “Anis” devices, but we were unable to raise the “Sintez” system completely.
Captain 1st Rank B. G. Kolyada (interrogation tape recording):
The communications antenna was raised, but the hydraulic system began losing pressure right then. We managed to transmit the “sixth” signal three times with the “Kora” antenna.
Captain Lieutenant A. G. Verezgov (interrogation tape recording):
There is another thing I remember about surfacing: We were listing to port, and the antennas began sagging under their own weight; it was apparent that the hydraulic system pumps had stopped. I asked if communication was still open so that I could bring up the emergency radio set in time.
Warrant Officer V. S. Kadantsev (explanatory report):
At this time I saw from the warning signals on the “Molybden” console that the signal indicating the minimum level in the tank of the ship’s hydraulic system lit up, indicating a loss of hydraulic fluid. On orders from the commander of BCh-5, I descended to the pumping unit and saw through the peephole that the tank was empty. I closed the starboard and port pressure valve switches. I ascended to the attack center and reported fulfillment of the order. At this time the radar operators inquired as to the position of their retractable devices. At my suggestion the commander of BCh-5 gave orders to close the manual valves on the retractable devices, which is what I did.
It was in this way that hydraulic fluid was lost from the ship’s hydraulic system because of the attack center’s failure to implement the primary measure in a fire—shutting off the hydraulic lines leading into the distressed compartment (Article 89, RBZh-PL-82).
As was mentioned above, the distress signal was not transmitted for the first time until 1137. At this time the communication antennae began sagging, and this may have been why the distress signal was not fully decoded the first time around. It was only after the eighth transmission of the distress signal (the eighth!), at 1219, that it was decoded. Thus, the submarine’s leadership made yet another fateful mistake, which placed the lives of most of the crew in jeopardy. How can the delay in transmitting the distress signal be justified? It is impossible to justify it.
We could have ended our discussion of signal No. 6 with this, but …
The operations duty officer for the Northern Fleet’s command post, Captain 1st Rank V. I. Goncharuk, said, “At 1141 the ship’s command transmitted the distress signal, which was received by the fleet’s command post without delay.”4 And not a single word about the incompletely decoded signal. It follows from this report that the distress signal was received immediately and completely, without distortion.
There is still more evidence that the emergency signal was immediately received without distortion.
“1154—The crew of Major Gennady Petrogradsky rose to the alarm. It was announced to use all the rescue strength of the air Navy, but first this crew had to get into the air. On the KP [control panel] the task appeared: In the region of Medvezhi Island a fire has erupted on a Soviet submarine.”5 Maybe the atmosphere conditions hindered the passing of the signals? No, it was not hindered.
“The day before it had been very hard to receive signals. But now all is normal. The connection from the shore is reliable.”6
Who in the naval leadership will shed some light on this question?
What was the subsequent course of events in organizing the rescue of the submariners? It was not until 1242—one hour and twenty-four minutes after signal No. 6 was ready to be transmitted—that the operations duty officer of the Northern Fleet queried the Sevryba Association for information on the location of the fishing vessels. Nothing is known about what the command of the Northern Fleet did from 1219 to 1242 (and perhaps from 1141 to 1242). A fateful mistake was superimposed over fateful irresponsibility. Had this not been the case, the tender Aleksey Khlobystov may have begun moving one hour and twenty minutes sooner, and reached the accident site before the submarine’s loss. The lives of most of the submariners would have been saved.
In light of these facts, what is the worth of the assurances and promises of the Naval Command that all measures to rescue the submariners had supposedly been implemented? Given such irresponsibility, neither Norwegian nor any other foreign rescue services can help us. We need to clean up our own act first.