From the ship’s log: “1645—Compartment one unsealed. Prepare battery tank for venting.”
This was the last entry in the ship’s log.
What does this note in the ship’s log mean? This is how the leaders of the Navy comment upon it.
Turning our attention to the last note in the ships log made at 1645…. Is it possible that it reflects the oncoming inevitability? The specialists comment on it as such: At 1644, the commander of the submarine and the crew still did not have sufficient basis for the abandonment of the vessel or the conclusion that it was just about to sink.1
But what were the facts?
Warrant Officer S. R. Grigoryan (explanatory report):
By command from the main command post, I opened by hand the exhaust ventilator for the ventilation of the storage hold into the atmosphere. This occurred at the beginning of the alarm around 1700. Then the command to prepare to abandon the compartment came from the command post. We took the remaining regeneration IDA-59 CGP cartridges to the bulkhead door of the first compartment and opened the lower entrance hatch. After that Captain Lieutenant Kalinin already had given the command verbally to leave the compartment and go above.
Warrant Officer A. P. Kozhanov (explanatory report):
In four or five hours from the central post, the commander of the BCh-5, Captain 2nd Rank Babenko, informed us that there was a voluminous fire in compartments six and seven. Two people remained in the stern and two others were there, but whether they were alive or not was not known. Then came the order from the command post regarding the resealing of the hole in the accumulator and the abandonment of the compartment.
From the information from Warrant Officer Grigoryan and Warrant Officer Kozhanov one can come to only one conclusion. This note in the ship’s log reflects preparing the compartments of the submarine for the forthcoming flooding. To avoid an explosion of the storage battery during the flooding, the storage hold was opened to the atmosphere, the first compartment sealed, and the lower cover of its entrance hatch was opened for assisting the work of the diver when the submarine is located on the bottom. The notes in the ship’s log at 1645 documents the evidence about how the TKN knew of this and was preparing for the anticipated flooding of the submarine.
For practically the entire duration of the accident, Lieutenant I. A. Molchanov noted the incidents in the ship’s log under the command of the senior assistant commander of the ship, Captain 2nd Rank O. G. Avanesov. We cannot silently overlook the fact that I. A. Malchanov was not only a lieutenant, he was still the commander of the mine-torpedo combat section BCh-3.
RBZh-PL-82, Article 46:
During an emergency a commander of the combat sections (divisions, groups) and leaders of the services must lead damage control by arms and technical means in his submarine unit in accordance with special directing documents, determine the degree of damage and the possibility of further utilization [of the damage equipment], and report to the command point of the combat part (service, division) or to the command post.
And this forces the question to arise: Why on this submarine, “bulging” with torpedoes and missiles (including nuclear arms), did the commander of the BCh-3 fulfill the duties of an ordinary military clerk for the extent of the emergency? The clarification of this enigma would not only add a new perspective to the combat and professional readiness of Captain 1st Rank Y. A. Vanin’s crew, but also would provide some insight to the purpose of the activities of the “combat” cruise of the submarine Komsomolets that ended with tragedy on April 7, 1989.
Warrant Officer V. S. Kadantsev (explanatory report):
The engineer ordered me to close the bulkhead door between compartments four and five, close shut-off number one of the aft block’s exhaust ventilation system, and shut the bulkhead door between compartments four and three. Before shutting the bulkheads between compartments four and five, I walked back toward the stern and checked the temperature of the compartment six bulkhead. It was exactly 100 degrees Celsius. I closed the bulkhead and started to close shut-off number one of the exhaust ventilation system, but I could not close it completely, because air began entering the ventilation shaft.
This is one more confirmation that there was no fire in the distressed compartments, and that the pressure hull was cooling down.
Fulfilling the incompetent order to close shut-off number one of the exhaust ventilation system, Warrant Officer Kadantsev simultaneously opened the exhaust ventilation shaft-flooding valve—that is, he unwittingly promoted faster flooding of the submarine, another indication of the personnel’s poor knowledge of the ship’s systems.
The rescue vessels were still far away, while the cold waters of the Norwegian Sea were right there. Now came the time to put rescue equipment to use. We have already mentioned the survival suits, the thermal underwear, the safety vests, and the life jackets. Because of the poor administrative skills of the submarine’s leadership, most of the crew were without them. Also, the LAS-5M life raft was not deployed.
Immediately after the submarine surfaced, the personnel began preparing the PSN-20 life rafts for launching. This required from one (according to Lieutenant Stepanov) to two (according to Captain Lieutenant Paramonov) hours. The crew voiced complaints in this connection regarding the long time it took to prepare the rafts for use. It is hard to say how justified these complaints were. The Komsomolets is the only submarine in the Navy that carries rafts outside the pressure hull. It may be said without exaggeration that this location of the rafts saved the lives of most of the surviving crewmembers. And it is no accident that one of the measures for improving the survivability of submarines includes studying the possibilities of locating rafts outside the pressure hull. As for the time it takes to prepare the rafts for use, the designer placed his priority (in the absence of any requirements and standards) on the reliability [of the mechanisms] with which the raft containers were secured to [and released from] the rescue chamber.
And so, the raft containers were prepared for launching. In order for everyone to understand what has to be done to launch the rafts, a few words about the structure of the raft launcher are necessary. The rafts of the submarine Komsomolets were in hard containers, each with two rack-and-pinion releases. The upper release and lid were intended for extraction of the raft at a naval base for certification purposes, while the lower release was intended to be used (in an emergency) to drop the raft onto the water. When the lower rack-and-pinion is turned, the lower part of the hard container falls into the water together with the raft and sinks, while the raft remains on the water surface. The raft-inflating system is activated by two tugs on a line. Thus, one minute is enough time to deploy the rafts that are ready for launching. Instead of this, the crew began pulling the rafts out through the top of the containers, lowering them by hand to the deck of the superstructure, and activating the inflating system there. Considering the great weight of a raft (around 90 kilograms) and the position of the containers when they are moved out of their recesses, one can imagine how much effort it took for the people to launch a single raft. Using that method, not enough time was left to extract the second raft from its container.
Why did this happen? Did Captain 1st Rank Vanin’s crew know how to deploy the rafts?
Submarine Senior Watch Officer Captain Lieutenant A. G. Verezgov (interrogation tape recording):
All I had were two log books for the rafts and some brief written instructions. But I never read about or saw how to use the rafts in the rescue chamber’s recesses. Twice I inspected the rafts on the rescue station, removing the upper lid and pulling the rafts out from the top by hand.
But it would be wrong to assert on the basis of this statement by Captain Lieutenant Verezgov that no one in the crew understood how to deploy the rafts. Who was the first to begin pulling the rafts out from the top, thus guiding the actions of the personnel in the wrong direction?
Warrant Officer S. R. Grigoryan (explanatory report):
There were already many people topside…. Captain 1st Rank Kolyada tried to pull out the rescue raft, but he wasn’t strong enough. I helped him extract the raft. Then I began pulling out the second raft.
Warrant Officer V. V. Gerashchenko (interrogation tape recording):
We pulled out the raft on the left, and tried to open it up. Political Affairs Chief Burkulakov and Warrant Officer Grigoryan were standing on the right side. They were trying to pull the second raft out. I started helping them drag it up. The joke was on us. There’s supposed to be a pedal there. You press it, and the raft falls down and opens up. But here we were dragging it up.
So there you have it. The technical ignorance of the “father-commanders” aggravated the tragedy. Much time has passed since the accident, but Captain 1st Rank Kolyada still believed that the rafts had to be pulled out through the top. For example, in the January 15, 1990, edition of the newspaper Izvestiya, he stated, “Using the rafts was the only correct decision in that situation. But the design of the rafts turned out to be so imperfect that it was extremely difficult to extract them from the sealed containers, and beyond that, they were very easily upset by a wave.” The tragedy had not taught Kolyada anything.
How did events develop subsequently? Let’s look at the explanatory reports:
Warrant Officer V. V. Gerashchenko:
People on the port side of the upper deck were trying to deploy the raft, but they were washed over the starboard side by a wave. It was impossible to pull the raft on the right side out of its container, and the water level rose over my legs. I swam over to the raft, on which people were already gathering.
Warrant Officer S. R. Grigoryan:
I couldn’t pull the second raft out by myself; I called out to Captain Lieutenant A. G. Verezgov and he began helping me. Suddenly I found myself pulling on the raft alone—Verezgov, it turns out, jumped overboard. I looked at the bow of the ship. It was up rather high, but people and hats were already floating near the ship. I never did realize that the submarine was sinking, and so I continued pulling at the raft. Suddenly, the water went over my head as the submarine rose to vertical and the impact of the water [sic—D. R.]. Even so, I was able to extract the raft, but let go of it as it pulled me down.
12. Rescue raft locations and launch sequence
As the submarine sank further, the positive buoyancy of the raft caused the line by which it was secured to the railing on the conning tower superstructure to break, and it rose to the surface.
What assessment did the crew members give to the raft?
Captain Lieutenant S. A. Dvorov (interrogation tape recording):
The rafts are good for nothing, and their design is a disgrace. If we had other rafts, we could have saved some people… .
Question: Did you practice launching the rafts in your daily life over the last five years?
Answer: Never in our lives. In the Navy we spent our time scribbling on paper, rather than practicing damage control. Never in all of my career of twelve years had anyone ever deployed the life rafts. We never practiced egress through the torpedo tubes either. We studied this at the training station, but it wasn’t hands-on. We don’t know how to open up the aircraft rafts. I never saw the aircraft rafts.
Such is the assessment, which is very full of emotion and very lacking in practical knowledge. But this didn’t keep Captain Lieutenant Dvorov from subsequently continuing his bemoaning of the rescue equipment and talking about the crew’s high combat proficiency. Journalists as “armchair-seamen” began a campaign to bemoan and deride Russian equipment and to investigate its mythical inadequacies on the basis of statements by “experts,” but more about that later. For the moment, let’s listen to a specialist.
Chief Designer B. S. Taubin:2
Inflatable life rafts (PSN) are a group rescue resource used by navies of all the world. Owing to the speed of their automatic deployment, their invulnerability to blows against the side of a vessel, and other positive qualities, rafts are commonly considered to be the most effective modern rescue craft. In coordination with competent use of rescue rafts and training of all seamen in their use, equipping vessels of the country’s fishing fleet with them had completely excluded the loss of human lives in ship accidents and sinkings resulting from imperfections of rescue equipment…. In the accident aboard the submarine Komsomolets, rather than dropping the inflatable raft onto the water from its container, and then activating the gas-inflating system by tugging the inflating line, the personnel, who were not trained in the rules of using such a raft, undid the lacing and extracted the raft from its container. This defeated the raft deployment design, and the raft filled with gas while upside down, which resulted in the death of many people. The lack of training of the crews of warships and naval auxiliary vessels practically cancels out the reliability of inflatable rafts and promises bitter consequences. Nor does the Navy have stations at which inflatable rafts could undergo annual certification, which is contradictory to the technical conditions governing their use. For your information, there are around fifty such stations working in contact with the manufacturing plant within the Ministry of the Fishing Industry, the Ministry of the Maritime Fleet, and some other civilian departments of the country.
We should add to this that violation of the rules of using rafts caused the upper floats and awning supports to be underinflated, and this prevented the personnel from turning the raft over in the water, reduced its buoyancy, and sharply worsened the conditions of the people inside it. And the submariners paid for these mistakes with their lives.
It was precisely at this time that the last message was received from the submarine: “Trim increasing abruptly. All personnel are topside.”