KALININGRAD. Oct 15 (Interfax-AVN) - The Russian Baltic Fleet has held the second exercise aimed to refine skills of rescuing a submarine in case of emergency.
"Overnight from Thursday to Friday, the Fleet held an exercise on rescuing a sub, which was supervised by Admiral Vladimir Valuyev, the Baltic Fleet Commander," an official of the Fleet's press service told Interfax-Military News Agency Friday.
According to the plan, the submarine commanded by Lt. Col. Konstantin Yashin did not come on air in time. Ships of the Fleet initiated a search and rescue operation and discovered the sub with the help of hydroacoustic equipment.
The SS-750 rescue ship arrived at the scene, commanded by Major Mikhail Barkov. The AS-26 rescue submersible boat with Mayor Sergei Gorshkov in charge was set out to assess the damage and inspect the conditions of the sea bottom where the sub was at the depth of 54 meters, and to assist the crew of the sub in managing the damage or evacuate the crew in case of need.
Despite the difficult sea bottom, heavy underwater currents and stormy weather, the rescuers managed to dock to the submarine and pass over the equipment required to mend it. Given there was no need of evacuating the whole crew, corporal Dmitry Lazarev was assigned to evacuate, which he did without any problems.
A week ago the AS-26 made an attempt to evacuate crew of a drowned submarine during an exercise. The evacuation was simulated then due to concerns over deviations in the work of a pump. After the pump was replaced and adjusted, the whole cycle of search and rescue operation was held in full.
The official added that a total of 65 exercises were held by the crew of the rescue boat from 1995 to 2004. The first exercise when crewmembers were evacuated with the help of the submersible boat was held September 14, 2000. The AS-26 crew had 10 search and rescue exercises in 2004. They were with a visit at the Northern Fleet recently where they refined skills and made five dives with docking to a submarine mock-up.
The rest rescue assets of the Baltic Fleet will participate in the international exercise on rescuing a submarine in emergency.