The Mike SSN Tragedy
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- Äas pĆidĂĄn 19. 02. 2021
- The short life of the deepest diving combat submarine of the Cold War.
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***Correction*** The Mike SSN reactor has two primary loops feeding one reactor. Not two reactors.
Research ship Keldysh- Kel-Dish... Even Bill Paxton could get that one just before he went into a sub himself...
Thanks for clearing this up! I was wondering, because of its displacement of just 8000 tons and two reactors und a top speed of "just" 30 knots.
NATO initially thought it had two reactors on it like the Papa did. If you read any pre-1989 books on it, they always mention two reactors- it stuck in my head for years. Super understandable mistake!
Correction: Komsomolets was not a name for the vessel, it was an honorific. Pretty much like a unit citation would be in the US Navy.
So she would be known as K-278 "Komsomolets" Plavnik most likely.
That's why multiple vessels (and other units) could hold that title simultaneously.
Russian ships and boats are masculine. K-278 is a he.
20 yr US sub vet.. During your career your sub will have an emergency. Mine was loss of depth control, the sub going down backwards with no propulsion during a reactor scram drill session.. We lost hundreds of feet of depth until depth control was regained.. Ultimately, we had to emergency surface until the reactor could be brought back on line. For the remainder of the day the entire crew was utterly silent.. My heart goes out to all my submarine brothers on eternal patrol..
Sounds very similar to a story my shipmate Duane told me about the 633 boat.
That's how the Thrasher was lost
@@jamesricker3997 The Thresher was lost due to uncontrolled flooding*, not depth control loss...
Absolute respect to the Captain going back into the burning and sinking ship to rescue more people.
He is a hero! He had to make some hard choices in accepting losses using the extinguisher, leaving someone on the other side of a hatch to try and save 6. Man it's so sad the captain and those other 5 went down in the escape pod.
ironic that he risked his life to save six men. And the very safety feature used to save them. Killed all but one.
@@geronimo5537 Damn. That just makes this so much more heartbreaking. Cripes. ;__;
Agreed 100%
@@geronimo5537 I don't think they were very clear headed. The escape chamber has an equalization valve that should have been cracked open prior to opening the hatch, but they didn't use it because the atmosphere within was contaminated and they were injured and just wanted to get some clean air in a hurry. Sad đ€Š
Dude, Captain Vanin was a true leader who cared about his men. I have a lot of respect for that. Man, he was faced with some hard choices too.
Yes it must have been a brutal hard decision not to open the hatch to the escape pod, after hearing knocks.
Dude? Is that how you start a line of text đ..
@@MonkPetite yeah and?
@@MonkPetite - Dude, you sound like you could use a White Russian and some relaxation time.
@@MonkPetite That is how many Americans speak.
I cannot even imagine the horror of banging on an escape pod hatch and hearing it eject off of the boat knowing that any hope of your survival just ended. That must have been terrifying.
he would not hear it, he was instantly crushed as the seal between the sub and the rescue module ruptured at about 600m below surface. god bless his soul, he saved a lot of lives.
Oh yeah, the "good thing" is, thanks to the explosion which set the escape pod free, this brave crewman was sure not alive anymore when the pod broke free.
Well....US Subs don't have escape pods. So if disaster strikes you have time to think about it usually.
I just cant belive they left him. The CHANCE MAYBE the compartment would fill the capsule with water is stupid. That man did so much snd thry give him such little thought. I would have risked it. He deserved a chance.
@@acedogboy8421 Try to think that way: if they would have him catched and the Batterie detonated, they all have been immediately dead... i think he had one of the best deads down there for sure, so sad it sounds. just imagine how this must have felt when or if someone of the 4 left in the capsule came back to consciousness (? omg and i thought we had difficult words in german o.O ) while it flooded and realised this is it... drawned in the rescue capsule.. what the heck...
No, there's no "help us" form within Russian submarines distress calls - there are just formalized forms you fill with digits which inform the shore staff about the real status of a boat, in such circumstances with no crypro apparatus to use - you may send it by special portable radio in HF band, whipping antenna off the sail. Which was, naturally, the case then: there is little trust in satellite comms off Polar circle and due to the loss of hydraulical pressupe not just planes were rendered off commission, but which is more important, periscops and telescopic HF antennas too. That is why they firstly sent garbled translations and got garbled incoming messages - normally extracted antennaes, this time were in half-raised position, so 80 per cents of 16-kilowatts of main transmitter was just heating the rubber skin of a sail. BTW, "sail" in USN Silent Service and "fin" on Royal Navy boats here in Russia is called "fencing" since that iron just shelters the periscops and antennas. All in all, this disaster had no connection to reactor affairs nor to weaponry - a rare bird even in Russian Navy. In our opinion on general level, this is the outcome of "automation" of the submarine, cutting the crew numbers off and substituting the live eyes, ears and noses with just sensors and drives. There were almost no conscripts there, just commissioned officers and WOs. Rig-For-Dive process is clearly twice as short as on Boomers (667xxx Projects). Well, in April 1989 I was still a cadet of naval college in Kaliningrad but the clear picture of the disaster was available within the Navy. Which was NOT the case for later Kursk...
Max, thank you for your Russian Navy perspective. I appreciate the extra details like a formalized distress call using digits and the lack of trust in communications. Very good, sir. I will be watching for more comments from you on my other videos.
@@SubBrief Thanks Aaron for your works here. And I'm not sure I'm "sir" 'cause in Russian Navy everyone works for a living, not just Chiefs;-) And, BTW, since radio communications to the boats are very suspicious and short by nature, any attempt to make them more complicated for nukes' sake face the strong opposition from comm pers aboard. Test launches of ICBMs from boomers almost routinely tore the towed antennas apart, so from the communications DH (an O-4 on every Russian boat) standpoint it'd be better to not load those missiles at all:-) I'll gladly look at other videos here, of course. Thanks again
@@maxtokarev1688 I am afraid this is a bitter lesson we shall be forced to relearn again in these modern times w/ further interdependence on frail and rushed high tech and automation. That there will be consequences for the increasing hands-off approach of modern society. I also know that several modern plane crashes have been blamed on error via automation and the crew's inexperience with how to handle an emergency due to lack of experience and training with how to handle manual flight situations during major mechanical failure. There's a reason I'm not looking forward to automated cars w/o a steering override for example. Former US Army, 19-K, Tank Crew.
â@@NodDisciple1 Yeah... This is Matrix, this time submersible one - just like your armored one (my father was T-55 tankman). Don't let it to take the lead even if it is single-seated and there's nobody else around. There are some processes within man/machine interface that cannot be streamlined by deleting the operator since in some particular aspects we (human beings) cannot predict the whole lot of a situations. Doesn't mean that operator will react better in each case but there's no such thing as "machine's situational awareness". There will be a time we all will get rid of the legacy of 2nd Lt RenĂ© Descartes, French Army, that all that makes sense is rational intellect, and put the emotional and intuitive intellects on, and this will help us all to get out of Matrix:-)
Eventually after Alfa project the Soviet Navy ceased this automation approach that in turn brought about the "vertical" philosophy, i.e. any uninhabited room with just remotely controlled apparatus of any boat's compartment has to be placed directly under occupied one, so that watch people from there could easily get down there for DCFP from above.
Damn....Thanks Max......God bless your brothers of the deep.
The reason the first emergency blow came up 300 ft short was the boat rose at an extreme angle and this allowed some of the displacement gas to come out through the vents in the bottom.
( They had lost control of the planes so the rise was uncontrolled )
That anyone got out alive is a miracle.
Even had the bow planes worked, flooding in engineering space #7 made the stern too heavy and uncontrollable. Remember, they had no fwd. motion for the planes to have effect.
So sad I was serving on British submarines when this happened so so sad RIP brothers of the deep
Out of curiosity, what possessed you to get on a submarine?
@@MrLoobu I don't know about Wade but I wanted on subs but my entrance exam scores were not high enough. I ended up a Marine Corp Unit Diary admin. Since the Navy and Marine are moving away from manned jets to drones and before that reducing the number of pilots the other field demanding respect is subs. I wanted in subs because A. Best food in the service. Everything is made from scratch and made very well to ensure moral is high. B. The opportunity for rank gain is higher. Even though they do not have a lot of subs the things you are doing and learning help you gain rank fast. Faster than say a signal officer on a destroyer. C. The most respected sailors in the navy. If you served on subs everyone knows right away that you are disciplined, dedicated to learning, are extremely smart and capable of almost anything. If you decide to leave subs and want to serve in headquarters in DC having been on subs opens doors to rank, jobs and politics. If you look at those who make captain or admiral most were subs or aviators. If you look at senators or congressman who have navy or marine service they were aviators or subs. D. Even if you do not work on the reactor you still learn some about it and end up working with high tech equipment. When you get out you can easily get a job with or take a little school and work for a public utility or private company in energy production, infrastructure building/maintenance. Subs always lead to very well paying jobs when you get out if you choose the right path, line of study and write your resume/CV correctly.
Nice SL
Thank you for your service wade. đŹđ§
@@joeottsoulbikes415 thanks for making it clear why people go to serve under water.
As a submarine vet, you did a VERY thorough and satisfactory job detailing the necessity of cleanliness and maintenance required onboard a sub.
Emergency blow? .... pull my finger comrade!
As a surface squid, the "all it has to be is perfect, every time" mantra takes on great emphasis. Reason, "it's too far to walk home." Overall, having to give up the ship is usually the last thing one dares think.
Soviet nuke submarines had a penchant for catching fire. Poor equipment, poor maintenance, poor crew cleanliness all played their part.
From United States Submarine Bergall, SSN-667, to Soviet Submarine Komsomolets, K-278, a salute.
That's funny, I'm playing Cold Waters and the first Sturgeon I was assigned command of is the Bergall, SSN-667
So far, 2 escorts, 6 troopships, 1 Victor I and 2 Novembers under the belt :D Lovely sub
I served on the USS Bergall from 1980 to 1984.
â@@marklaplante8675Salute to you submariner
500 million years from now when the Norwegian sea floor is recycled into land crust, can't wait for the reaction of some sentient squid monkey archeologists to discover a fossilized Soviet sub & base their knowledge of humans from that.
It will unfortunately rust away long before that.
@Mountain Whale Behold the ancient biped species and their flying metal blimps! This one was parked on a mountain and forgotten.
@@andrewyaden5209 Sub's hull is made of titanium, it'll hold
@@mordentus for 500m years?
@@Minuz1 - Titanium... in salt water... does not rust. Everything on the interior will be gone. But the hull, shaft and screw would still probably be there... along with many of the reactor components. Once the outer layer is exposed to oxygen, it creates a shell of titanium dioxide, which protects all the layers below it, and it becomes perfectly sealed. The salt water will have zero effect on it.
Jesus Christ itâs such a shame that the damage control started off so well but literally everything went wrong at the worst time. Rest In Peace to all those brave Seamen who lost their lives in this tragedy.
I heard a quote from Star Trek that fits. It's possible to make the right choices and still lose.
Ainât that the truth.
@@thelton100 Not exactly, strictly speaking its supposition, not truth, Jim.
The captain was a brave man that took his job to the letter. Going back with the hatch closed knowing he was going down and depending on the escape pod to save himself and any he could find. Having to make that hard choice to leave a man on the other side of a hatch hearing his fist pounding. The fact that they popped up so hard it knocked them out is horrible. They made it up and could have been ok if they had not been knocked out. I know the guy who got out is in anguish from having to get out while he could but I have seen those hatches. You can not drag someone that is unconscious out in a short amount of time. The captain saved as many as he could and ultimately went down with his ship.
Remember Murphy's Law if it can go wrong it will.
I was in the Navy when the Mike came into service and we were interested in what little we knew of it. It sank after I left the service but I remember the news reports. Bless the souls of those lost.
I'm astonished that the Soviet admiral reached out to the Norwegians for assistance. I definitely approve, though. It's good to see some actual human beings made it to high rank in the USSR once in a while.
@123 Learn to troll. That was pathetic.
@@Archangelm127 haha I reckon it was a decent effort.
This, is one hell of a story : a potentially revolutionary design ... and then , everything went wrong , the worst of it , the loss of so many of the courageous crew
Well not quite everything went wrong. The reactor did SCRAM as intended so credit where credit is due, at least it didn't do an underwater mini-chernobyl. But of course that's cold comfort to the sailors that died.
The Soviets had a string of bad luck
Unfortunately Soviet technology was designed to function perfectly when nothing went wrong. There were few if any backup systems
I'm astonished that the ship's doctor didn't order everyone on the top of the sub to don survival suits ASAP when he first got there.
I wonder how many of the casualties froze to death in the cold water because they had not immediatly slipped in their survival suit.
@@gunnarkaestle I'm going to say all 3 of them.
@@gunnarkaestle the others all died onboard ship. But rather amazingly, only 3 that got off the ship died.
It's difficult to do anything in those suits; they're very cumbersome. So you don't need them, until you do. As long as it seemed that the ship was maintaining buoyancy they were completely unnecessary; and once it became obvious the ship was sinking, it went down very fast... too fast to put them on.
You are assuming that there were enough suits available in the first place...
Always fascinating for those not among the secret sub insiders.
Damn the captain went down with his ship, he went back into a sinking sub??? What a freaking beast... Gotta have respect a man who leads from the front.....
Very well done!! I was the Weapons office on USS Seadragon SSN 584 and appreciate the quality of your presentations. Good job!! And thanks you.
Holy crap...The amount of speed the escape pod reached to shoot out of the water!....Makes sense if you have something with positive buoyancy and having 1200 or so feet to gain momentum on the way up...I was Army so the only sea legs I have are through video games but as always I enjoy learning about this...Thanks Sub Brief!
She would have popped like s rocket and suddenly drop..however he was misinformed about why the oil was around it was all oil vapor normally no issues but as Temps rose and the oil seals began to fail the systems leaked these subs were spotless people have the wrong idea my father said the high oxy level came from a breach somewhere which was never determined only speculated. The sensor either malfunctioned or were inaccurate..we will never know these brave men are our human brothers sadly gone on one last patrol the internal patrol we salute them and condolences to their families and I thank you for your service sir.maybe a day will come where all our war toys and put away and hummanity can live peacefully †đ
If that story is not good enough for a major docufilm then I do not know what is. It would be up there with K-19: The Widowmaker or Kursk. It must have been hell for the crew.
It was an incredible experience for them.
It sounded similar to the movie Hostile Waters, which was a completely fictional account of what happened to K-219, what with a captain fighting an uphill battle to save a doomed sub. I think the writers possibly confused K-278 with K-219 and that's how they made an arse of that movie.
As I was listening, I could *see* in my mind's eye the "movie" playing. It would be a blockbuster nobody would believe, though it is all too true....
@@krashd not worth watching then Rob
Having served on SSBN sub in UK I can confirm every patrol in the 70,s never went by without an incident. Some dangerous. Some extremely life threatening. Chicken runs or Crazy Ivans were far and few between. But hydraulic bursts and main vents jamming open fwd, just a couple for example. Training is intense so sorting the problems become 2nd nature. No time to be scared. Just time after to have a laugh at it.
jeesus, that casualty is beyond the thing of nightmares.
I just found your channel. Not only did you cite your sources, but you OPEN with them?
Instant sub (pun intended).
All sailors, no matter their national allegiance, are all one family. RIP to my missing brothers.
Having played hide and seek on numerous occasions with Soviet subs, I'd never wish this on any sub sailors, ever. Eternal Patrol in peace.
đ¶Eternal Father strong to save whose arm doth bind the restless wave, who bids the mighty ocean deep its own appointed limits keepđ¶
Bullshit. Tell that to yourself when one of those "family mebers" sinks a boat with your friends on it. Down with commie bastards.
Nicely put, brother.
Except when they are trying to kill each other but yeah
I didn't know there was only 1 "Mike."
My brother was a sonar tech on three US subs, Nautilus, Patrick Henry & George Washington. RIP to all submariners who gave lives for their counties!
I know these were our potential enemies, but you have to admire their courage and selflessness in trying to save their crewmates. Submariners are a rare breed no matter where they come from.
Nothing "potential" about it. They Soviets/Russians were (and to an arguable extent, remain) our implacable enemies.
@@chuckschillingvideos They are only enemies when the shooting starts. Thank God it never did.
@@dp-sr1fd Oh, there was plenty of shooting, alright. It was just done by proxies.
@@dp-sr1fd welp lol
@@falcor200 Shouldn't that be "whelp" Learn to spell.
Very high quality lecture, this video vastly exceeds the standards for CZcams. Helluva job
Glad you think so!
@@SubBrief I think so to. You explain everything so clearly
Doesn't matter where they are from or their political affiliations, they are sailors and people. What a horrible thing to have happened to them.
I remember this. I have the Newspaper article clipping somewhere. I remember mixed emotions. Mixed because it was one less "Soviet" submarine that wasn't a threat. Yet the crew.. all I could think of was the families who lost loved ones as I wasn't so callus to not understand that the people of the Warsaw Pact were also people who lived and loved as we did. Now, all these years later, with the experience of life, I look at this as a tragic event in history. An event that given the exploits of the crew in trying to save their ship has shown that they were no different than we in the west. A heroic effort that is worth remembering to not only to learn from but to remember those who perished as well as those who survived.
Another prime example of tombstone engineering. Mistakes are paid for in human lives. The sea does not take prisoners.
It takes prisoner for sure but those have to be freed by rescue mission.
Kursk had survivors that died afterwards like the engineer who wrote a letter to his wife in darkness
where is this tombstone engineering? A rupture in a high-pressure air line can happen anywhere, on any sub. And thats what started it all.
@@deanboy2416 The escape pod release jamming up?
@@Eidolon1andOnly how is that "tombstone engineering"? it's not like it was designed to jam.
@@deanboy2416 Not being designed to jam is exactly what makes it tombstone engineering, LOL.
Takes a special kind of sailor to be in subs, and a lot of luck when it's a Soviet-era sub.
They test us for sanity, and anyone who is sane doesn't get allowed onboard! đ
@@ScottKenny1978 It's quite a catch, that catch-22.
"special kind" in russian translates to "disposable heroes" I guess
@@ScottKenny1978 you got that right. Chicken wheels, drain babies, simple green, and thank God for the cookie hatch.
Soviet subs seem to be plagued with problems ,but the Soviet space program ( at present time the only way to the ISS) is a reliable transport system. Just shows you what transparency and working together can achieve.
Like most disasters, so many twists and changes of fate. Tragic R.I.P
A hard and costly lesson. Reminds me of the early Apollo capsule fire and the lessons learned from that. Pure oxygen atmosphere, hatches opening inward - prescription for disaster. A solid presentation.
Was planning to fall asleep listening to this but woah, this was terrifying. Fantastic retelling of a brutal accident Jive Turkey
Yeah, I don't think I am going to sleep tonight...
Really hard to fall asleep with the tale of men being crushed to death.
As a sub vet I say, well done. I was serving in U.S. Navy when Kosmolets went down. Though they were our adversaries, it's always tragic when you hear of a sub going down or suffering a catastrophic casualty.
One thing though, I don't recall us ever deliberately maintaining low oxygen levels for fire prevention. My recollection was we always adjusted O2 bleed to maintain between 140-160 mm Hg O2 partial pressure. My thirty something year old memory may be a little off, but I don't recall O2 levels as part of fire prevention. We didn't want to raise O2 too high but I don't recall maintaining lower than normal since fire can burn quite well in O2 levels far below what humans need to breathe.
Fire is the most deadly thing that can occur on a submarine. Flooding can be handled with emergency blow and hydraulic flood control valves. Reactor scram is more of an annoyance. But fire will kill you. Combining high pressure hydraulic oil with high pressure is especially bad, and HP air and hydraulic lines run throughout the ship. Fine mist of oil, hiss of HP air leak, someone lights a cigarette and poof, instant flamethrower.
I'm a simple man, I see a sub brief and I click
I appreciate that. Thank you, Josh.
One of the most amazing disaster/drama stories I have ever heard. Think "Hindenburg" underwater. Should be a movie.
Excellent video, thanks. One cannot imagine the immediate terror associated with the consecutive failures of heroic damage control measures to save the boat. It brings back bad memories of my own SSBN missions where we completed 200+ drill sets during patrol. Everyday our XO was pounding on us, âa clean ship is a happy shipâ! Waste oil collection happens for a reason. Carry on.
Russian wiki mentions that the list to port was because the expanding hot air from the 7th compartment, where there was a break in compressed air piping, was blowing water out of the starboard ballast tank, to which the pipes were connected, and performing an emergency blow at that time to correct the list fed more air to the fire through the break even though the list was corrected temporarily by increasing air pressure in the port tank to compensate.
It seems that the same air system was connected to the emergency breathing apparatuses, causing their contamination.
Also they had garbled transmissions because the hydraulic pressure was supposed to prop up the antennas, so because the pressure dropped, they were out of the proper alignment.
Eeewwwww. Yeah, gotta keep your emergency breathing air supply separate from EMBT and also separate from the main high pressure air.
I had believed that the firefighting water was bringing on enough weight to list the boat but shaft seal breach is bad enough đ
@@craftpaint1644 yeah, pop the shaft seals and no sub will survive.
I so enjoy these briefs. Aaron is always passionate and thorough when discussing them. His Patreon is a great deal to access many more and other content for a whole 1 $ a month. Best dollar I spend each month.
I rank this as one of the best marine loss documentary's I've seen on YT, extremely well told, explained and illustrated. As a retired fire engineer, this was sad to hear but inevitable. Risk assessment is key at design stage, but safety and back up systems and equipment are expensive and never given enough budget. Fireproofing cable and pipeline transits through firewalls is basic however so how this was missed is so sad. Fair winds and calm seas to all sailors, RIP all those lost at sea.
This is a great reminder that rescue NEVER close. You are either rescued, or not. Until you are on a rescue vessel, you are not rescued. Im into search and rescue, and the decision to not dawn survival suits is foolish. Rescue missions go sideways in no many ways, and water is so cold.
Rescue is a race. You dont slow down while racing. If you are close to the finish line, you don't slow down, if anything you speed up.
Another thought on how the escape pod could have worked, in addition to the pod having a more reliable release mechanism, the addition of a drag chute would slow it's ascent to prevent it from breaching the surface so violently.
That doctor deserves a medal for coordinating the evacuation of that sub.
The sailer that started the diesel generator saved a lot of lives and when he was left behind that was his saving grace by the explosion ending his life swiftly I can only hope. I could not imagine what that captain was going through by having to make decisions like that. Many did go on to survive because of those decisions.
that sailor who started the generator was replaced by an officer, it was the officer who went down in the ship
Thanks, Aaron. I remember reading about this disaster in one publication, but have not seen anything else.
Absolute heroic and professional crew this was. They fought this casualty perfect to the end, fair winds and following seas.
Another topic I was looking forward to seeing you cover!
Hope you enjoyed it!
@@SubBrief Always!
I seem to remember that compressed air torpedo launches make a fair amount of noise alerting everyone that you just launched. Seawolf class was supposed to have larger swim out tubes that were much quieter launching.
It always strikes me as peculiar that when disasters such this one occur, it is the able seamen and noncoms who are the first to express a desire to offer assistance to a ship or boat regardless of its nationality. Perhaps the training of officers does not only teach them what to do, but also what and how to think.
The officer corps in all nations' militaries are heavily political. Generally, for an officer to be promoted the senior officers have to recommend and agree to the promotion. And then entering the General/Admiral ranks requires legislative action in republics or personal assignment from the head honcho in dictatorships and monarchies.
In short, one mistake and an officers career is over. So this leads to a TON of "cover your ass" thinking in senior leadership due to evolutionary pressure; only those that covered their ass got promoted in the first place, so they expect the next generation to do the same, etc.
Whereas enlisted are simply promoted by time in rank. And NCO's are promoted as needed, with seniority and job requirements determining who is first in line. So even if a SGT gets demoted back to private, they are first in line to get their rank back.
@@karenpojar2514 I thank you very much for the information! đ
@@karenpojar2514 I strongly disagree with these outrageous claims. I was a watch officer at USN Atlantic Fleet HQ from 88-91, including during the time of this incident. We never refuse any request for assistance from any nation or vessel or aircraft during my time there. In fact I had a discussion with one admiral about this topic, and he made it clear that we would always respond, regardless of any inconvenience or difficulty. CDR-USNR-ret.
p.s. The Soviets never requested the assistance of the US in this matter. The US navy did not send vessels or aircraft because the Norwegian air force and navy were the closest responsible nation, [and there were already Soviet merchant ships and aircraft on scene]. Keep in mind this was a very short lived event. In any case, the cold waters and rough seas, made rescue by the ships already on scene terribly difficult. From the information presented here, I believe the Komsomolets crew and captain reacted bravely and competently.
5:55 "where the water is supposed to stay out of" made me giggle
I'm not in the military, but I work in an industry that is plagued with mistakes and accidents ranging from very minor to fatal. I keep seeing the same mistakes over and over, because people don't take it seriously.
Shouldnt you fire them and find people that won't kill themselves?
@@MrLoobu Easy to say...
@@highlypolishedturd7947 lolol well damn, what country is this?
@@MrLoobu Each person reacts to the incentives they are given, and unfortunately they often do not align to what the organization publicly professes. Iâve seen many (far to many!) intelligent people doing dumb things for a simple reason: they were smart enough to understand what actions caused them to be rewarded. Academia refers to this as the âAgency problem.â A dysfunctional organization is basically one where the individual incentives collectively harm the organization. However, organizations can survive a long time in a dysfunctional state for various reasons (size, market position, tax funding, etc)
@@ceddavis good point.. and often a dysfunctional organization when something goes wrong will blame their people rather than looking at their own policies & procedures...
In the 1970s I was an auxillaryman on an ssn. I completed my roving watch forward and did a tour of the whole boat as was our practice. When I reached the engine room aft I thought we had a fire because I saw what i thought was smoke. As a I ran closer to inspect I found it was compressed air and oil being blowing our of the weep hole in one of the hydraulic accumulator control rods. I reported fire in the engine room. I don't know what the nukes had been doing before but they hadn't noticed. Maybe it just started as I walked up.
If we had had a spark just then we could have gone up in flames just the same as these poor guys.
Well Done! You laid that account out very professionally and very efficiently! I feel like my time was well spent watching your presentation. Thanks!
Holy hell. Thanks for the work in putting this together.
You have quite some good knowledge sir! My Regards! As an aerospace engineer I also have great interest and passion for underwater warfare and it's very valuable that someone like you took the time and effort to put all the known aspects regarding this particular tragedy into detail. Great work!
My brother, days after H.S. graduation joined the U.S. Navy. The whole fam damnly was so proud. I said: do something that has post service dividends. He said: I am going to NNPTC. We were so proud. I said: you're 6'4"... get on a carrier, or at least a cruiser. He said: I am going with subs. We were concerned. I said: for Pete's sake at least get on a boomer! He said: fast attack is what I want. We were more concerned. I said: ppppbbbttt... you're 6'4"! After his first deployment, he called home. He said he hadn't had a really good stretch in months. We laughed, and laughed, and laughed. đ đ€Ł
We had a guy about that tall on one of my boats (I forget which). The only place he could stand up straight was the engineroom!
Height is ok, you just gotta fit through the x-ray hatches, a few chiefs did not
@@joechang8696 on the Ohio-class, most of the EAB manifolds were right at 6 feet above the deck. You learn *really* quickly to hunch over constantly or bounce your head every few steps. The guys 6' to 6'2" bounced, the guys taller than 6'2" hunched constantly.
Thatâs funny was a good height for a submarines. I have uncles that were in navy but they were on cruisers.
@@ScottKenny1978 I'd be wearing something like a skateboarder's helmet all the time.
Thank you for taking the time to create this.
My pleasure!
Brilliant sub brief - thanks v much! Fascinating as usual - told with a real flair for the drama of the casualty but also with the compassion of a fellow submariner. I knew the basic story but not the horrifying details. Like I said your telling of the story was amazing... Much appreciated!
Damn, naval deaths can be particularly horrifying
YES ! thanks jive. "Ive been waiting a looong time for this moment"
Always an excellent presentation! Thank you!
This story is as tragic as exciting at the same time. RIP to all seamen who didn't make it and thank you to Jive for sharing this story with us! Cheers
This is why i find submarines so fascinating. Because of the dangers and the tragedy that can befall them. This was one hell of a tragic story. Fiction cant come close to true stories like this. RIP to them all. Its a good thing that half a million + people can hear about this and they aren't just some forgotten souls.
This sub brief should be mandatory study @ Groton. Very well done, Salute.
Excellent video, crystal clear.
Love your vids. So informative and I have learned alot. My cousin served on subs but I didn't get a chance to discuss anything about his service before he died. I love learning about different subs and accidents. Thanks David đŹđ§
Respect to the captain , may he and his men lost rest in peace.
Holy everloving christ. What a nightmare. Honestly, it's amazing how many people did actually survive, and while there's a definite view of this as what not to do in the submarine world it also shows that humans can be absolutely relentless in trying to live. Ones own hardships seem a bit less serious when you consider a sailor in freezing water holding to a life raft with his fucking teeth and actually getting home after doing so.
They were lucky in that other vessels were close by. If that would have happened in the middle of the Pacific, say, nobody would have survived.
@Scott Murphy relax Scott I donât think god minds people talking fast or saying oh Jesus etc
Yeah, just look into "Franklin's lost expedition". 2 years stuck on ice feeding on food that was slowly poisoning them with lead and not curing their scurvy, only to decide an last ditch effort to walk all the way to Canada, only to die in the way from hypothermia and starvation. The eskimos saw the survivors but coudn't do anything to feed such an large quantity of men, others later reported to seeing the last sailors eating human flesh... all of them having trinkets to prove their encounter.
Until very recently if you weren't next to another ship you faced an quick death by drowning or an slow death from starvation(even recently, several lifeboats in WW1 and WW2 were never rescued). Many sad tales such as these(just an cursory glance on the age of discovery will reveal many captain and crew lost from their fleets, never to be seen again), it always gives us pause to know that we aren't invincible, even with being able to control radioactive isotopes to produce almost limitless power.
Great presentation and explained so that the average person can understand , hats off to the courageous crew that fought to the end. thanks for posting
So glad you made this video.... Was going to request it on the Papa video!
Heart breaking.
Frustrating beyond measure.
Almost everything that could go wrong did. That the accident didn't envelope the reactor and weapons was a small consolation.
The sailors earned their seats in Valhalla. God be with them and their families.
That captain of the sub was an honorable man to go back in and and make sure his men are safe,unlike the captain of that Italian cruise liner who crashed and sunk that ship was one of the first people off and didn't care about the safety of his passengers,yes much Respect to that submarine captain!!!!!!
Thank you for this great story!
Incredible synopsis of the incident, thank you.
I have an amazing book called "Codename "Fin"" by Romanov D.A. (one of the lead engineers) This book is extensively covering the process of development and testing of the Project 685 SSN. In fact this book is so in depth (no pun intended) that it even has numbers and dates of all telegrams, directives and orders received by the people who were behind this project. It also has interesting pictures taken in development including destroyed DK-12 test chamber, reactor compartment, DK-15 chamber, heat exchanger and many more.
English, or in Russian?
@@ScottKenny1978 it's in Russian
@@ArcherNN that's what I was afraid of, I can't read Russian, sadly. If it was in English I would be chasing down a copy!
@@ScottKenny1978 The book isn't just in Russian, but also extremely rare. 500 copies were printed and were all given to the workers of the russian submarine industry. My granddad was lucky enough to get a copy as he's a submarine/icebreaker nuclear reactor engineer. He can probably write a book of his own. Even went to the Russian Far East from Severodvinsk on the 5th hull of Typhoon during sea trials back in the day. He still feels heartbroken because of the 2-6 Typhoon hulls' fate.
@@ArcherNN oh, WOW!!! That's an incredible story. And yes, I bet your granddad could tell quite a few stories.
Next time you talk to him, tell him that there's many American submarine sailors jealous about the design of the Typhoon class. And that we feel his pain about their fate.
Amazing story of these brave sailors in a horrible fire đ„ event. Fire starts with sub very deep and spreads forward. This story is very engaging and well done. I was on the edge of my seat rooting for everyone to be saved! WOW.
Well done & presented.
I really like that you tell your source clearly and wish many other people did so too since sometimes I might want to take closer look of the subject or merely would like to look interesting pictures and wonder where people got them.
I hope no one believes in Soviet/ Russian sailors as being the âenemyâ....... it is up to them, as it is up to US, British, Chinese etc. sailors, to keep calm heads and carry out their duties professionally in order to NOT trigger a nuclear conflict. I have utmost respect for these professionals, no matter the uniform they wear.
Not sure I follow... US trident sub vet here, and if we received authenticated orders to rain holy hell on a continent, we would have rained holy hell on a continent. I'm probably misunderstanding your comment. Maybe you mean that us being out there doing our jobs acts as a deterrent? If so, I can see that... but no, we wouldn't prevent triggering a nuclear conflict if we were ordered to trigger a nuclear conflict.
@WhomItMayConcern I canât disagree... but in the same vein, I was confident that weâd never be given that order in an offensive manner. Strength is sometimes necessary to avoid conflict.
I agree completely! Former Marine here.
99.99999%, there is one ruler, or a fanatical set of TOP Brass who want to dig up the dead, and refight a war. The US and Russia are guilty of fighting ideological or presumed threat/punishment wars. We both spent 20 years in pointless wars.
The people would be friends, I pray.
Countries who want to attack and consume more than what they have now are the most deadly threat.
How many will die when the leaders, and we know which ones, unleash their desire for power and dominance?
Using sodium in the ballast tanks is absolutely ingenious, it almost seems *more* failsafe than compressed air, as thereâs no valves to stick, it just needs to touch the water to work
Yeah, that's definitely an interesting idea!
Edit. But there's still a valve or two needed, to keep the water off the gas generator.
@@ScottKenny1978 true, I guess itâs just nice in that it doesnât need to be under âhigh pressureâ, obviously thereâs some sort of pressure differential, but the reaction isnât super pressure dependent. Air on the other hand has to be under some serious pressure to be able to evacuate ballast tanks at depth, iirc, and also necessitates a pressure vessel, etc.
I guess while both systems are simple (and valved as you pointed out), sodium seems more like a âsure thingâ with less demanding storage considerations - except the whole exploding in the presence of water bit.
Except that Sodium in water produces Hydrogen. Not the gas you would like to have in a tank in an emergency (or ever for that matter)
@@KjartanAndersen what other metals react with seawater and donât produce a hydroxide and hydrogen?
Itâs stated in the video that a metal is reacted with seawater to produce a large amount of gas, which would almost definitely be sodium, lithium, or potassium - unless they used rubidium, cesium, or francium, which seems incredibly unlikely. I am more than willing to be wrong here, got any suggestions?
@@smallmoneysalvia He wasn't saying that it wasn't sodium, just that having a massive amount of hydrogen generated is a lot more dangerous than compressed air. I get a feeling it was more complex of a system than just dumping pure alkali metals into the seawater though, as the heat of the reaction would be quite the explosion risk around that much hydrogen. Unfortunately I can't find any English sources on what exactly it was, just an article mentioning its code name was "Iridium."
Quality content, thank you.
Subbed! Thanks for your hard work
Tell me if I'm wrong, but does the Russian/Soviet has the most number of submarine disaster in history ?
39:00 The name of the research ship that surveyed the wreck is pronounced "kell-dish". It's one of the ships that the intelligence center of my ship kept track of in the Western Pacific in the 1980s. It also was the research ship that appeared in the movie "Titanic".
The details and incredible drama in this sub's history is amazing. Both the ship itself, but also the captain, and the lone seaman that survived the sinking. It could easily be made into a miniseries.
I like the refinements you made to your production. Nice work!
THERE NEEDS TO BE A MOVIE ABOUT THIS!! DAMN!
Noooo! The movie maker idiots would invent stupid love stories and other subplots and phony character conflicts and wreck it! Heck just the egotistical actors would make it unpalatable. This presentation works well for me. Big thumbs up!
@@markmaki4460 Well the keldysh was in the movie with a love story some year later :D
Just saw the movie about the Kursk called the command very good movie
@@markmaki4460 I'd only trust this with a guy like Danny Boyle đ
Lemme guess, starring Tom Hanks?
That was amazing! I felt like I was there!!
Glad you enjoyed it!
Excellent , thank you for this superb upload .
Great research and storytelling. Thank you for the knowledge and experience Shipmate. Phil... DMSN 1957-1961
A Freon Fire Extinguishing system works the same way as Halon works primarily by stopping the chemical reaction of the fire. Unless they were dumping large amounts of Freon into the compartment suffocation should not be a problem.
I suspect most of the sailor succumbed to heat. Subs are like ovens.
Yeah well, halogens turn into phosgene gas when heated above 900° or so.
That's why freon leaks are a very serious problem on subs. Air going through the H2 burners, with freon in it, can potentially be converted, if it (H2 Burner) is operating a little bit hot.
I'm not a sailor, but I'm pretty sure I wouldn't tie my life raft to a sinking ship.
An excellent summation.
Great lecture! Thank you for this
Salute to the braves souls that fought to save their ship and the ones who are now on eternal patrol.
I served on the USS Dace SSN607 from 76-82, a 50's designed and just barely 60's built "Thresher" Class boat. Things going south either forward or aft were more the norm than the exception back then. It seemed like all we ever did was train, train, train, then train some more and again, we rarely ever got to sleep. But when the stuff hit the fan and it did in so many big ways, so many times, we responded instantly, intelligently and most of all without fear. The Russians may not have had the best boats but they had damn good Sailors. God Bless this Crew, God Bless these Great Men. No man should have to suffer the way they did, especially in so called times of peace. One thing I've always told friends is that any Vessel of War is an inherently dangerous environment and no technology, no amount of casualty assistance team response can hope to achieve 100% control over the intrinsic, the ingrained dangers presented by its very design. God Bless those Still On Patrol, God Bless those still living with the endless nightmare's. I Love You Brothers.
Well done sir thank you for sharing
Great video, I didn't know about this tragedy of the Komsolet.