Russia Says 14 Sailors Die in Fire on Underwater Vessel
by Stepan Kravchenko - Bloomberg News
2-July-2019 - 12:26PM (EDT)
Russia said 14 sailors died when a fire broke out in a submersible research vessel, the worst naval incident in more than a decade.
The Russian Defense Ministry said the sailors died from smoke inhalation in the blaze that broke out Monday on board the vessel, the Interfax news service reported. The vessel is linked to a secret nuclear submarine project known as
Losharik, RBC news website reported, citing a person it didn’t identify.
President Vladimir Putin pulled out of a planned event on tourism Tuesday in order to meet with Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu about the sailors’ deaths, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.
The crew were performing biometric measurements in Russian territorial waters in the deep-sea submersible that’s designed to study the ocean floor, Interfax reported, citing the Defense Ministry, which gave no details of the cause of the incident or the vessel involved. The submersible is now at the Russian Northern Fleet’s Severomorsk base in the Murmansk region on the Barents Sea coast, Tass reported.
The incident is the worst since 20 died on a Nerpa nuclear submarine in 2008. The
Losharik submarine can operate at a depth of 6,000 meters (20,000 feet), according to RBC. The submarine has a titanium housing and had been used for research on the continental shelf, Izvestia newspaper reported in 2012.
Russia’s Investigative Committee said in a website
statement that it has begun an inquiry into the deaths. A Defense Ministry spokesman didn’t immediately respond to a phone call seeking comment.