A crew member set off the fire extinguishing system in the Russian nuclear submarine Nerpa, causing the death of 20 people by suffocation, the RIA-Novosti news agency quoted the inquiry panel as saying yesterday.
“The inquiry has established that a member of the crew, a sailor, set off the anti-fire system on board the submarine, without authorization and for no reason,” panel spokesman Vladimir Markin was quoted as saying.
“This sailor has already admitted his error,” RIA-Novosti quoted him as adding.
Twenty people were killed on Saturday when the fire extinguishing system was triggered as the new Akula-class nuclear-powered attack submarine was being tested in the Sea of Japan, pumping Freon gas into the vessel and depriving them of oxygen.
The authorities said there was no fire on board the vessel.
An investigation was opened into whether criminal negligence had led to the deaths of the 20 people, who included three naval officers and 17 civilians, many of them shipyard workers participating in sea tests of the submarine.
Markin said the investigation was continuing.
Defective gas masks may have been responsible for a large number of the deaths aboard the Nerpa, the Russian tabloid Tvoi Den reported, citing survivors.
“I saw people in convulsions ripping off their masks. I also had a breathing apparatus on, but it only worked from seven to 15 minutes,” the newspaper quoted warrant officer Yevgeny Ovsyannikov as saying.
“Some of the dead were found with their gas masks on. The breathing apparatuses simply didn’t work,” another survivor, Dmitry Usachyov, was quoted as saying by Tvoi Den.
Despite the accident, the Nerpa passed its tests and will be authorized for use by the Russian navy, the head of the military’s general staff, Nikolai Makarov, told news agencies on Wednesday.
Russian media had reported earlier that the vessel was to be leased to India on a contract worth US$650 million, but news agencies quoted a senior arms industry official saying this was not the case.
Saturday’s accident was the worst naval disaster in Russia since the sinking of the Kursk submarine in the Barents Sea in 2000 in which all 118 sailors on board died, casting a long shadow on then-president Vladimir Putin’s rule.
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