A Russian mini-submarine with seven sailors aboard got caught on a fishing net and was stuck on the sea floor off Russia's Pacific Coast, navy officials said yesterday.
Navy authorities were racing to try to figure out how to raise the vessel from a depth of some 190m, and a navy spokesman said the air supply on the craft was only enough to last one more day.
"There is air remaining on the underwater apparatus for a day -- one day," Captain Igor Dygalo said on state-run Rossiya TV.
PHOTO: EPA
"The operation continues. We have a day, and intensive, active measures will be taken to rescue the AS-28 vessel and the people aboard," he said.
The US Navy was scrambling to send an unmanned underwater vehicle to help rescue efforts at Russia's request, and Britain and Japan also rushed to help.
Dygalo said the US Navy agreed to send a US plane with a robotic underwater rescue vehicle to the accident area off the Kamchatka Peninsula, but he did not say when it was expected to arrive. He said a British plane carrying unspecified rescue equipment was not expected before today.
Japan dispatched four naval vessels yesterday to help in the rescue, but the ships aren't expected to arrive at the scene until early next week, Marine Self Defense Force spokesman Hidetsubu Iwamasa said.
There was contact with the sailors, who were not hurt, Pacific Fleet spokesman Captain Alexander Kosolapov said in televised comments.
The mini-sub, called the AS-28, was too deep to allow the sailors to swim to the surface on their own or for divers to reach it, officials said.
The vessel's propeller became entangled in a fishing net on Thursday, trapping the craft, Dygalo said.
His comments on the amount of air remaining, which he said came after "all the information was checked," followed conflicting statements from officials who said there was enough air for anything from one day to five days. The range of estimates may have been the result of confusion because there were seven people aboard the vessel, whose usual crew is three.
The accident occurred early Thursday when the vessel was launched from a rescue ship during a combat training exercise, Kosolapov said. He said the navy was examining ways to bring the vessel, also called a bathyscaph, to the surface and that nine warships were in the area to aid the rescue operation.
Two surface ships were sweeping the area with nets in the hope of wresting the trapped vessel from the sea floor, adding that the rescue effort would continue into the night, Dygalo said.
The accident occurred almost exactly five years after the nuclear submarine Kursk sank to the bottom of the Barents Sea after explosions on board, killing all 118 seamen aboard in a painful blow to the Russian navy.
The AS-28, which looks like a small submarine, was built in 1989. They are about 13.5m long and 5.7m high and can dive to depths below 500m.
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