False alarm cited in Russian blast

MOSCOW - A false alarm was responsible for setting off the emission of fire-extinguishing gases on a new Russian nuclear-powered submarine in the Sea of Japan, killing 20 people and injuring 21 late Saturday, Russian navy officials said.

All but three of the dead were civilian specialists and experts on board the Akula-class submarine Nerpa during the performance test trial, according to the federal prosecutor's office.

The ship's nuclear reactor was not affected in the accident, and the submarine returned safely to port on its own, said Russian navy spokesman Igor Dygalo. The reactor was operating normally, and the radiation levels were normal, Dygalo told the Russian news agency Interfax yesterday.

Dygalo said that, of 208 people on board, 91 were crew members, and the rest were civilian specialists and experts overseeing the testing of the submarine.

Analysts said the large presence of civilians was likely a crucial factor in the high casualty count. The regular crew would have been far better prepared for the emergency situation when the gas-emission siren rang, said Igor Kurdin, a former Russian nuclear missile submarine commander and head of the St. Petersburg Submariners Club.

"Even if you are the president of the country present on a submarine," Kurdin said, "you can't rely on your security detail to save your life in a fire, because you need to be able to save your own life by using the rescue equipment properly and quickly."

Kurdin said he believed that Freon-112 was the gas emitted in two compartments of the submarine when a fire alarm went off. Such releases are normally preceded by a specific light and sound signal, after which all on board are supposed to put on gas masks, which will allow them to survive for 30 minutes before they can leave the affected compartments or the compartments have been adequately ventilated.

"The civilian experts on board may well be very good experts in their own technical sphere," Kurdin said, "but I am sure they were not prepared for a life-and-death survival challenge."

Andrei Frolov, a researcher with the Center for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies, a Moscow-based think tank, laid some of the blame on the automatic fire-sensing system of the submarine.

"The Amur Shipbuilding Plant in Komsomolsk-on-the Amur was testing this new submarine, the first one it produced in 13 years," Frolov said. "Standing virtually idle for more than a decade couldn't but tell on the expertise and skills of the shipbuilders, which must have caused this technical fault.

"I am sure many people were not prepared for what happened," Frolov said. "The accident happened at around 8:30 p.m., and some of the crew could even be sleeping already. I am sure the panic ensued, when the doors of the compartments were automatically sealed and the gas was emitted," he said, "and for the civilian specialists that must have been too much of a shock to handle it properly."

The civilians on board included specialists from St. Petersburg, where the submarine was designed; from Nizhny Novgorod, where the nuclear reactor was designed; and from Komsomolsk-on-the-Amur, where the ship was built, Frolov said.

The accident was the worst in a Russian submarine since 118 crew members died when the Kursk sank in the Barents Sea in August 2000 after an on-board torpedo explosion.