Photos of Russian Ship in Panama Canal

I found a few photographs of the Russian navy ship, the Admiral Chabanenko going through the Panama Canal. It was a night-time crossing and I think the pics are pretty nice. The links are below.

Reuters

Times of India Slide Show

Looked pretty cool. I went through The Ditch back in 1989. I thought it was a pretty big deal. We went through with a lot of security. I remember that we had a helicoptor or two with us the whole time and a few Boston Whalers equipped with big guns and filled with some pretty mean looking dudes. I was 20 years old at the time. Seeing all the security was the first time it was driven home for me that we were a serious military target and it was kind of a sobering experience for me.

Of course, I just loved the experience of going through the Panama Canal. It was definitely one of the more memorable days that I spent in the navy. Some pictures from navsource.org below show my first boat, the USS Shark (SSN-591) transiting the canal in '89. I don't know if I appear in any of these pictures, but I remember being on the fairwater planes while going through one of the locks. I really enjoyed being able to go out on the fairwater planes when we were on the surface. If you ask me, the classes of submarines without easy access to the fairwater planes really shortchange their sailors.

Picture 1

Picture 2

Picture 3

Update 11:00 p.m. : Looks like the links to the pics of my old boat may not be working. If you want to look, go to navsource.org and look at pics for the USS Shark (SSN-591). Sorry.

More on Russian Submarine Disaster

There are a few more detail coming out about the Russian submarine disaster from Saturday. Apparently, the submarine is the K-152 Nerpin. An article from The Times of India identifies this as a submarine that was supposed to be leased to India starting next year.

The new Russian Akula-II class attack submarine called ‘K-152 Nerpa', which met with an accident during sea trials in the Sea of Japan off Vladivostok on Saturday, killing at least 20 people and injuring another 21, is apparently the same vessel which was to be transferred to India in July-August 2009, sources said.

Read more from The Times of India

The wording used by the Russian Navy spokesman is that it was an "unsanctioned activation" of the fire suppression system. I am guessing there was probably an accidental activation during maintenance. There is a siren that is supposed to go off before the system starts releasing the gas into the "people tank" which may have failed. Presumably, this alarm is triggered as part of the system activation. It is possible that during maintenance, the trigger for the alarm was not in the same loop that resulted in the release of the gas.

I have never studied one of these systems closely. Does anybody know if the gas used in these systems has an additive to give it a distinctive odor, such as the one added to natural gas? It seems like a system designed to rapidly displace oxygen from a large space would have something like this added to provide additional warning.

One other interesting thing that I read in an article. The submarine had 208 people aboard, 81 military and 127 shipyard workers. The breakdown in deaths was 3 sailors and 17 civilians.

Seventeen civilians and three seamen died in the accident and 21 others were hospitalized after being evacuated to shore, Russian navy spokesman Capt. Igor Dygalo said. None of the injuries were life-threatening, he added.

More from the Washington Times

I suppose the disproportionate number of civilian deaths is probably due to the level of proficiency of the sailors compared to the civilians. Of course, it is also possible that due to the large number of people on board, a lot of civilians were sleeping in the bow compartment due to the huge overload on the normal berthing spaces.

Submarines always were and still are dangerous places to live. I am sure that there will be some lessons learned out of this to add a few more pages of safety regulations written in the blood of these men.

Russian Submarine Accident

Sounds like a pretty bad accident, with many sailors killed. I just picked this up a few minutes ago. The article says that the sub was on sea trials. The vessel hasn't been identified.

"During sea trials of a nuclear-powered submarine of the Pacific Fleet the firefighting system went off unsanctioned, killing over 20 people, including servicemen and workers," Igor Dygalo said, without giving any details of the circumstances of the accident.

Read the full article here

Here is another article with more information

UPDATE: Another article has been posted that may identify the submarine involved.

The name and type of the submarine was not released.

However, a source in the Amur shipyard's administration named the submarine as the K-152 Nerpa, a nuclear-powered sub of the Project 971 Shchuka-B type, or Akula-class by NATO classification, the RIA Novosti news agency reported.

A picture of the K-152 Nerpa

From Russia, With (no) Love

Apparently, John McCain is getting pretty desperate for funding. He sent a letter to the Russian Ambassador to the United Nations asking for a donation to help him defeat Obama in the upcoming election.

This might indicate a softening of McCain's feelings towards Russia. It seems he considers the Russian Ambassador to be a friend, as stated in the letter:

"Dear Friend," begins the 6-page letter to Churkin, asking for up to $5,000 to defeat Sen. Barack Obama and help McCain "promote freedom and democracy throughout the world,"

Associated Press Article

Even an appeal to always put America first failed to win over the good ambassador.

"If I have the honor of continuing to serve you, I make you this promise: We will always put America — her strength, her ideals, her future — before every other consideration,” McCain assured Churkin. "

More from Reuters

I guess this argument didn't sway Vitaly Churkin, as the Russian Ambassador declined to donate money.

Obviously, McCain had no intention of soliciting Russia for a campaign donation, but I got a pretty good laugh out of this article.

Russian Submarine Photos

This is a series of pictures taken during Russian President Dmitry Medvedev's tour of the nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarine Svyatoy Georgiy Pobedonosets.

Link to Photos

I notice that even the Commander-in-Chief is wearing a name tag on his jacket. I think it is interesting to see how the other half lives. They do seem to have much nicer coffee cups (teacups actually) than I remember having in the crews mess. How many of those do you suppose end up at the bottom of the harbor?