MOSCOW, June 13 (Itar-Tass) - The Russian Northern Fleet under the supervision of the Supreme Command of the Russian Navy will hold a tactical naval exercise of the search-and-rescue forces in order to search for and help a submarine in distress lying on the sea bottom with the use of deepwater submersibles on June 18-20. Meanwhile, the Northern Fleet’s forces will drill the assistance to the submariners, who got out from the submarine in distress themselves, a spokesman for the Russian Navy told Itar-Tass on Thursday.
“The Supreme Command of the Russian Navy involves in the naval exercises high-ranking officers of the Commands of the Pacific, Black Sea and Baltic Sea Fleets to shape common views on the methods of preparing and holding tactical exercises of the search-and-rescue forces and check the degree of preparedness of the command of the fleets,” he said.
Nuclear-powered and diesel-powered submarines of the Northern Fleet, a search convoy, which includes the minesweepers, a hydrographical ship and a towboat, a rescue convoy involving the rescue ship Titov with the deepwater submersible AS-34, the rescue towboat Nikolai Chiker, the diving support vessel VM-586, two rescue cutters Korsar, a team of divers and the team in atmospheric diving suits HS-1200 will participate in the naval exercises. The aviation involving the airplanes Il-38, An-26, helicopters Mi-8MTV-5, Ka-27PL, a rescue parachute landing formation and a medical group from the medical service of the Northern Fleet will be also involved in the naval war games.
During the naval exercises the Northern Fleet’s forces will drill the evacuation of the submarine staff from a submarine in distress through the torpedo launcher with the assistance of the search-and-rescue forces, the preparation of an emergency chamber of the submarine to surfacing and the bringing of the submarine staff in the emergency chamber, the leaving of a submarine in distress in the surface position by its staff amid the threat to the submarine with the use of individual and collective rescue equipment, as well as the search-and-rescue operation for people in trouble in the sea. The medical aid to injured and affected people, the medical recompression and decompression of the submariners, the search and rescue of people in the water by the naval aviation of the fleet, underwater technical works to help a submarine in distress lying on the sea bottom by the divers together with remotely controlled unmanned deepwater submersibles.
“The Russian Navy did not conduct such large-scale search-and-rescue exercises with the practical drilling of the broadest range of tasks in its modern history,” the Russian naval spokesman underlined.