MURMANSK, June 18. /TASS/. The Northern Fleet’s search and rescue forces entered the Motovsky Bay in the Barents Sea to practice providing assistance to a submarine in distress during drills, the Fleet’s press office reported on Thursday.
"The Northern Fleet’s search and rescue forces are practicing special tactical exercises to search for and provide assistance to a submarine lying on the seabed," the press office said in a statement.
"The exercise is traditionally being held in the Eina Gulf of the Motovsky Bay in the Barents Sea near the Sredny Peninsula. The exercise involves 10 combat and support ships, including the diesel-electric submarine Kaluga that is simulating a sub in distress lying on the seabed," the statement says.
The drills also involve the rescue vessel Mikhail Rudnitsky with an AS-34 autonomous deep-submergence rescue vehicle, the rescue tug Nikolai Chiker, the hydrographic boat Nikolai Timoshenko, diving boats, harbor tugs and drone aircraft, the press office specified.
During the drills, the Northern Fleet will check the system of exercising command and control of its multiservice forces from the regional defense center when carrying out a rescue operation and assess the search and rescue forces’ readiness for their designated operations. For safety purposes, all underwater works and training episodes with the involvement of the personnel will be practiced at a depth of no more than 40 meters.
"The drills consist of two stages that are divided into seven separate episodes. At the first stage, the main attention will be paid to the search for a submarine in distress lying on the seabed and also to the search for and the rescue of submariners who have independently come to the sea surface through torpedo tubes. The rescue vessel Mikhail Rudnitsky will set up a field hospital to admit rescued sailors and render them medical assistance," the press office said.
The second stage of the drills will be devoted to the exercise of docking the AS-34 submersible through the coaming platform to the submarine lying on the seabed, evacuating the submariners and lifting the sub to the surface, the press office explained.