Soviet submarine K-219

''K-219'' was a Project 667A ''Navaga''-class ballistic missile submarine ( NATO reporting name Yankee I) of the Soviet Navy. It carried 16 R-27U liquid-fuel missiles powered by UDMH with nitrogen tetroxide (NTO), and equipped with either 32 or 48 nuclear warheads.
''K-219'' was involved in what has become one of the most controversial submarine incidents during the Cold War on Friday 3 October 1986. The 15-year-old vessel, which was on an otherwise routine Cold War nuclear deterrence patrol in the North Atlantic northeast of Bermuda, suffered an explosion and fire in a missile tube. While underway a submerged seal in a missile hatch cover failed, allowing high-pressure seawater to enter the missile tube and owing to the pressure differential rupture the missile fuel tanks, allowing missile's liquid fuel to mix and ultimately combust. Though there was no official announcement, the Soviet Union claimed the leak was caused by a collision with the submarine .
Although ''Augusta'' was operating within the area, both the United States Navy and the commander of ''K-219'', Captain Second Rank Igor Britanov, deny that a collision took place.

The incident was novelized in the book ''Hostile Waters'', which reconstructed the incident from descriptions by the survivors, ships' logs, the official investigations, and participants both ashore and afloat from the Soviet and the American sides.

Explosion

Shortly after 0530 Moscow time, seawater leaking into silo six of ''K-219'' reacted with missile fuel, producing chlorine and nitrogen dioxide gases and sufficient heat to explosively decompose additional fuming nitric acid to produce more nitrogen dioxide gas. ''K-219'' weapons officer Alexander Petrachkov attempted to deal with this by disengaging the hatch cover and venting the missile tube to the sea. Shortly after 0532, an explosion occurred in the silo. ''K-219'' had previously experienced a similar event; one of her missile tubes was already disabled and welded shut, having been permanently sealed after an explosion caused by reaction between seawater leaking into the silo and missile fuel residue.

An article in ''Undersea warfare'' by Captain First Rank, Igor Kurdin, Russian Navy – ''K-219''s previous XO ( executive officer) – and Lieutenant Commander Wayne Grasdock, USN described the explosion occurrence as follows:

Two sailors were killed outright in the explosion, and a third died soon afterward from toxic gas poisoning. Through a breach in the hull, the vessel immediately started taking on sea water, quickly sinking from its original depth of to eventually reach a depth in excess of . Sealing all of the compartments and full engagement of the sea water pumps in the stricken compartments enabled the depth to be stabilised.

Up to 25 sailors were trapped in a sealed section, and it was only after a conference with his incident specialists that the Captain allowed the Chief Engineer to open the hatch and save the 25 lives. It could be seen from instruments that although the nuclear reactor should have automatically been shut down, it was not. Lt. Nikolai Belikov, one of the reactor control officers, entered the reactor compartment but ran out of oxygen after turning just one of the four rod assemblies on the first reactor. Twenty-year-old enlisted seaman Sergei Preminin then volunteered to shut down the reactor by following the instructions of the Chief Engineer. Working with a full-face gas mask, he successfully shut down the reactor. A large fire had developed within the compartment, raising the pressure. When Preminin tried to reach his comrades on the other side of a door, the pressure difference prevented him from opening it, and he died of asphyxiation in the reactor compartment.For his actions, Sergei Preminin was posthumously awarded the title '' Hero of the Russian Federation.''

In a nuclear safe condition, and with sufficient stability to allow it to surface, Captain Britanov surfaced ''K-219'' on battery power alone. He was then ordered to have the ship towed by a Soviet freighter back to her home port of Gadzhiyevo, away. Although a towline was attached, towing attempts were unsuccessful, and after subsequent poison gas leaks into the final aft compartments and against orders, Britanov ordered the crew to evacuate onto the towing ship, but remained aboard ''K-219'' himself.

Displeased with Britanov's inability to repair his submarine and continue his patrol, Moscow ordered Valery Pshenichny, ''K-219'' security officer, to assume command, transfer the surviving crew back to the submarine, and return to duty. Before those orders could be carried out the flooding reached a point beyond recovery and on 6 October 1986 the ''K-219'' sank to the bottom of the Hatteras Abyssal Plain at a depth of about 6,000 m (18,000 ft). Britanov abandoned ship shortly before the sinking. ''K-219'' full complement of nuclear weapons was lost along with the vessel.

Aftermath

Preminin was posthumously awarded the Order of the Red Star for his bravery in securing the reactors. Britanov was charged with negligence, sabotage, and treason. He was never imprisoned, but waited for his trial in Sverdlovsk. On 30 May 1987, Defense Minister Sergey Sokolov was dismissed as a result of the Mathias Rust incident two days earlier, and replaced by Dmitry Yazov; the charges against Britanov were subsequently dismissed.

In popular culture

In 1997, the British BBC
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