MOSCOW, August 6 (RIA Novosti military commentator Viktor Litovkin) - The rescue operation of the trapped Russian Navy submersible with seven sailors onboard continues in the Berezovaya Bay off the Kamchatka southern coast.
British and American planes have already brought Super Scorpio robotic undersea vehicles to Kamchatka. The vehicles are to help the Russian Navy cut the thick cables retaining at a depth of 200 meters the AS-28 submersible and an undersea coastguard station whose antenna caught on the mini-submarine's body.
The Navy said that this station hampered the rescue of the AS-28 crew. Huge anchors and ten-centimeter cables are holding the 60-ton station, which is also called sonar, on the seabed. The submersible weighs 55 tons. Even if its crew tried to blow the ballast tanks with compressed air in order to resurface they failed to overcome the emergency.
The Pacific Fleet lacks undersea gear to cut thick steel cables at a depth of 200 meters. Two Russian rescue vessels failed to raise the submersible and the sonar from the seabed. The sonar was pulled a few meters but its anchors again caught on the rocks. The aid of British and American colleagues who offered their undersea robots came in good time.
A Super Scorpio is a small unmanned remotely operated vehicle with a sonar, powerful searchlights, a TV camera and two robotic arms which can cut steel underwater. The device is capable of diving 1,525 meters.
CNN said that a third U.S. underwater vehicle, called Deep Drone 8000, was to leave from Andrews Air Force Base for Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky. This device is designed for deeper operations than Super Scorpio vehicles, the U.S. Navy said. Deep Drone consists of a sonar, a digital camera and two remotely operated handling system which can use different instruments underwater.
In Belle Chasse, Louisiana, a marine services company sent deep-sea diving suits and a diving crew on board a military plane, the U.S. Navy official spokesman told the Fox TV company.
It will take at least six hours to unload the three Super Scorpios and multi-ton additional equipment from the planes, bring them to the Berezovaya Bay, load into the special Kozmin vessel and adjust the devices before launching the rescue operation, said the U.S. naval air base at North Island near San Diego, California.
The U.S. and British rescuers will also have to inspect meteorological and hydrographic conditions at the rescue site and get detailed information about the seabed and structure of the Russian sonar. This information is classified and not disclosed to foreigners.
In this case, the information will be given to the U.S. and British rescuers that proves that the trust between our countries is growing and that human life is becoming more important for the Russian state and military leadership than any secrets.
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov flew to Kamchatka on Saturday problems instead of Chief of the General Staff Yury Baluyevsky, currently in Washington.
The air supply is running out in the trapped submersible. The Pacific Fleet said that the crew would have enough air by 3 a.m. Moscow time, August 7. All the seven AS-28 crewmen will be hopefully rescued by that time.
