#7 - RW 273
gazeta.ru
September 11, 2003
Admiral sacked for K159 sub disaster

Admiral Gennady Suchkov has been suspended from his post as commander of the Russian Northern Fleet after the deaths of the K-159 submarine crew in the Barents Sea on August 30, navy commander-in-chief Vladimir Kuroyedov said on Thursday. A decree to that effect was signed by President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday evening, the presidential press-service reported.

President Vladimir Putin suspended the head of Russia's Northern Fleet over the August 30 sinking of a decommissioned K-159 nuclear submarine in the Barents Sea, the Kremlin said on Thursday. A Kremlin spokesman said Admiral Gennady Suchkov had been ''temporarily relieved of his duties'' by a presidential decree pending the probe into the disaster in which nine submariners died.

Navy commander-in-chief Vladimir Kuroyedov told journalists that the sinking of the K-159 could have been prevented. ''It would have been quite possible to avoid this tragedy if everyone on the spot, from the command of the towing operation to the command of the fleet, had fulfilled requirements and instructions,'' he said.

''The fleet leadership did not check the worthiness of the submarine for towing and the organisation (of the operation),'' Kuroyedov said.

Earlier Russian Defence Minister Sergei Ivanov blamed the loss of the sub on the habitual negligence of the military, which decided to tow the vessel despite adverse weather warnings.

The K-159, a former attack submarine, decommissioned back in 1989, sank in a gale in the Barents Sea on the morning of August 30, as it was being towed along the Kola Peninsula. Nine of the ten crewmen were killed; rescuers retrieved the bodies of two of them from the 10-degree Celsius waters. One sailor, Lieutenant Maxim Tsibulsky, was rescued and admitted to a Northern Fleet hospital in Severomorsk.

On the following day Russian Defence Minister Sergei Ivanov visited the surviving sailor in hospital, and assured him that the crew was not to blame. At the same time, the top defence official lashed out at those in charge of the operation, blaming a Russian habit of ''relying on mere chance'' and the lax attitude of navy chiefs for the sinking of the submarine.

The submarine was being towed to a scrap yard when the floating hulls supporting it broke loose in a fierce storm. The sub went down three miles (five km) northwest of Kildin Island. Navy sources were quoted as saying they had not been attached properly.

Navy commanders assured the defence minister that radiation levels where the K-159 sank were normal – both nuclear reactors were shut down in 1989 when the vessel was decommissioned. However, independent environmentalists have already voiced concern over the situation, warning of a possible radiation leak that could contaminate fishing areas.

The K-159 disaster brought back painful memories of the Kursk submarine tragedy in the same seas in August 2000 when 118 servicemen were killed. Kuroyedov said on Thursday an operation to raise the K-159 would begin next summer.

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