K 219 submarine. Secret disaster in the Sargasso Sea. Restoring the balance of power in the world

I first heard about this submarine, like most of my compatriots, on October 4, 1986 in the evening program Vremya, in which the TASS message was read:

“On the morning of October 3, a fire occurred in one of the compartments on a Soviet nuclear submarine with ballistic missiles on board in an area approximately 1000 km northeast of Bermuda. The crew of the submarine and the approaching Soviet ships are eliminating the consequences of the fire.

There are casualties on board the submarine. Three people died. The commission came to the conclusion that there is no danger of unauthorized actions of weapons, a nuclear explosion or radioactive contamination of the environment.”

Such a message, until recently, was completely impossible. It became clear to me that the glasnost proclaimed by the 27th Congress was beginning to bear its fruits, which were still modest. What happened, 1000 kilometers from Bermuda, was completely unclear.

At the end of October, a meeting of mechanical engineers was held at the Dzerzhinsky School, under the leadership of the Deputy Civil Command of the Navy, Admiral Novikov. Soon after the meeting, I went to the CEE department and Borya Markitantov, according to the flagship mechanic who took part in the investigation of the disaster, told me the details of the death of the submarine that sank on October 6 in the Sargasso Sea.

This Submarine, built in 1971 according to project 667A and modernized in 1975 according to project 667AU. According to NATO classification "Yankee".
Tactical number K-219, overhauled in 1980.

On September 3, 1986, the K-219 SSBN left its home port of Gadzhievo and headed west to the US coast to carry out patrol duty with 15 nuclear missiles on board. (1)

This was the cruiser's thirteenth combat service. Route K-219 ran across the Atlantic Ocean to east coast USA, where the submarine was supposed to conduct combat patrols awaiting a signal to use weapons. It was planned that this trip would be the last for K-219. After returning, the boat was to be written off. But fate decreed otherwise.

Before going to sea, the crew of K-219 was formed hastily. “In preparation for going to sea on the K-219, 12 officers out of 32 were replaced, including the senior assistant and assistant commander, commanders of the missile and mine-torpedo combat units, the head of the radio engineering service, the ship’s doctor, the commander of the electrical division, 4 commanders compartments Of the 38 midshipmen, 12 were replaced, including both foremen of the missile warhead-2 teams" (2)

Even before going to sea, the commander of the BC-2, Alexander Petrachkov, assigned to the campaign, knew about a small leak in the seawater pipeline valve of missile silo No. 6. But he did not take sufficient measures to eliminate the malfunction. Fearing liability for the return of the SSBN (3) to the base for repairs and the disruption of combat service, he did not report the malfunction to the commander, and turned off the alarm for the presence of water in the missile silo.

On September 25, 1986, after turning the valves of the missile silos, by mistake, the irrigation valve along the silo remained not completely closed. Due to a leak in the seawater pipeline valve, seawater first filled the pipeline and then began flowing into shaft number 6 through the irrigation valve, gradually filling it.

On October 3, the nuclear submarine, at a depth of 85 meters, when No. 2 was ready, performed a maneuver to determine whether it was being tracked by an American boat. To do this, she increased her speed to 25 knots, and sailed at this speed for some time. (If there is an American boat on the tail, it will also have to gain the same speed and, at this time, will not hear the noise of the Soviet boat’s propellers.)

Before the end of the maneuver, shaft No. 6 turned out to be completely filled with sea water, and the outboard pressure of 8.5 atmospheres compressed the rocket body.
At 5:30 a.m., rocket crews started pumps to drain the mine. The release of pressure led to a sharp straightening of the compressed rocket body, and the oxidizer tank simply cracked. The aggressive and very toxic liquid instantly penetrated into the mine, forming nitric acid, which destroyed the pipelines of the rocket and the mine.

At 5:32, when the annular gap (3) was drained and the pumps were stopped, the BC-2 watch discovered smoke coming from the missile silo, the first sign that a corrosive oxidizer had entered the silo

The commander of the fourth compartment, Alexander Petrachkov, seeing smoke coming from the mine, declared an emergency alarm and gave the command to everyone not occupied at combat posts to leave the 4th compartment, and the rest to put on insulating gas masks.

A timely given and executed command saved the lives of five dozen people listening to political information in the personnel canteen

Correctly assessing the situation, the commander gave the command to surface to a depth at which it was possible to fill the shaft with water and fire the missile by emergency starting the main engines. But they didn’t have time to do this.

At 5:37, 15 tons of a mixture of oxidizer and rocket fuel in the 6th silo caused a powerful explosion, destroying the rocket and the pressure hull in the area of ​​the rocket deck. From all other mines, emergency signals were received at the central post.

The products of the explosion penetrated into the missile compartment, turning into an extremely toxic fog that was fatal to people.
Two BC-2 sailors, who failed to put on their gas masks, instantly lost consciousness. Alexander Petrachkov managed to put on his gas mask, but he wore a beard, which is why the mask did not fit tightly to his face. He also lost consciousness.

Water entered through a hole in the middle of the submarine's hull. K-219 fell from a depth of 40 to 350 meters. The commander of the warhead-5 reacted instantly and ordered high-pressure air to blow out the ballast tanks. At the same time, the submarine commander increased the speed to perform an emergency ascent.

At 5:39:40. The nuclear submarine K-219 jumped to the surface of the water. The struggle for the survivability of the ship began.
According to readiness number 2, which was before the accident, only one reactor was operating. After an emergency ascent, the commander ordered the second reactor to be started.

The submarine commander ordered the navigator to send a distress signal to fleet headquarters.
7:37 The personnel of Warhead-5 commissioned the second reactor. The situation was improving.

Steam was supplied to the turbine, and the boat could surface under its own power. They reported this to Moscow. The answer was clear: the crew should remain aboard the submarine and wait for help from Soviet cargo ships.

Attempts to ventilate the emergency compartment had no effect.
17:15. Trying to get rid of the remaining rocket fuel in the emergency missile silo, they started the emergency drain pump of the oxidizer from silo No. 6 and turned on the irrigation pump.

This was impossible to do. Since sea water and the remains of explosion products flowed from the damaged pipeline onto the electrical panels
A fire broke out in the fourth compartment. Brown smoke came out of the hold again.

They gave the signal “Emergency!” The pumps were stopped and the fourth compartment was de-energized. But in the 4th compartment the fire flared up more and more.

17:20. The commander of the nuclear submarine, Captain 2nd Rank Britanov, ordered the evacuation of the personnel of the 4th compartment to the 6th compartment, and ordered the head of the medical service, Igor Kochergin, and two of his subordinates to remain in the fifth compartment and receive sailors from the emergency compartment.

In order not to gas the fifth compartment, increased pressure was created in it. Igor Kochergin was wearing a portable breathing device (PRD), which lasts ten minutes. He began to assist the sailors removed from the emergency compartment. The doctor gave them injections directly through their wet clothes, slippery from combustion products and water.

When he saw that one of the victims had run out of remote control and was suffocating, he switched to an insulating gas mask (IP-46) and gave his remote control to the patient.
14 people were rescued from the 4th compartment. Three dead were found - the commander of the warhead-2, Alexander Petrachkov, and the sailors Nikolai Smaglyuk and Igor Kharchenko.

The sealed bulkheads were battened down, but the resulting nitric acid gradually corroded the rubber seals of the bulkheads to the bow and stern of the 4th compartment. The fire extinguishing gas of the LOX system was introduced into the burning compartment.

But the fire spread along the cable routes further into the fifth compartment, visibility deteriorated, and it was incredibly hot. It was very difficult for the doctors to transport the unconscious sailor, a strong man with a considerable weight in wet clothes, slippery from the oxidizer!

But they pulled the victim into the next compartment, where he was given further assistance. At this moment, the resource of the ship's doctor's IP-46 expired. Kochergin worked intensely in it for about 50 minutes, pulling out the victims, performing chest compressions, and making injections.

Feeling that he was suffocating, he motioned for his comrades to give him a spare regenerative cartridge. At the same time, he took off his gas mask to help another victim using mouth-to-mouth breathing.

When switching the IP-46 cartridge, I myself took several breaths of terrible poisonous air. But, having recharged the gas mask, it continued to work.
Due to toxic fumes, the boat was actually divided into two independent halves.

18.50. The emergency protection of the starboard reactor was activated. But the compensating grids did not automatically lower, most likely due to the fact that the cable routes in the fourth compartment were burned out. Due to a power outage, the compensating grids that stop the reactor remained in the up position.

Soon, the thermometer of the cooling system of the VM-4 nuclear reactor showed a sharp increase in the temperature of the distillate of the primary circuit of the reactor, foreshadowing the possibility of a meltdown of the reactor core.

An attempt to shut down the reactor from the control panel failed, and this could only be done manually, resulting in a significant dose of radioactive radiation.

At 20.45, an emergency party consisting of the commander of the reactor compartment, senior lieutenant Nikolai Belikov, and special hold sailor Sergei Preminin is sent to the reactor compartment with the task of manually lowering the compensating grids.

It was extremely difficult to work in a gas mask when the air temperature in the reactor enclosure was more than 70 °C. Moreover, the guide bars of the grilles bent due to the heat. When Belikov, with the help of Perminin, was able to lower three of the four compensating bars, he began to lose consciousness.

Sailor Preminin helped Belikov out of the compartment and continued his unfinished work. He had to enter the reactor baffle twice before he could lower the last, fourth compensating grid. The reactor was completely shut down.

Sergei Preminin reported via intercom to the central post that the reactor had been shut down, but he was unable to escape.
Due to the fire, the pressure in the reactor compartment increased, and neither he himself nor the sailors from the eighth compartment were able, and did not have the right, to open the bulkhead door. Because when trying to equalize the pressure between the compartments, black, toxic smoke came out of the ventilation hole.

As the fire develops, moving from the compartment, the personnel of the aft compartments are evacuated to the 10th compartment.

At 21 o'clock, the first ship of the Ministry of the Navy, "Fedor Bredikhin", approached the K-219, and half an hour later two more Soviet ships. The request of the commander of K-219 was transmitted to the ships to take on board the bodies of three dead and evacuate nine particularly injured, among them the head of the medical service, Lieutenant Kochergin. To ensure evacuation, the boat began to drift

At 23:30, the protection of the port side reactor was reset, and it was shut down by all standard absorbers. The installation is switched to cooling mode.
At 23:35, assessing the extent of the damage, K-219 commander I.A. Britanov, without waiting for instructions from the fleet headquarters, gave the order to evacuate the crew to the ship "Fedor Bredikhin".

The evacuation of personnel ended on October 4 at 02:20. Only the ship's commander, the commander of the warhead-5, the first mate, the assistant and the head of the chemical service remained on the submarine's bridge.

At 03:10, after receiving permission from the commander of the Northern Fleet to evacuate, all officers except the commander left the boat. The commander was left alone on board.

Standing on the bridge, he showed that the ship had not been abandoned by the crew and maintained extraterritoriality.
Moreover, an American tugboat appeared in the area of ​​the accident and a nuclear submarine surfaced.

As the morning approached on October 4, an emergency team from the crew landed on the submarine. The submarine was inspected and it was determined that the fire in the missile compartments was still ongoing.

On October 5, at 13:10, Tu-95 strategic bombers, arriving from Kaliningrad, dropped emergency containers onto the water. But almost all protective IDA-59 had empty cylinders, and VHF radio stations did not have batteries.

The headquarters of the USSR Navy reported that the nuclear submarine K-219 needed to be towed to the base, to its place of permanent deployment.
The nuclear submarine was supposed to be towed by the bulk carrier Krasnogvardeysk, but its towing cable was not suitable due to its small diameter and insufficient length.

Then, the anchor chain was manually dragged from bow to stern, carried twice around the coaming of the aft hold and connected with a bracket, forming a towing hook. Two towing ropes from the Anatoly Vasilyev and Galileo Galilei were secured to it.

For 10 hours, the Soviet cargo ship towed the damaged boat, with a rescue crew of 9 people on board, to the east. The towing speed was limited to 3 - 4 knots, but the improvised cable held the load. But at this rate, it will take several months, or even a year, to get to the base. But an order is an order.

However, at about 2 a.m. on October 6, almost exactly in the middle, the tow rope snapped. At that time, the American submarine Augusta was nearby, and there is an assumption that it was she who broke the cable by ramming it with her conning tower.

At 08:30 on October 6, the missile compartments of the drifting submarine began to quickly fill with water. At 10:44, the emergency crew, having tied a life raft to the boat, was taken on board the lifeboat. The commander remained on K-219,

At 10:55, when the cutting fence reached the water level. The commander of the missile submarine gave a red flare and moved to the life raft, and was soon on the deck of the Krasnogvardeysk.

And only then were they able to reach him with a strange order from the Navy headquarters: “Due to the impossibility of further towing, disembark the crew on the cruiser and proceed under their own power to the nearest port of the Soviet Union.”

At 11:03 Moscow time, the boat sank in the Sargasso Sea at a depth of 5,500 meters, taking with it the body of sailor Preminin, two nuclear reactors and 14 missiles with nuclear warheads.

The crew was first transported to Cuba, and from there by plane to Moscow.
I learned about the subsequent development of events much later.

Another 4 people died from the consequences of poisoning with rocket fuel components:
captain 2nd rank Krasilnikov I., captain 3rd rank Markov V.,
captain-lieutenant Karpachev V., foreman 1st article Sadauskas R.

The submarine commander, captain 2nd rank Britanov, was expelled from the party and transferred to the reserve, without the right to wear a military uniform, under the article of service inconsistency.
In 1987, under the new Minister of Defense of the USSR Dmitry Yazov, captain 2nd rank Britanov was cleared of all charges, and sailor Preminin was posthumously awarded the Order of the Red Star.

In August 1997, for preventing a nuclear disaster at the cost of his life, Sergei Preminin was awarded the title “Hero of the Russian Federation.”

In 1998, the Minister of Defense canceled the wording of the transfer to the reserve due to service inadequacy of the K-219 commander, captain 2nd rank V.I. Britanova.

Note:
(1) SSBN - strategic missile submarine cruiser. The 16th missile silo of nuclear submarine No. 213 was shut down due to an accident that occurred on August 31, 1973.
(2) From the subsequent findings of the commission investigating the disaster
(3) Annular gap - the space between the rocket and the walls of the shaft

The fatal number is 13... 27 years ago, in October 1986, the RPK SN "K-219" of project 667AU "Nalim" (NATO - "Yankee") did not return from its 13th cruise... It was the first missile carrier to receive the status of "submarine" strategist" and became the founder of a whole series of strategic submarines, up to the hulk.

Subsequently, various incidents occurred with the ships of this series (such as the Kalmar hitting the ground), but what happened in the Sargasso Sea with the K-219 could well have turned into an environmental and political disaster - due to an explosion in missile silo No. 6 a submarine with two reactors and fifteen nuclear missiles on board lay on the ground! And this is just six months after the Chernobyl tragedy and even on the eve of the meeting between Gorbachev and Reagan in Reykjavik!

Place of death of K-219

At the cost of the life of the special hold sailor Sergei Preminin, the tragedy was averted - when it became clear that after the emergency protection at one of the reactors was triggered, the compensating grids froze and did not lock onto the end stops (which threatened a thermal explosion), he and the commander of the special hold group, Senior Lieutenant N. Belikov went to reactor hell.

The last time Sergei left alone, he managed to lower the last grate and get to the bulkhead door, but... Due to the pressure difference, the door jammed, and Sergei no longer had the strength to pull the pin, turn the valve and thereby equalize the pressure . And at this time, in the adjacent, eighth compartment, senior midshipman V. Ezhov and two sailors tried to open the jammed door using a sliding stop. In vain - the trap slammed shut... In addition to Sergei, three more people died: the commander of the warhead-2, captain 3rd rank A. Petrachkov and sailors N. Smaglyuk and I. Kharchenko.

Sergey Preminin

After an almost daily unsuccessful struggle for survivability, the commander of the boat, Captain 2nd Rank Igor Britanov, ordered the second reactor to be shut down and the crew evacuated to approaching Soviet ships. He himself remained on the bridge - with a Makarov pistol and a rocket launcher in the pockets of the “Canadian”.

The fact is that a foreign submarine was constantly circling next to the dying Soviet submarine (as it later turned out, it was the American hunter-submarine Augusta of the Los Angeles class under the command of James Vaughn Suskil), and the US Navy tugboat Pauhatan persistently offered his services to tow the damaged submarine to the nearest American base - Norfolk.

US Navy tug USS Pauhatan

Igor Britanov understood perfectly well that even if he left the dying ship, the Americans would immediately take it in tow - abandoned by the crew, it would be considered “ownerless,” and as long as there was at least one person left on the ship, they would not dare to do this. Or maybe he himself was going to go to the bottom with his ship? Who knows…

Britanov could not help but understand that by his action he had put an end to his military career and secured a place for himself on the bunk: of course, he surfaced in close proximity to the enemy coast, stopped the struggle for survivability, evacuated the crew and thereby “ruined” the multimillion-dollar ship!

Meanwhile, during daylight hours, an emergency party was still landing on the sinking boat, and an attempt was even made to start a tow rope from the Krasnogvardeysk motor ship. And it turned out to be successful - on October 5 at 18.20 the unusual caravan began moving. Only Moscow’s order to move to Gadzhievo amazed the submariners: with such a move and in such weather conditions? Why not to Cuba? Apparently, the Soviet leadership did not really trust their “class brothers” either...

Igor Britanov on the deck of a submarine in distress

And the enemy periscope was moving closer and closer at high speed near the boat and the tow rope. Finally, on October 6 at 06.18, Britanov saw him move across the caravan and aim between the stern of the Krasnogvardeysk and the bow of the K-219, where the slack cable was located! The depth of the sag reached 270 meters, and Von Suskil could not be afraid of collisions with ships. And he knew that if he even lightly touched the tightly stretched cable during circulation, it would burst, causing minimal damage to his boat. His calculation was justified - the cable burst!

Britanov understood: this is the end, the boat can no longer be saved. The emergency party was sent to the Krasnogvardeysk, and Igor Britanov, faithful to the honor of a naval officer and his commanding duty, remained on the dying ship until the last moment. Only when the water approached the bridge did he move into the life raft and begin rowing towards the Krasnogvardeysk. At 11.03 on October 6, 1986, with a farewell flash of its propellers, “K-219” went on its last dive...

And then - hospitable Havana, far from hospitable Moscow, a 9-month investigation and the conclusion - the culprits are: the deceased Petrachkov (the dead have no shame?), the commander of the warhead-5 I. Krasilnikov and, of course, the commander of the submarine I. Britanov. Both were 8 years old, but... By this time, Matthias Rust had landed his Cessna on the main square of the country, and the new USSR Minister of Defense Dmitry Yazov was faced with a dilemma: who to punish - Britanov, a hero in the eyes of the whole world, or the generals, who made the country a laughing stock?

As a result, Britanov and Krasilnikov were released from criminal punishment (without removing the blame for the death of the ship), but they were expelled from the party and fired from the fleet. As is our custom: punish the innocent, reward the innocent...

Members of Britanov's crew who participated in the campaign in September-October 1986 and people who helped rescue the crew.

But were there any culprits? Were. Who? The answer lies on the surface: staff officers at all levels - from the division to the Navy Commander-in-Chief. Why them?

1. The accident occurred due to the entry of sea water into missile silo No. 6. Did you know about this? Of course they did. During the control exit before the fateful march, none other than the flagship rocket officer of the division headquarters ordered to turn off the emergency signal “Water in shaft No. 6” and organize the drainage of dirty water into the tank of the 4th compartment. Moreover, according to Alexander Pokrovsky, this mine was in disrepair already in 1979! year, when his crew went to K-219 for combat service.

2. What was the need to send a crew to sea who had just spent 3 grueling months in autonomy and was in dire need of rest? And everything is very simple - it was necessary to replace an SSBN in combat service with a faulty missile armament. Just like that - a faulty ship is exchanged... for one that is also faulty!

3. And most importantly, the crew was supplemented with assigned personnel by 35%, according to the most conservative estimates! But the “Combat Training Course for Nuclear Missile Submarines” clearly states: “ When there is a change of more than 30% of regular personnel, the crew is removed from the line" This means that such a crew is considered uncombat ready and, in order to restore first-line duty, must fully work out and hand over the course tasks to the division headquarters and its commander in full (L-1, L-2, L-3).

And they made (precisely made!) Britanov guilty.

Unexpected help came from... the Americans: the honor of a naval officer who sacrificed his career to save the crew was helped to be restored by Peter Huchthausen and Robert Alan White, who co-authored with the Russian submariner Igor Kurdin the book “Hostile Waters”, unprecedented in its kindness and honesty, as the main characters which became Igor Britanov, RPK SN "K-219" and its crew. In this book they did not hide the shameful, pirate role of the American nuclear submarine Augusta in the death of the Soviet missile carrier.

…This sad story has a rather unexpected continuation: Russian submariner, captain 1st rank I. Britanov sued Hollywood for using facts from his life in the film without his consent and won! The Dream Factory had to pay him a decent amount, the amount of which the captain modestly keeps silent about.

And I would like to end with a quote from the book “Hostile Waters”: “... After the reception (August 4, 1998, the officers' club of the US Naval Academy in Annapolis - author), one of those present made his way to the Russian commander and, firmly shaking his hand, quietly said: “I am from the Augusta crew.” I was on board then. Please accept my apologies...” And before Britanov could answer, he quickly stepped aside, getting lost in the crowd…»

P.S. As you may have noticed, I practically did not cover either the beginning of the accident or its development. Yes, this was not part of my task. I wanted to talk about the Commander's feat. Commander with a capital K. I hope I succeeded in this at least to a small extent. You can read about the accident on the Internet; a lot has been written about it. Just I beg you, don’t read Wiki - when I read it, I didn’t know whether to swear or laugh.

Read better book"Hostile Waters" or watch documentary“K-219. The Last March" - both are available on the Internet. But I didn’t dare watch the film “Hostile Waters” - knowing how the “masters” from the Hollywood show interpret the historical truth ( the director of the film K-19, Katherine Beglow, bluntly stated to the film’s consultant, Captain 1st Rank Sergei Aprelev, in response to the remark that this is not true, that this does not happen on submarines: “I don’t care about your truth, I need a spectacle.”), did not want to spoil the impression of the book.

October 3, 1986 at Atlantic Ocean A ballistic missile exploded in one of the silos of the K-219 submarine. Three days later, after a long struggle to save the submarine, it sank at a depth of 5,500 m.

Most of the crew were saved. Events surrounding the boat could have caused serious international conflict.

K-219 was a Project 667A Navaga strategic nuclear submarine, which was later modernized under Project 667AU Nalim. She was launched on December 31, 1971. The submarine, 128 m long and 12 m wide, carried on board 16 torpedoes (two of them with nuclear warheads) and 16 RSM-25U ballistic nuclear missiles with three warheads each. The maximum diving depth of the boat was 450 m.

During its operation, the K-219 regularly experienced incidents related to missile launchers. On August 31, 1973, water entered shaft No. 15. At that time, leaks of rocket fuel (nitrogen tetroxide) were quite common, and water reacted with it to form nitric acid. As a result, an explosion occurred. One person died and the mine was completely flooded. After the incident, missile silo No. 15 was taken out of use, the missile was removed, and the cover was tightly welded to the body. Also in 1986, as a result of a malfunction of the launcher after an exercise, the submarine was forced to return to base on the surface in a force 8 storm.

On September 4, 1986, K-219 set off on its last voyage from its home port of Gadzhievo. According to the plan, the submarine was supposed to patrol the US coast. The commander of the submarine was captain 2nd rank Igor Britanov. Due to tight deadlines, the crew was unable to complete all planned repair work in preparing the nuclear submarine for the upcoming voyage. In particular, it turned out that missile silo No. 6 was leaking, but there was no time left to fix the problem. The system signaling the entry of water into the mine was also turned off.

Shortly after the dive in the Barents Sea, a leak opened in missile silo No. 6, but commander Britanov was not informed about this. Excess water was simply drained with hoses twice a day.

This could solve the problem if the submarine simply moved at medium depths without sudden dives and course changes. But Soviet submarines moved completely differently.

The fact is that due to sound distortion and noise caused by the rotating propeller, it is almost impossible to use sonar to detect objects located behind the stern of the submarine. This was often used by American submarines, following Soviet submarines at some distance, to the right of the boat's axis. This way they could constantly be in the “dead zone” of the Soviet sonar. Therefore, Soviet nuclear submarines often used a tactical maneuver, which in the USA was called “Crazy Ivan”. Performing such a maneuver, the submarine constantly changes its depth and course until it turns around in order to check the “dead zone” with sonars.

Sometimes such maneuvers could lead to a collision between submarines.

It was during such a maneuver that shaft No. 6 was completely depressurized. Attempts to pump out the water were unsuccessful. It was urgent to surface so that the pressure at depth would not destroy the rocket in the shaft. But there was not enough time to surface. The explosion destroyed the outer wall of the submarine's pressure hull and the plutonium warheads of the missile. A stream of water poured into the hull through the hole, and the nuclear submarine “sank” to a depth of 350 m. As a result of the reaction of water and rocket fuel, poisonous gases began to flow into the submarine. Captain Britanov decided to blow out all the tanks in order to get rid of ballast water and at the same time start the submarine’s propellers for emergency ascent.

After 2 minutes the nuclear submarine was on the surface.

Feat of a sailor

However, the reactor still had to be shut down. If this had not been done, it is very likely that an atomic explosion of the reactor and all remaining warheads would have occurred in the Atlantic. But the reactor control system from the remote control was destroyed by the explosion. The reactor compartment commander, senior lieutenant, and 20-year-old sailor Sergei Preminin were forced to turn off the reactor manually. The temperature in the compartment reached 70°C. Belikov managed to lower three of the four compensating bars before he lost consciousness. The work was complicated by the fact that the guides bent due to heat. Sergei Preminin entered the cell twice, trying to lower the last, fourth grate. The melting of the core was prevented, but the sailor was no longer able to leave the compartment. Neither he nor the other sailors were able, due to the pressure difference, to open the hatch of the compartment separating the reactor from the control post.

Sergei Preminin was posthumously awarded the Order of the Red Star in 1987.

Several Soviet ships immediately headed to the scene of the accident. It was obvious that the nuclear submarine could not move under its own power and would have to be towed. The tug's mission was to be carried out by the approaching bulk carrier Krasnogvardeysk. Containers with equipment were dropped from two Tu-95 aircraft flying from Kaliningrad. Some of the containers broke when they hit the water, and their contents sank to the bottom. The remaining containers contained self-contained breathing apparatus, but no supply of regenerating cartridges.

Also, Soviet fighters based in Cuba were sent to the accident area, this was done in order to demonstrate the technical ability to protect the K-219 in case of emergency, because the US Navy had already begun to approach the crash site.

During the evacuation of the crew, several incidents involving the American military occurred. The tug Powhatan attempted to intercept a boat with a group of officers led by Commander Britanov and secret documents. Captain Danilkin had to direct the Krasnogvardeysk to an American tug, reporting on the radio that the ship’s steering was faulty. The incident was resolved. Also in the immediate vicinity of the lifeboats of the evacuating crew, the American submarine Augusta (SSN-710) made harassing maneuvers with its periscope raised.

Experts believe that there was an attempt to photograph the contents of boats and rafts.

But it was not possible to tow the damaged submarine. On the night of October 6, for unknown reasons, the towing cable between Krasnogvardeysk and K-219 broke.

The submarine sank to the bottom to a depth of about 5,500 m. There were 30 nuclear warheads on board at the time of the disaster.

Modeling showed that plutonium should not reach the surface of the ocean, since at such depths there is practically no movement of water. But the spread of radiation along the food chain cannot be ruled out.

During the accident on the K-219, the following died: captain 3rd rank A. Petrachkov, rocket sailor N. Smoglyuk, driver I. Kharchenko, sailor S. Preminin. Four more crew members subsequently died. Upon returning to the Soviet Union, Commander Britanov was dismissed from the fleet and awaited trial in Sverdlovsk until May 1987. However, after the change of the USSR Minister of Defense, all charges against him were dropped.

In August 2004, Commander Britanov won a lawsuit against the film company Warner Brothers, which in 1997 made a feature film about the K-219 accident, “Hostile Waters.” The reason for the trial was the use of facts from the biography of a submarine captain in the film.

The cruiser was equipped with third generation naval missiles R-27U (RSM-25, SS-N-6 mod 2/3) with a range of 2500-3000 km. (3000 for a monoblock, 2500 for a MIRV), so the missiles had to be launched from coastal areas.

The struggle to save the submarine lasted 77 hours. The biggest disaster was avoided: both reactors of the submarine were shut down, and 115 of the 119 sailors were saved.

This is the merit of the ship’s commander, Igor Britanov, who, at the end of the Cold War, was not afraid to immediately after the accident give the command for the strategic missile carrier, which was on combat duty, to surface on the surface of the hostile Atlantic. He also dared to turn to foreigners for help. Only for this could he be punished, as, for example, they punished senior lieutenant Nikolai Belikov, who lost his party card at the moment when he and the sailor Preminin shut down the reactor. Belikov was decommissioned from the submarine fleet. Britanov and the commander of the electromechanical unit, Igor Krasilnikov, were expelled from the party and also sent to the reserve. They ordered the disaster to be forgotten like a bad dream.

The investigation continued for many years. Eleven years later, the parents of sailor Preminin were awarded the Star of the Hero of Russia. And the ship’s commander, Igor Britanov, like all the other officers of the cruiser, was not rewarded, but also not punished. “It’s good that they didn’t go to jail,” former submariner Britanov told Izvestia when the long-awaited rehabilitation finally arrived 4 years ago.

The disaster began with a rocket explosion in shaft No. 6.

The mine has been out of order for years. A man who previously sailed on this boat recalls:

Surprisingly, missile silo No. 6, in which the accident occurred, has been faulty, if my memory serves me correctly, since 1979. Our crew went on a long voyage on this boat, and I remember very well the hose with which the sea water entering the mine due to a malfunction of the fittings was drained into the tank with dirty water in the fourth compartment.

Then a representative of the higher headquarters went on a hike with us, who, if anything happened, was supposed to prevent everything. It’s been like this for years: there is a malfunction that threatens the death of people, a representative of the headquarters is boarded, and the boat goes to sea.

I repeat - this is simply amazing.

So they went to sea on the K-219 for seven whole years, until it finally came. This is very similar to the accident with the K-429: the crew was recalled from vacation, they hastily boarded the plane, filling their ranks with people seconded from all over the world, and left to meet their own death.

Why was there a rush, you ask? But because it was urgently necessary to replace another boat, removed from combat service due to a malfunction (note) of the missile weapons. That is, one boat with a faulty missile weapon was replaced by another boat with a faulty missile weapon.

And all this was done by our headquarters.

We have so many headquarters that it’s amazing. And all of them, as they say, were aware of the amazing circumstances in which people went to sea on the K-219 for more than seven years in a row!

They crushed the rocket in shaft No. 6. By the way, at the control output “K-219” it was established (I don’t know for the umpteenth time) that sea water was flowing into shaft No. 6. And what? The flagship specialist, according to eyewitnesses, ordered the team sergeant major to remove the signal “Water in shaft No. 6” - and it was removed, and then with that they left for combat service - great, isn’t it?

And on October 3, far from their native shores, the assistant commander finds almost the entire warhead-2 in the fourth compartment pulling an abnormal hose from shaft No. 6 into the hold, in order to drain water from the shaft. The assistant ordered them to stop this matter and rushed to the police station, where he was caught by an explosion.

Water filled the shaft, and the rocket was crushed by water pressure.

The fuel (let's call it heptyl) and the oxidizer (let's call it nitric acid) combined and created an explosion. Through the destroyed fittings, both oxidizer and fuel began to flow into the compartment. They say that rubber gas masks simply dissolved on their faces. And the fuel is so toxic - don’t worry, mom - it’s ten times more harmful than concentrated nitric acid - how do you like it?

They blew out the ballast, and the boat floated to the surface, and then, while on the surface, it slowly and monotonously filled with water through the uncovered fittings of the missile silo irrigation system.

The state commission, appointed to find out the reasons and punish the perpetrators, found that the culprits in this case were... the ship's crew and the commander Igor Britanov, first of all. Q.E.D. That is, it is not the headquarters - with whose blessing the crew, staffed 35 percent by newcomers, in violation of all guidance documents on combat training, was sent to sea on faulty equipment to carry out combat missions - are to blame for what happened, but the people themselves, who only recently arrived from combat services and pushed by headquarters back to sea.

And only the Minister of Defense, Marshal Yazov, ordered the trial not to begin.

Captain 1st Rank Igor Kudrin, first mate K-219 (just at this exit he remained on the shore - he had to go to study):

Nikolai Malov... tried not to remember even close to the last terrible month, when he, the chief of staff of the nineteenth division, had to equip and prepare five strategic missile carriers for combat service at once!

The plan for entering combat service was carried out at any cost. The pride of the division has always been an iron rule - there is no reason why a boat cannot go on combat patrol. But how this was achieved, few knew. Or didn't you want to know?

Didn't work:

Immediately after the dive, the alarm for the presence of water in shaft No. 6 went off. But Petrachkov and his people got used to this malfunction - it made itself felt many times even at the control exit to the sea.

A leak in one of the valves was discovered,” says the chairman of the St. Petersburg Club of Submariners, Reserve Captain 1st Rank Igor Kurdin, who was the first mate of the K-219 commander for several years. “Unfortunately, there were people who hid this fact, and neither the ship’s command nor the higher-ups knew about it...
In the fourth compartment of K-219, already heading towards the Atlantic, they decided not to panic. No problem, we’ll turn off the alarm system, maybe the valves will rub in, and the sailors will drain the water seeping into the sixth shaft into the hold through a hose. This is what they did for the next 30 days...

In the early morning of October 3, 1986, K-219 was maneuvering in the Sargasso Sea, 480 miles east of Bermuda. At the end of the next communication session, the submarine began to dive to a depth of 85 meters. At this time, water began to stream from under the plug of missile silo No. 6. The situation was reported to the commander of the ship, on whose orders K-219 began to ascend to a depth of 46 meters, and pumps were launched to drain the mine.

When the mine was completely flooded, the R-27 rocket was crushed by the powerful pressure of sea water, which at a depth of 85 meters greatly exceeded the strength of its hull. The rapid draining of the shaft by two powerful pumps led to a sharp straightening of the compressed rocket body, and the tank with the oxidizer simply cracked... The toxic liquid instantly filled the shaft, simultaneously turning into a super-toxic gas, fatal to people.

An emergency alarm was declared on the boat.

And then a fuel tank nearby cracked,” Kurdin continues. - A fusion of components occurred, which led to an explosion.

Someone later said that the roar was comparable to what a person would hear sitting in an empty tank where a grenade was thrown...

Pop up!!!
- Blow out the middle one!!!

Two life-saving orders from commander Britanov and mechanic Krasilnikov sounded simultaneously.

For a Soviet submarine commander to surface near an enemy shore without command permission is like signing his own death warrant. But it is unlikely that at that terrible moment Igor Britanov thought about what awaited him. He needed to save both people and the boat.

Book of memory K-219:

What was the cause of the death of the submarine, which had no significant damage and with all the ship’s systems in working order? The primary source of the emergency was a malfunction of the irrigation valve of the top cover of missile silo No. 6, which was discovered before going to sea, but, as usual, was not eliminated. During 30 days of autonomy, filtration water entered the silo. The commander of the BC-2, Petrachkov, organized the drainage of the mine in an abnormal way, and the alarm sensors were turned off. To prevent the entry of water, the shaft was blown with compressed air, which ultimately led to the depressurization of the rocket fuel tanks and the cap being torn off. After the signal about the accident in shaft No. 6, Petrachkov hid the current situation from the boat commander and asked to surface under the pretext of checking the sensors. During this time, moment and an explosion occurred, causing a fire and breaking the tightness of the pressure hull. Having realized his guilt in what happened, Petrachkov gave the command to the personnel to evacuate, and he himself removed the protective equipment and remained in the compartment. As a result of further inept actions, the crew within 78 hours failed to localize the fire, eliminate the gas contamination of the compartments, did not detect and eliminate the flow of water into the pressure hull, as a result of which the submarine with 16 nuclear missiles on board sank with virtually no damage. Here are the names of the sailors who once again paid with their lives for their own and others’ carelessness:

captain 3rd rank Petrachkov A.V.
sailor Smoglyuk N. L.
sailor Kharchenko I.K.
sailor Preminin S. A.

Subsequently, of the crew members who survived the disaster, the following died:

Captain 3rd Rank Markov V.
Captain-Lieutenant Karpachev V.

During the accident and blackout, control of the reactor was lost, it went into supercritical mode and threatened to explode. It had to be turned off manually.

You may ask: why do you have to shut down the reactor manually and so heroically, and is it possible to do all this in a non-heroic manner - for example, remotely? To this we will only answer you that people have nothing to do with it. All questions are directed to the design and to the designers, that is, we are addressing you to the people who are responsible for the design of a nuclear reactor and for its behavior in a variety of situations.

And the situation in this matter is such that sailor Sergei Preminin certainly had to become a Hero of Russia posthumously. 11 years later, in 1997, he was awarded this high title.

By order of the main command post (GKP), after stopping the reactor, he, as they say, “lowered the absorbers on the lower end switches,” that is, he shut down the reactor manually. After that, he was no longer able to remove the bulkhead door due to the resulting pressure drop.

But the bulkhead door could have been left open. It was possible, but it didn't happen. And no one could help him: in violation of insurance rules, he was sent to this task alone - such sad things.

On October 6, at 11:03 a.m., “K-219” went under water along with sailor Sergei Preminin, imprisoned in the reactor compartment. They say that those who heard his last words in “Chestnut” will not forget it to the end of their lives.

Dying boat K-219, photos from an American plane

Approaching Soviet ships attempted to tow the boat to the USSR or Cuba, but the nearby American submarine Augusta intentionally broke the towing cable with its periscope, which was thrown from the bow of the Soviet boat to the stern of the Krasnogvardeysk.

The commander of the US Navy tugboat "Pauthatan" had the task of obtaining the consent of Russian submariners to tow and deliver the seriously wounded atomic submarine to the nearest American base. Having not received the go-ahead from Britanov, the tugboat began to wait for the sailors to leave their doomed ship. Then the K-219 will turn into ownerless property, and the submarine can be withdrawn without any special international problems. But as long as there was at least a person left on the submarine cruiser, the Pouthatan had no right to land a towing crew on someone else’s ship. One person remained on it - at night, when the rescue party was taken from K-219 to Krasnogvardeysk, so as not to expose people to unnecessary risk.

This man was captain 2nd rank Igor Britanov. Having thrust the pistol into the pocket of his fur coat, he stood on the bridge until the morning, catching the gaze of American binoculars and periscopes.

He left his ship only when the submarine went under the water up to its “ears” - under the depth control surfaces on the conning tower. As soon as Britanov got onto the inflatable raft, three minutes later the half-submerged cruiser with the oxidizer raging inside went forever into the abyss. This happened at 23:03 Moscow time on October 6, 1986 in the middle of the Sargasso Sea.

The rescued submariners were transported to Cuba, and then by special flight to Moscow. As was customary until then, a criminal case was immediately opened against the “emergency man” commander and his BC-5 commander (senior mechanic) Krasilnikov. Both “criminals” faced eight years in camps.

After Yazov became Minister of Defense, he ordered to stop the persecution of Britanov. But Britanov never went to sea again: he and other senior officers were dismissed from the Navy and deprived of all awards and benefits, the crew was dispersed to other ships.

I saw with what respect professional submariners from England, Germany, Italy, and France approached Britanov at the international congress. Some shook his hand, others asked him to sign a book about K-219, in which he became the hero through the creative will of three co-authors. A year earlier, Britanov visited the United States - the capital of the American Navy, Annapolis. The Naval Academy Officers' Club was full. When reserve captain 2nd rank Igor Britanov entered the hall, he was greeted with an ovation. Further words of eyewitnesses: “The Americans stood up! Everyone stood up! And these were those who all their lives considered the Russians their enemies, those who commanded aircraft carriers and frigates, hunter submarines, anti-submarine aircraft, defending their country from the Soviet threat, and first of all line from the depths. But now they paid tribute to the courage of their worthy adversary, the man who, by his own will, saved their coast from a nuclear disaster."

Will our admirals stand before Britanov? Don't know. Not sure. If they get up, not everyone will. This is how it is with us: the shadow of any accusation - righteous or unjust - accompanies a person until the end of his days. But it's not a matter of external honors.

Just the other day, the Minister of Defense of the Russian Federation signed an order awarding Igor Britanov the rank of captain 1st rank in the reserves. Less than fifteen years later, justice triumphed. This justice is rarely in a hurry with us. If we consider that the heroes of the battleship "Novorossiysk" received their awards with a delay of forty-four years, if we consider that some officers from the K-219 have already received crosses of the Order of Courage, and sailor Sergei Preminin - the posthumous star of the Hero of Russia, then we can hope that one day our officials, deep connoisseurs of military courage, will remember the commander of the K-219 submarine cruiser, as well as the rest of his crew.

The ship's combat crew at the central post of K-219: captain Igor Britanov (bottom left), Evgeny Aznabaev (behind Britanov), Igor Kurdin (bottom right), Vladimir Karpachev (far right).

Britanov refused to carry out the order of the headquarters to fight to save the ship, which was impossible and would only lead to the senseless death of the crew, and ordered the crew to leave the ship and go to the approaching Soviet ships.

Sergey Preminin

monument to Sergei Preminin in his homeland in the Vologda region

Sergei Preminin's mother opens a memorial plaque at the school named after. Preminina

The K-219 crew after returning to the Soviet Union on Red Square. October 1986.

Crew members of K-219. Meeting after 12 years at ORT, 1998. Sitting (from left to right): Nikolai Belikov, Igor Britanov, Valery Pshenichny. Standing (from left to right): Alexey Gakkel, Vladimir Demchenko, Alexey Konoplev, Gennady Kapitulsky, Igor Kurdin.

US Navy Reserve Captain 1st Class Huchthausen (bottom center) with K-219 officers. Top left to right: Igor Kurdin, Valery Pshenichny, Igor Kochergin, Gennady Kapitulsky. November 1994.

K-219 crew members in St. Petersburg, modern photo:

place of death of K-219

Senior Lieutenant Sergei Skryabin, commander of the 6th compartment of K-219.

Excerpts from the minutes of the Politburo meeting discussing the K-219 disaster.

In 1997, Hollywood released a film about the death of K-219: Hostile Waters.

The film is sensationalist and depicts the cause of the accident as a collision between Soviet and American boats. In reality, as crew members stated more than once, there was no collision (although the American boat was indeed nearby). The film also incorrectly depicted the actions of the boat's crew, such as the boat diving with the mine hatches open to put out the fire (which was not the case and would have caused the boat to sink). Britanov felt that the film incorrectly portrayed his actions and presented him as unprofessional, so he sued the company that released the film and won the case in an American court. The company was obliged to pay Britanov compensation.

Mikhailov Andrey 07.26.2019 at 15:40

October 6, 1986 in the Sargasso Sea in the infamous Bermuda Triangle The Soviet nuclear submarine K-219 sank. The disaster was a severe loss for the USSR navy. It is comparable only to the disaster of the Kursk nuclear submarine already in Russian times. In addition, on the eve of the meeting between Reagan and Gorbachev, it was categorically inappropriate.

K-219 is a Soviet strategic nuclear submarine, the 21st ship of Project 667A Navaga, later modernized under Project 667AU Nalim. On September 3, 1986, K-219 left its home port of Gadzhievo and headed west to the US coast. There she was supposed to carry out patrol duty with 15 nuclear missiles on board. The team was based on the so-called first crew of the same type "Navaga" K-241. The commander of the cruiser on the last voyage was an experienced submariner Igor Britanov.

On October 3, 1986, a ballistic missile exploded in one of the silos on the boat. Three days later, on October 6, the boat sank in the Atlantic Ocean at a depth of 5,500 meters. Most of the crew were saved.

The cause of the accident, which began on October 3 and lasted several days, was an explosion in a missile silo, but some of the circumstances of this incident still cause confusion and controversy among experts.

The accident began with a “crushed” rocket and toxic rocket fuel leaking into the compartment. As a result of experimental checks, situation modeling and careful analysis, it was proven that this was not the fault of the crew. This means that the reasons are either purely technical or due to the influence of external factors.

Why was the rocket crushed? How did water get into the missile silo housing? Official reports contain photographs that confirm that a deep groove ran through the K-219’s hull. It was she who broke the tightness of the mine. It was she who allowed the sea water to crush the rocket. The question is who rammed the boat. Was the foreign submarine an “external factor”?

As always, there are two versions of what happened: official and unofficial. According to the unofficial version, which the famous submariner, captain of the first rank Nikolai Alekseevich Tushin, told the author of these lines a few years ago, an unidentified underwater object was directly related to the accident of the nuclear-powered submarine.

He said that experienced sailors take conversations about " unidentified objects"According to Tushin, he himself, like many submarine commanders, saw luminous balls and cylinders in the ocean. Almost every submariner has such a story. But somehow it is not customary to dwell on these topics. You never know what you dream about in an autonomous environment? Moreover, few people recorded encounters with such objects using instruments...

Captain Tushin was sure that K-219 was drowned by the same mysterious force, but in those days it was not customary to talk about this out loud, so the “anomalous” version was voiced only years after the disaster. So unidentified underwater objects, like the Quakers, remain unsolved secrets The world's oceans...

And now about the feat that all submariners of both the Soviet Union and Russia remember. Reactor compartment officer Belikov and 20-year-old sailor Sergei Preminin entered the reactor chamber to manually lower the compensation gratings. The temperature in the chamber reached 70 degrees. Before falling unconscious, Belikov was able to lower three of the four compensation bars. It was hard physical work, because in the inhuman heat the guide bars bent.

Twice Preminin entered the cell before he could lower the last, fourth grate. A meltdown of the reactor core was prevented. But neither Preminin nor the sailors were able to open the hatch of the compartment separating the reactor chamber and the control post, warped from the heat.

Preminin died from the heat in the compartment, and the sailors were forced to retreat further aft as the boat continued to fill with toxic orange gas. Preminin was posthumously awarded the Order of the Red Star for preventing a nuclear accident in the Gulf Stream at the cost of his life. In 1997, Preminin was posthumously awarded the title of Hero of the Russian Federation.

After some time, the surfaced K-219 established contact with the Soviet merchant ships closest to the site of the tragedy. Due to the continued spread of poisonous gas on board the K-219, it was decided to evacuate the crew to the Anatoly Vasiliev motor ship. Only the commander of the Britons remained on board the cruiser.

On October 6, an order was received from Moscow: “Due to the impossibility of further towing, disembark the crew on a cruiser (that is, on a boat!) and proceed under their own power to the nearest port of the Soviet Union.” However, early in the morning, even before the order was announced, K-219 disappeared from the surface of the ocean, taking with it 14 missiles with nuclear warheads and two nuclear reactors to the depths...

Returning to the Soviet Union, Commander Britanov awaited trial at home in Sverdlovsk until May 1987, but under the new USSR Minister of Defense Dmitry Yazov, all charges against him were dropped. However, Britanov was dismissed from the fleet.

By the way, this was the first time that the USSR publicly officially announced a disaster on board warship. The era of glasnost has arrived. Both the American and Soviet governments made official statements about the incident throughout October 3. Moreover, representatives of the US Navy even convened a press conference at which a map of the accident zone was presented. The military departments of the two countries stated that there is no danger of a nuclear explosion or leakage of radioactive substances. On October 4, 1986, a TASS message was transmitted:

“On the morning of October 3, a fire occurred in one of the compartments on a Soviet nuclear submarine with ballistic missiles on board in an area approximately 1,000 kilometers northeast of Bermuda. The crew of the submarine and the approaching Soviet ships are eliminating the consequences of the fire. There are casualties on board the submarine. Three people died. The commission concluded that there is no danger of unauthorized weapons, a nuclear explosion or radioactive contamination of the environment."

The time when the accident occurred was very politically difficult. Therefore, both sides tried to refrain from mutual accusations - in contrast to what happened before, after the death of the Soviet submarine K-129 in 1968, and later after the loss of the Kursk in 2000. The reason for mutual restraint after the death of K-219 was the upcoming meeting at top level Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev on October 11-12, 1986 in Iceland.

Gorbachev was clearly worried about the prospect of talking with Reagan about the Russian nuclear submarine with two nuclear reactors and ballistic missiles, sank off the coast of the United States. After all, the negotiations touched on the issues of stationary medium-range missiles in Europe. Fortunately, Reagan seemed to have forgotten about the lost Soviet submarine. Missiles in Europe were more important...

And yet, the main version, which Soviet sailors adhered to then (and even now), is this: the K-219 (this project 667A is usually called Yankee by the Americans) sank in a collision with the American submarine Augusta...

Later, representatives of the US Navy published the following statement: “The US Navy does not usually comment on submarine operations, but in this case, since the allegations are outrageous, we could not help but respond. The United States Navy categorically denies the accusation that any an American submarine collided with a Russian Yankee-class submarine K-219, or that the Navy took any action that damaged the Russian Yankee and resulted in her death."