Rescue sub once again hit hull of mother vessel, intel report

The incident happened as the crew on the Navy’s 46-years old salvage ship Mikhail Rudnitsky tried to lower the mini-submarine into the water, the Ukrainian Intelligence Service reports on Telegram.

“The crew of Rudnitsky didn’t manage to control it, which led to the collision to the hulls of the ship.”

Further planned tests were aborted due to the damages. 

The alleged incident happened in the Norwegian Sea on July 1, the Ukrainians says.

The Barents Observer is not in a position to independently confirm the information from the intelligence. Russia’s Northern Fleet headquarters in Severomorsk never replies to questions from foreign media.

The AS-36 is a recently modified deep-diving mini-submarine aimed to assist in evacuation of crew from military submarines in trouble on the seafloor.

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In August 2000, the Northern Fleet’s incompetence in operating such rescue missions was revealed for open camera world-wide. 

The Mikhail Rudnitsky failed to put its AS-34 on water during its attempt to help the ill-fated nuclear powered submarine Kursk that sank in the Barents Sea after a major explosion.

Also then, the mini-submarine crashed with the hull of its mother vessel and was damaged. Many days later, a British mini-submarine in cooperation with Norwegian divers managed to get down to the Kursk, only to find that the entire crew of 118 were dead. 

Russia’s Northern Fleet use to sail to the Norwegian Sea to conduct deep-sea dive tests. Waters west of the BEAR gap, from the Bear Island to North Cape, is much deeper than the shallow Barents Sea.

The Barents Observer has previously reported about the Russian Northern Fleet’s testing of deep-diving mini-submarines in the same area.

Last summer, tests of both the AS-34 and AS-36 took place in the Kola Bay from Mikhail Rudnitsky, the local blog-site Severomorsk.life reported.