It was a big story here in Western Washington since the C-17 was being flown to Kamchatka(sp?) by pilots and load masters from McChord AFB. It would have been difficult to write a fiction book with more tension. Bad weather in the Pacific forcing the C-17 and her cargo of rescue equipment to divert to Alaska and wait it out. No positive idea on how long the oxygen supply will last (I imagine CO2 scrubber duration would be a factor too–any submariners care to chime in?). Six hundred plus feet under the ocean. Dang, I can’t wait for the book!
Hats off to all of the men and women involved in the successful rescue effort!
If you have the Brits and the Aussies as friends, why would you need anyone else?
There is probably an exception somewhere, but I don’t know of a single other instance in which sailors have been successfully rescued from a disabled sub in deep water.
The Momsen Chamber was used for the first time in 1939 to save the crew of the US Submarine Squalus in 240+ feet of water. If I remember correctly, it took 4 or 5 trips to get the survivors of the sinking out (about half of the crew)… The sub was later salvaged too.
CO and CO2 both would be a big factor. The chemical agents that remove CO and CO2 (burners and scrubbers) can be found in powder form and can be spread out on the deck to absorb the pollutants.
It would depend on the number of guys onboard for the length of time that it would take for CO2 to reach toxic levels, but I can tell you from experience (I was a submariner on the USS Georgia) that it does not take much CO2 to start getting headaches - and fast.
Part of my watch was atmosphere monitoring and making recommendations to OOD regarding scrubbers and burners. Been awhile though since I had to do any of that. I was very happy and relieved to hear that they were able to rescue those sailors. Even happier that they (the Russians) asked for help as opposed to what happened to those boys on the Kursk. They could have been saved, and it is sad to think that the government did nothing to get them out of there.
there was a show on the accident and the raising of the Kursk a few weeks ago on discovery or the history channel. they found the captain and a few others(6-10) dead in the rear compartment of the sub. they survived the initial blast but only for a few hours. the accident happened at 1130 and the captain made his last written entry about 3 hours later. if you get a chance to watch a repeat of the show, the raising operation was pretty amazing. they cut the entire bow section off when they brought the sub up originally and the implication was that this was done so that the torpedo section would not be seen but they went and raised it later.