Scotland

Experts test Submarine Rescue System

State-of-the-art rescue equipment has been put through its paces in a four-day multi-national exercise.

Experts from Britain, France and Norway were testing how the NATO Submarine Rescue System would operate if it was called upon by a stricken submarine.

The equipment, which is stored at HM Naval Base Clyde, cost £130 million and weighs 360 tonnes. It is able to dive to 2,000 feet, deep enough to operate anywhere around the world’s Continental Shelves.

It can be on the move within three hours, transported by 27 lorries, if an emergency arose. The System is on constant stand-by but has never been used.

During Exercise Massivex, 25 volunteers were subjected to the rigours of internment in two giant decompression chambers for 18 hours to see how they would react to the confines, the changed atmospheres and the pressures that would exist if they were rescued from a sub.

In a real life situation, a loading platform is bolted onto a ship’s deck and the rescue vessel lowered into the water by giant cranes.

If the hull has not been breached, the rescue sub can do the job on its own, bringing up 15 survivors at a time.

If it has, the breached compartment is automatically sealed and the rest of the hull becomes pressurised.

The decompression chambers are set up and the rescue sub transfers survivors straight into port and starboard chambers on deck which can take up to 35 people at a time.

The vessel is designed to take as many submariners as possible because it can take up to four days to get someone fully decompressed and rescuers would want to get as many people out of the submarine as quickly as they can – if not, the bends can kill.

The chambers are staffed by professionally trained divers and nurses who can tend to the injured, clean any who are contaminated, and generally run things until it is safe to open the doors to the outside world.

Lieutenant Commander Kevin Stockton, who runs HM Naval Base Clyde’s Northern Diving Group, said: “It is a quite brilliant stand-alone system designed simply to save lives.

“Speed is essential in getting to a stricken submarine and the fact that we can be on the move in three hours with 360 tonnes of equipment is impressive in its own right.

“Although it is essentially a NATO asset the brotherhood of the submariner is such that I am sure we would respond to a request from any government which had a submarine in distress.

“The brutal reality is that if a submarine were to go down in really deep water there is nothing that anyone could do because the pressures would become too great for anything to survive.”

The exercise worked around the clock from initial alert response to 18 hours of simulated decompression time. It worked – but as the participants prepare to return to their homes in three different countries, their hope is that it will never have to work for real.