By Charles Aldinger
Washington - The US military will fly an unmanned, Navy mini-submarine to Russia on Friday to join an attempt to rescue seven Russian sailors trapped aboard a military mini-submarine on the Pacific floor, Navy officials said.
"The deep-diving submarine 'Super Scorpio' will be flown from San Diego to Petropavolvsk on an Air Force C-5 transport along with a team of Navy operators at the request of the Russian Navy," said Lieutenant JG Maria Miller, a Navy spokesperson at the Pentagon.
Miller told Reuters that the little vessel, capable of cutting through steel cable, would be moved by truck to a Russian ship to be taken to the scene in an attempt to aid in the rescue.
Continues Below ↓
The spokesperson said that the submarine and its operating team from the Navy's Deep Submergence Unit based at the big naval base in San Diego could leave California as early as Friday morning.
The little US Navy submarine is 1,2 metres long, 1,2 metres wide, 2,4 metres high and weighs 2 045kg. Miller said it was capable of diving to an ocean depth of 1 115 metres.
"It has the capability of cutting steel cable one inch (2,54cm) thick," she said.
In Russia, officials said that they had requested help and suggested that the crew of the little Russian submarine, apparently tangled in a fishing net, might have only 24 hours of oxygen left aboard the vessel.
"We're going to move the resources that we think can be helpful to the scene as rapidly as possible," Pentagon spokesperson Bryan Whitman said in Washington. "Efforts are being led by the Russian government and it (US assistance) is something that they have asked for."
Whitman noted that the US move followed steps by the American and Russian navies to work more closely in such areas as undersea rescue. The two militaries conducted a bilateral undersea rescue exercise in the Mediterranean off the coast of Italy in June.
"While every situation is certainly unique and presents its own set of challenges, it's not something that hasn't been thought through. And it has been rehearsed to some degree and practiced," the spokesperson said.
|
StumbleUpon
Reddit
Digg
Delicious
Newsvine
Facebook
muti
Twitter
