Secret No Longer: Documents Reveal a Hidden Chapter on the Sunken Russian Sub K-219

Michael Peck

Security,

What we know. 

To his credit, the Politburo transcript also shows how alert and incisive was Gorbachev. Leaving aside the concerns about sabotage and incompetence, he asks pertinent questions about the disaster, such as why the explosion occurred and why rescue vessels couldn't save K-219. He wants to know how toxic gases poisoned the submarine's air, why a tow rope broke, and whether sensitive information on K-219 could be retrieved by the Americans.

If you're a sailor on a Russian submarine that sinks in the middle of the ocean, don't expect much sympathy from the Kremlin.

(This first appeared several years ago.)

Judging by the reaction of Soviet leaders to the accidental sinking of a Soviet nuclear missile sub 30 years ago, you'll be lucky if you're not shot by a firing squad.

Just how hard-nosed the Kremlin can be is shown in the transcript of a Politburo meeting on the maritime disaster, published by the National Security Archive.

On October 3, 1986, the Soviet Yankee-class ballistic missile submarine K-219, equipped with 16 R-27 nuclear missiles was on patrol in the North Atlantic, about 700 miles off the coast of Bermuda. A seal in the hatch cover of Number 6 missile tube failed, which allowed seawater to leak into the tube and mix with missile fuel (rumors that K-219 collided with a U.S. Navy submarine have been denied by both the U.S. Navy and the K-219's captain).

Seawater combined with missile fuel to produce heat and toxic gases. Despite a crewman venting the tube, an explosion erupted in the silo, ejecting the missile and its warheads into the sea. Five crewmen eventually died, and the boat began to sink. After a Soviet freighter unsuccessfully attempted to tow the submarine home, Captain Second Rank Igor Britanov ordered the crew to abandon ship. K-219 sank 18,000 feet to the ocean bottom, where it broke into two pieces, with several missile hatch covers open and the missiles gone.

That Captain Britanov was charged with negligence is not totally surprising: the U.S. Navy might have done the same. But charging him with sabotage and treason? That is truly remarkable.

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