Fears grow for air supply of Russia mini-sub crew

MOSCOW - Seven Russian sailors were trapped on board a stranded military mini-submarine 600 feet down on the sea floor of the Russian Pacific on Friday with enough air to last only 24 hours, officials said.

The AS-28 mini-submarine, itself a rescue vessel, ran into trouble on Thursday when its propeller got entangled in fishing nets during a military exercise off the Kamchatka peninsula.

As a big rescue operation, involving Russian and Japanese ships, got under way to bring the crew up, naval officials suddenly revised their earlier assertions that the crew had enough air to last them several days.

"After additional calculations by fleet specialists and after talks with the crew, it has been established that there was only a 24 hours supply of air on the AS-28," chief naval spokesman Alexander Dygalo was quoted as saying by Interfax news agency.

Earlier, Dygalo had said there was a five-day supply of air and an adequate amount of food and water on board while, in a conflicting report, the Pacific Fleet commander, Admiral Viktor Dmitriyev, said there was only enough air for two days.

Though much smaller in scale, the accident had uncomfortable echoes of the disaster involving the Kursk nuclear submarine almost exactly five years ago.

All 118 seamen on the Kursk died in that accident in August 2000 in the Arctic Barents Sea that occurred after explosions on board.

Dygalo said the AS-28's propeller had caught in a part of a fishing net. "The net has wrapped around the propeller and the vessel has got caught in the net's anchor wire," he said.

At 190 metres the AS-28, a 13-metre-long vessel capable of diving to depths of 1000 metres was too far down to allow the crew to evacuate.

Officials said there had been contact with the crew and nobody had been hurt.

"The situation is unusual, but one should not overdramatise it," Pacific Fleet spokesman Alexander Kosolapov told Rossiya television.

Altogether, nine Russian ships and one from Japan were taking part in the operation to raise the stricken vessel.

Japan's Kyodo news agency quoted the Defence Agency as saying Japan would send four vessels.

Interfax said naval authorities were also in contact with US naval forces in the Pacific to see if they could help.

After the Kursk disaster, Russian navy command faced strong public criticism for being too slow in requesting foreign assistance.

- REUTERS