K-129
 Drawing of project 629
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The K-129 was a Soviet submarine of project 629 (Gulf class). It was a diesel-electric powered rocket submarine . After sinking in 1968, it was partially lifted by the United States Navy in the Azorian Project in 1974 .
history
K-129 was built at the Komsomolsk-on-Amur shipyard and entered service in December 1959. In 1967 it was modernized in Vladivostok to project 629A (Golf II class).
In February 1968, the submarine left a base on Kamchatka for its third nuclear deterrent patrol in the Pacific . At the beginning of March there were no regular radio reports from the boat to the Soviet Navy , whereupon the latter started a search operation, but could not find the sunken submarine.
The United States Navy, on the other hand, detected a detonation through its SOSUS underwater sensors and was able to localize the wreck relatively precisely. In the years after the sinking, the Central Intelligence Agency launched an unprecedented, undisclosed rescue operation called the Azorian Project . During the lift, several of the rescue unit's gripping arms tore, the boat broke and only part of it could be lifted.
With 96 deaths, the sinking of the K-129 is one of the worst accidents in submarine history.
Possible reasons for the downfall
The reason for the boat sinking was never known. Problems with snorkeling would be possible . The boat's batteries were charged by diesel engines , the exhaust gases of which were discharged through a snorkel. The batteries may have ignited during the charging process and exploded. Another possibility is the explosion of one of the three nuclear missiles on board, similar to what happened in 1986 on the Soviet K-219 .
After the incident, the government of the USSR said that the K-129 had been sunk by submarines of the US Navy. Proponents of this theory suggest that the USS Scorpion (SSN-589) may also have been sunk in revenge two months later.
An alleged collision with the American submarine USS Swordfish (SSN-579) is more likely to belong to the realm of conspiracy theory . That theory assumes that this submarine appeared at a US base with collision damage to the tower at the time in question . However, the turret is made much weaker than the fuselage, so that the turret than the fuselage of the K-129 would have been torn open.
In the documentary "Death in the Deep" by Martyn Ives (2004) the assumption is made that K-129 was a "rogue submarine". The boat may have tried to behave like a Chinese submarine and shoot down a nuclear missile or two in Hawaii to provoke war between China and the United States. In this unauthorized launch, a security device is said to have blown up the rocket or rockets at the start because an incomplete start code was entered. The view expressed in the film contradicts a CIA report that the submarine sank 1,560 nautical miles northwest of Hawaii while its SS-N-5 ( R-21 ) missiles only had a range of 700 nautical miles (1296 km).
Other considerations assume structural damage to the hull of the K-129, which caused the boat to break as soon as it sank or hit the seabed. This is the only way to explain why the salvage ship , which the USA only built after they had photographed the wreck, could only lift an object around 60 meters long into its interior, even though K-129 was almost 100 meters long.
See also
Web links
- ZDF-History: Death in the deep - exchange of blows between the superpowers. (Film by Dirk Pohlmann) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=foTXCWbs7Lw
- Former page from submarine.id.ru - K-129 ( Memento from May 14, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) (Russian)
- Mission history of K-129 on deepstorm.ru (Russian)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Bauernfeind, Ingo: Radioactive to all eternity - The fate of the Prinz Eugen . ES Mittler & Sohn, Hamburg / Berlin / Bonn 2011, ISBN 978-3-8132-0928-0 , p. 161 .
- ↑ List of victims at submarine.id.ru, viewed on November 11, 2011 ( Memento from May 14, 2011 in the Internet Archive )
- ^ Project Azorian: The Story of the Hughes Glomar Explorer. (PDF; 3.2 MB) Studies in Intelligence, CIA , 1985, accessed February 14, 2010 .
- ^ Norman Polmar: The Naval Institute Guide to the Soviet Navy . Naval Institute Press, 1991, ISBN 0-87021-241-9 .
- ↑ The K-129 mission history on deepstorm.ru, viewed on November 11, 2011