Submarines: Tragedies And Opportunities Ahead

Hi friends, when I was really young I used to think “what must be the safest and accurate place to attack enemy on earth?”  That time I used to think it must be a submarine. As everyone knows a submarine can conceal itself inside the sea and can attack whenever required. Agreed? Then think twice. A submarine is actually a very risky place to work at. Why? Because you possibly cannot escape from what is coming at you. If you are at a normal ship you can at least jump out of the sinking ship but while inside a submarine you are actually under a pressure of tons of water above you.

The risk associated in a submarine comes directly with it. There have been instances when even the refrigerating system in it can be dangerous. Surprised?

A refrigerator carries a coolant gas called as Freon-12. This gas if leaked even by smallest mistake can suffocate everyone onboard. Freon-12 can displace oxygen in the air inside a submarine and hence can be disastrous.

A little different tragedy stuck Akula-2; a Russian submarine in the Sea of Japan when the fire extinguishing system didn’t worked properly. Can you imagine, the things which we consider safe and sound can be considered dangerous and really risky aboard?

Well, same is a case with a dryer! You must know that a submarine has a closed ventilation system. So much so that, the lint of dryer cannot be given out! The sailors have to clean the dryer lint from filters regularly to protect it from fire.

Another deadly mishap can be Hydrogen cyanide. Yes people of course don’t carry it with them for sure! But it may be a reaction product between the sea water and the Nitrogen in the battery. This ‘HCN’ is a highly poisonous gas and even a minuscule quantity let alone small is sufficient to lead a person to death.

Now a torpedo as you must have seen in movies. Well, the fuel used in these torpedoes may also be another source of the lethal ‘HCN’. Hence the fuel is kept self-oxygenated to prevent any mishap.

Care is always taken to keep two chemicals separate. Otherwise unthinkable things always happen. Even if we prevent such mistakes there is always a threat from enemies. There have been calls in Europe to make well defined path for submarines, especially by Britain and France. But the only problem is how to keep those paths secrete from enemies?

There are some of the ghastly tragedies that have happened since the inventions of Submarines. The earliest was of a sub named Squalus of US navy in 1939.Killing everyone onboard. Then another in 1963 was the tragedy of ‘The thresher’ which sank 200 miles off the coast of Cape Code. After this mishap US navy made new guidelines for avoiding disasters. Five years later yet another submarine named Scorpion went missing, killing all 99 crew members.

It was not until 1989 when US made arrangements for rescue operations by setting up Deep submergence units! Even after being in water, the most dangerous hazard is of sire on any submarine and not of nuclear weapons detonating. But still we don’t need to be afraid of these incidents and should concentrate on upgrading the technology.

Nowadays we don’t have such tragedies. Some of the most advanced submarines of some countries are ‘Le treomphant’, ‘Le Redoutable’, ‘Rubis’ and ‘Perle’ of France. ‘Vangard class trident submarine’, ‘Trafalgar class nuclear submarine’, ‘Ashtute class nuclear powered submarines’ of Britain etc.

However the important thing we humans should keep in mind is that we should use this high class submarines not as weapons of mass destruction but for peaceful operations and for knowing things around.

Because we have not discovered even 10% of our oceans .We know more of the universe. The man in his curiosity will keep on searching and upgrading things in his quest for knowing more and more of this beautiful place called ‘Earth’.