MOSCOW, 8 August 2005 — Seven Russians who were trapped in a mini-submarine under the Pacific Ocean for three days returned home safely yesterday as British rescuers used a diving robot to free their craft from a mesh of cables and netting.
“We believed the whole time that we would be saved,” the AS-28’s captain, Vyacheslav Milashevsky, said after a ship brought the six sailors and a civilian engineer to Petropavlosk-Kamchatsky, the capital of the far eastern Kamchatka Peninsula where the drama unfolded.
“It was cold, very cold,” one crewman said as he went to meet his wife and daughter.
“Hi mum,” another grinned at television cameras as the group came ashore looking pale and exhausted but in good spirits.
After Russian naval forces struggled in vain to raise the AS-28 mini-submarine, the British “Scorpio 45” device working at a depth of almost 200 meters took just five hours to complete the task.
The sub finally surfaced about half a day before its oxygen reserves were due to run out.
“We bow before the experience and actions of the sailors and rescuers of the British Royal Navy. It was their equipment that brought this victory, freeing our craft,” said Russia’s Pacific Fleet commander, Adm. Viktor Fyodorov.
President Vladimir Putin also issued a message of gratitude to everyone involved in the rescue, and ordered an inquiry into the incident.
The Scorpio was flown from Britain to Kamchatka on Saturday and shipped to the accident scene at Moscow’s request.
At 2225 GMT it was lowered into the water in the Bay of Beryozovaya, located 70 kilometers south of the city.
