Update on Russian Submarine Accident

There are some fresh details on the Russian submarine accident TheCustodian covered last night. According to several news reports this morning, seventeen of the dead were employees of the Amur Ship-Building Enterprise while only three were sailors. The government released a list of 20 names this morning, all were Russian. While the name of the submarine has not been officially released, it is almost certainly the Akula II submarine Nerpa that recently went to sea for trials and is widely expected to be "leased" to India.

While it is still unclear what kind of gas was involved, the cause of a gas discharge from the fire extinguishing systems appears to be the official story. Much of the speculation this morning in Russia is questioning whether there were enough oxygen masks for everyone on board and whether this was the deciding factor regarding the number of deaths. According to news reports, there were 208 people on board, three times the number that normally serve on an Akula II submarine.

This news report from RussiaToday, in English, is also a useful 5 minute video for getting a feel of the official reporting.