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The K-152 ''Nerpa'' accident was an incident that occurred aboard the Russian submarine K-152 ''Nerpa'' on 8 November 2008, which resulted in the deaths of 20 people and injuries to 41 more. The deaths and injuries were caused by an unsanctioned release of fire suppressant gas inside the submarine during a submerged test run during the vessel's sea trials in the Sea of Japan. The gas caused victims to die of asphyxiation or suffer frostbite in their lungs. The incident was the worst Russian submarine disaster since ''Kursk'' sank in 2000. Three of the dead were military personnel and the rest were civilians from the Vostok, Zvezda, Era and Amur shipbuilding yards who were members of the acceptance team.〔Ren TV, Moscow, 2030 GMT 10 November 2008〕 ==Sequence of events== At the time of the accident, ''Nerpa'' was undergoing sea trials at the Russian Pacific Fleet's test range in Peter the Great Gulf, an inlet of the Sea of Japan adjoining the coast of Russia's Primorski Krai province. The vessel had not yet been accepted by the Russian Navy but was undergoing plant tests under the supervision of a team from the Amursky Ship Building Plant. For this reason, it had a much larger than usual complement aboard, totalling 208 people, 81 military personnel and 127 civilian engineers from the shipyards responsible for building and outfitting the submarine. The accident occurred at 8:30 PM local time on 8 November 2008, during the submarine's first underwater test run.〔 The submarine's fire extinguishing system was triggered, sealing two forward compartments and filling them with freon R-114B2 gas (Dibromotetrafluoroethane, known as ''khladon'' in Russian). The gas, a hydrobromofluorocarbon refrigerant, is used in the Russian Navy's LOKh (''lodochnaya obyemnaya khimischeskaya'' – "submarine volumetric chemical") fire suppressant system. Each compartment of a Russian submarine contains a LOKh station from which freon can be delivered into that or adjacent compartments.〔Romanov, D.A.; Moore, Kenneth J.; trans. Acus, Jonathan E. ''Fire at Sea: The Tragedy of the Soviet Submarine Komsomolets'', p. 250. Brassey's, 2006. ISBN 1-57488-426-3〕 Freon displaces oxygen, enabling it to extinguish fires rapidly in enclosed spaces. In high concentrations, it can cause narcosis, which progresses by stages into excitation, mental confusion, lethargy, and ultimately asphyxiation.〔 Twenty people died of asphyxiation in the accident. The number of injured was initially put at 21 but was later revised to 41 by the Amurskiy Shipbuilding Company, a number of whose employees were among the injured. Many of the injured were reported to be suffering from frostbite caused by the chilling effect of the gas. Following the incident, the ''Admiral Tributs'' and the rescue vessel ''Sayany'' were dispatched from Vladivostok to provide assistance to the stricken submarine. The injured survivors were transferred to the destroyer and sent to military hospitals for treatment, while the submarine returned under its own power to Primorsky Krai.〔 According to naval spokesman Igor Digaylo, the vessel was not damaged in the incident and radiation levels remained normal.〔"(Primorye flags at half-mast mourning over killed in sub accident )". Information Telegraph Agency of Russia, 11 November 2008〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「2008 Russian submarine K-152 Nerpa accident」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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