World

British and French nuclear submarines collide in Atlantic ocean

by mudricky | February 16, 2009 at 02:52 am

1059 views | 44 Recommendations | 11 comments

The BBC have said that it has received information that two nuclear submarines were badly damaged when they were caught in a collision at the start of the month.

The collision involved British and French Subs, the HMS Vanguard and Le Triomphant in the Atlantic ocean.

HMS Vanguard is now back at base at Faslane on the Firth of Clyde, Scotland.

Both the UK and France said there was no danger of a nuclear incident.

A Royal Navy nuclear submarine was involved in a collision with a French nuclear sub in the middle of the Atlantic, it has been reported.
It is understood HMS Vanguard and Le Triomphant were badly damaged in the crash earlier this month.

Despite being equipped with sonar, it seems neither vessel spotted the other, the BBC's Caroline Wyatt said.

The UK's Ministry of Defence is not commenting on the reports, but insisted nuclear security had not been breached.

Our defence correspondent said the submarines were both "seriously-armed".

0 See all footage | View Slideshow

Share: email story | add to any | | facebook | stumbleupon

recommend Sign In or Join to post comments

Sanjay Jha

at 03:09 on February 16th, 2009

Good Post, After the collision between two satellite in the sky now In a first-ever such accident, a British and a French nuclear submarines, both carrying nuke warheads, collided in the Atlantic Ocean earlier this month, but there was no loss of life.

Fripouille

at 03:37 on February 17th, 2009

My undersea correspondant tells me that this was the result of human error, as these things almost always are. First reports indicate that a combination of factors may have caused the collision, notably a French sonar detection operator who had drunk over a half a bottle of pastis and an english helmsman whos immoderate comsumption of whisky caused him to misunderstand an order which said "port two zero" and not "starboard two zero". I shall keep you updated as details come in...

(I shall resist the temptation to say that this could have been an earth-shattering event).

Johnhopone

at 05:33 on February 16th, 2009

Great post! Related news in my news blog

here...

Marcel Pellerin

at 06:33 on February 16th, 2009

deep sea Chicken games

Mary Richard

at 08:58 on February 16th, 2009

Should've had Google Ocean!

mudricky

at 09:57 on February 16th, 2009

lol

René

at 12:15 on February 16th, 2009

google Ocean hacked?

eluxzen

at 10:24 on February 16th, 2009

Amazing, such sophisticated man-made-machines containing incredible devastating pay-load and still a human error is possible :-S doesn't contribute to the confidence in these third class world powers.

raim (not verified)

at 11:28 on February 16th, 2009

the full story... in a cartoon
:0)

Nik Chinook (not verified)

at 06:51 on February 17th, 2009

Footage of submarine incident:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b3AI-ul8f9g

dav1d (not verified)

at 15:36 on February 20th, 2009

The amazing thing is that the two submarines actually tried to occupy the same bit of Atlantic at the same time, there's aroung 3 ½ million cubic kilometres of ocean out there and they were in the same bit????? it's less likely than winning the lottery.

As to all the sonar and detection devices, it is actually good news that they didn't detect each other - they're supposed to be invisible, that's most of the point of having them, so no one knows where they are and can't find them. It's quite a relief to find that bit obviously works really well!