Sub Incident Indicates Need For UNCLOS Review Of Confined Sea Transit

News from the Celtic League:

Just hours after we voiced concerns about the possible environmental risks posed by a nuclear submarine coming to grief news of a collision involving a UK Astute Class nuclear submarine in the Mediterranean (link):

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-36852365

This is the second serious incident with this type of vessel one HMS Astute having run aground on the Isle of Skye some years ago.

It’s apparent from the visible damage that this was an extremely serious incident and it begs the question how a sophisticated vessel with all the electronics and sonar available to it could not avert the incident.

Also clearly the IMO and RN rules on the avoidance by submarines of surface vessels were not being adhered to. It must beg the question was the submarine effectively carrying out an exercise known as ‘ghosting’ where the submarine effectively tries to cancel its own radar footprint by hugging the profile of a larger vessel.

An accident in the confines of the Mediterranean that involved any serious release of radiation could have been disastrous but it pales into insignificance by a similar event in the Irish Sea. We have had two close calls in the 1980s in the second the US ballistic missile submarine Nathanial Greene was so badly damaged it lay on the sea bed effecting repairs for 36 hours eventually it was returned to the US and decommissioned.

There is an argument for not allowing nuclear propulsion on vessels and indeed the inherent danger and problems led to the scrapping of attempts to produce nuclear powered merchant ships.

The nuclear submarine operating powers are unlikely to give up their war toys however so the IMO working with governments must improve regulation and also perhaps consider urging a voluntary proscription on the use of nuclear powered submarines while submerged in confined sea areas.

There was a call for in 1994 for the UNCLOS convention to be revised to review old League of Nations agreements on military navigation restrictions – perhaps its time this was revisited.

Illustration: HMS Ambush with severe damage to conning tower.

BERNARD MOFFATT
Public Relations Officer Mannin Branch

Issued by: The Mannin branch of the Celtic League.

TEL: 01624 877918 or 07624 491609

21/07/16

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