Soviet submarine K-429
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| History | |
|---|---|
 Soviet Union
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| Name: | K-429 |
| Laid down: | 26 January 1971 |
| Launched: | 22 April 1972 |
| Commissioned: | 31 October 1972 |
| Decommissioned: | 1987 |
| Homeport: | Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky |
| General characteristics | |
| Class and type: | Charlie-class submarine |
| Displacement: |
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| Length: | 104 m (341 ft 2 in) |
| Beam: | 9.9 m (32 ft 6 in) |
| Draft: | 7.8 m (25 ft 7 in) |
| Propulsion: | OK-350 with a VM-4 reactor core generating 89.2 MWt (18,000 hp) |
| Speed: | 26 knots (48 km/h; 30 mph) |
| Test depth: | 300 m (980 ft) |
| Complement: | 100 officers and men |
| Armament: |
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K-429 (often incorrectly referred to as K-329) was a Project 670-A Скат (Skat, meaning "ray"; also known by its NATO reporting name of "Charlie-I" class) nuclear submarine of the Soviet Navy. Her keel was laid down on 26 January 1971 at Krasnoye Sormovo in Gorky. She was launched on 22 April 1972, and was commissioned on 31 October 1972 into the Soviet Pacific Fleet.
In the spring of 1983, K-429 returned to base needing overhaul after a long patrol. After turning their boat over to the shipyard, crew departed on leave. However, her nuclear weapons remained aboard.
That June, Captain First Rank Nikolay Suvorov was ordered by Rear Admiral Oleg Yerofeyev, commander of the Pacific Fleet, to reassume command of K-429 and to take part in an exercise. Suvorov questioned the order: the exercises had been planned for autumn, the boat was being repaired, the crew was on leave, and Suvorov expected a transfer to St. Petersburg. Yerofeyev explained that Suvorov's Communist Party membership would be revoked and he would have to face a tribunal if he asked such questions. (Without Communist Party membership, Suvorov would not be allowed to command a warship.)
Suvorov recalled his crew and returned to K-429. Much of the crew could not be contacted, and their places were filled by sailors from the naval base and from five other boats that were in port at the time. Nearly one-third of the 120 crewmen had never been on K-429 before, and none of them received any training on K-429. On 23 June 1983, K-429 was ordered to proceed immediately to the torpedo firing range. Suvorov refused that order, replying that standard operating procedures required him to perform a test dive first.
In the late evening on 23 June, K-429 arrived at her testing area in Sarannaya Bay, just south of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, and Suvorov gave the order to dive to periscope depth. However, he had not given the preliminary command to set the diving watch — the crew neither aligned the boat's systems for sea, nor were they at their stations to control the boat during the dive.
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