Russian aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov caught fire while undergoing repairs in Murmansk.
It is understood that six people have reportedly been injured and three people are reported as missing.
The fire is understood to have been sparked by welding work as part of work to repair the troubled vessel.
Footage of the fire onboard aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznestov shows black smoke rising above the decks of the ship.According ??# Russian state news agencies,one worker remains unaccounted for.The same wires suggest the fire is spreading and now covers 600 sq metres of the ship. pic.twitter.com/H840i8uwhI
— Capt(N) (@Capt_Navy) December 12, 2019
Russia’s TASS news agency have reported that the fire had started on the upper deck and that thick, black smoke was billowing from the vessel.
The ship is still on fire.
Russian aircraft carrier “Admiral Kuznetsov” caught fire during repair works at Zvezdochka plant. 8 workers rescued, 1 unaccounted. Fire at least at 120m2 in engine room https://t.co/EhBCrUKBg8 #Russia pic.twitter.com/011TFOQSrk
— Liveuamap (@Liveuamap) December 12, 2019
Last year, on the 30th of October 2018, the Admiral Kuznetsov was damaged when Russia’s biggest floating dry dock, the PD-50, sank and one of the dock’s 70 ont cranes crashed onto the ship’s flight deck leaving behind a 200 square foot hole in the flight deck.
One person was reported missing and four injured as the dry dock sank in Kola Bay. Admiral Kuznetsov was in the process of being removed from the dock when the accident happened, and was towed to a nearby yard after the accident.
More on this as it develops.
Blimey. How many more lives will this floating wreck claim before they scrap her I wonder?!
Hopefully everyone is accounted for and safe… The best thing they could do with that thing is make an artificial reef out of it!
Indeed the personification of jinxed. I think the Russians would be best to start repairing their repair facilities before risking any more attempts at repairing ships.
Agreed. They need to junk all their assets which are of no effective use. Have a conventional force which is fit for purpose and matches their GDP. Stop waving their nuclear weapons around – it’s dangerous. Move towards some form of arms limitation. Cooperate with the west in bringing peace and security to the world. Am I dreaming here?
I think you are spot on there Mark but Putins got too much of a chip on his shoulder to cooperate with the west ,plus blaming the west for Russias fails seems to be his strategy.
well said Mark
No the best thing they can do is keep repairing it over and over again. The more they pump into this heap of junk the better.
I suspect the crew of the ship is hoping for a war. At least they’ll be safer!
Why am I not surprised.
It’s just not to be with carriers for Russia it seems.
They seem to have a lot of accidents. Bad luck, or inferior training?
A fair bit of both, thrown in with little investment in the right places. Putin is investing exorbitant amounts in nuclear superweapons at the expense of conventional forces or the ability to actually fight and support them in a conflict. They’d rather have a theoretically higher strength on paper than a smaller, less impressive but actually useable force. Take Syria as a perfect example: between land based aircraft and their large fleet of frigates with cruise missiles, they didn’t really need the Kuznetsov, but they still sent it to try and prove a point. Unfortunately for them, all they proved… Read more »
Both.
I am more concerned with that they are doing beneath the waves on the sea floor than whether they have a carrier or not.
Hi Daniele….Given the supposed new friendship between Russia and Turkey perhaps she should be sold to them…..For scrap.
remember we lost the Victorious due to a fire (i was on her at the time) and the Centaur to a boiler room explosion. USA not much better.
I understood the fire damage on Victorious was relatively minor and it was to be repaired, but the Government of the day used it as an excuse to scrap her…..
yes it was minor (about 3-6 months to repair) and it did give the government the opportunity to scrap her as part of their plan to retreat from the far east. Russian subs in North Atlantic and ASW was more important.
Obviously wish all those involved well.
Just let it go already. Its a heap of junk. If I were them I would put the money to better use.
No no… let them keep throwing the money pit into it.
It would be very easy to take the piss with this incident, but I hope those that are unaccounted are found safe and well.
This ship is starting to get a stigma of an unlucky ship, I wonder if Russia feel the same way?
Has the RN ever had such a vessel?
I too hope everyone is OK.
Mary Rose?
Endurance in her last days seemed to have one too many oopsies…….
…..and who would want to go to sea in say a ‘refloated’ submarine?
When the fleet was larger there was accidents and incidents all the time.
There still are incidents. Floods , Fires big and small all get reported on yearly and the lessons learnt disseminated.
There have been, I do remember reading over the years of such ships though I can’t presently put a name to any. Actually though not carreer long but HMS Belfast was so seriously damaged through bombs while being built she was deemed unrepairable and going to be scrapped. It was only the intervention of Churchill who against all advice insisted she was not only rebuilt but ended up being the most modern Cruiser in the fleet when entering much delayed service.
Belfast was built in Peace Time, perhaps you are thinking about her hitting a mine at the start of WW2 and took years to be rebuilt?
You are right my mind wandered a little there no doubt through age, commissioned 39 and seriously damaged by the mine pretty much on her first active service which I guess makes her luck even worse.
The old HMS Albion (carrier turned helo carrier) had a bad fire that hastened her paying off. Old Ark Royal and/or HMS Eagle also had a fire(s) that speeded their retirement.
As did HMS Victorious
Albion I should have thought of HMS Albion from 1896 before as its very personal to my family, 30 odd people side very nearly my Grandfather too as a child when she was launched from the Lea into the Thames. Had he not been plucked from the Thames I wouldn’t be here. Memorial Park in West Ham is still there named after that particular event. Was at the Dome looking across the river at the exact spot last year for the first time, did send a chill down my spine.
I can think of an American example: USS Porter. She experienced A LOT of unlucky events, including almost torpedoing USS Iowa while President Roosevelt was onboard.
She was eventually lost to enemy action, but every one of her hands survived.
Edit: USS William D. Porter. My bad!
There was an American ship if I remember correctly (which always a little problematical) that was deemed so unlucky they changed its name to try to remove the jinx, don’t know if it worked mind.
I would suggest it’s a combination of a chronic lack of funding, that’s reduced the number of opportunities for training & maintenance etc… But the old Sailors Superstitions do take some shaking off! They would be well advised to decommission this ship and the associated infrastructure and push the funding into more numerous smaller surface ships (or subs) as they have more recently. Does Russia really have a need for a large flat top, with their current strategic interests considered? Certainly not for the black sea region and Eastern Europe… Maybe, and only maybe, for their High North/Arctic Circle ambitions?… Read more »
Russia needs to look to its boundary with China and its far East regions. It has long communications links to look after and defend. It’s an increasely decrepit country to manage. It is overstretching itself with an uneconomic base. Hence trying to sell its (probably useless) weapons to who is daft enough to buy.
Putin will be dead in a few years time… wonder who will be next?
Does he have a son? This is how it all begins.
They are also a Pacific power, where flat tops are very much in vogue.
Calling them a Pacific ‘Power’ is a stretch I think. Granted they have built a presence there & the Russian Eastern Military District is expected to get a lot of ‘new’ kit such as tanks, missiles and artillery & aircraft etc and the Pacific Fleet is increasing in size but I’m not sure how much clout and influence they actually have. I’d worry more about immediate areas around their borders than trying to play the big man on the world stage but hey, that’s Putin for you. The irony is if they limited themselves to the idea of being a… Read more »
Rfn Weston, we don’t need it, have no practical use for it and it’s a waste of money, but someone in the Navy is worried that if we give up on it Russia will never have a carrier again and we loose the skills which we clearly lack anyway. I have never heard a convincing reason to keep it. Personally I hope it sinks
Thanks Ulya, I have been of the opinion for some time that it is retained as a status symbol, and as an attempt as you say for the Navy to try and keep at least one hand on the steering wheel in terms of skills and training. I do think you’re right that if the carrier were to be decommissioned without a replacement, that Russia would likely never return to the table. Not in its current financial state anyway.
As I said before I don’t think the lack of it would make any noticeable difference whatsoever.
Hi Ulya, Would I be right in saying that Russia should scrap the junk and stop trying to be the old Soviet Union? A modern force to preserve the peace?
Trying to be the Soviet Union is Putins priority.
Hi Mark, you would be right in saying we should scrap the carrier, the rest of your comment is the usual self righteous nonsense that I often see by Brits and Americans who like to point out other countries sins while over looking their own, so we will never agree on
marks right and I’ve seen enough self righteous BS comments by Russians the difference is Ulya we US and Brits dont have to lie or plead ignorance to make a good point about Russias current status, not on here especially.
Our HMG has lied for years about the capabilities of the RN. Only the few informed & interested notice the perilous weakness of our forces rather than swallowing HMG spin. Still, underestimating our advesaries usually ends up biting ourselves on the backside in the cold reality of war.
I’m more concerned about the Chinese arms race, unreformed Marxism & expansionist agenda.
Hi Ulya, what a fascinating response. I was trying to dismiss the past and forge a peaceful productive way forward yet you chose to highlight past issues. The leadership on both sides need to look forward not backward do they not?
Another nail in the coffin of Russia’s international image. Absolute paper tiger thanks to their stunning incompetence
China and India must have learned their safety procedures from Russia.
Blimey…hope everyone gets off ok and is safe.
This vessel is a disaster. Utter death trap for her crew. Although like many, I hoped the Russians would continue to pump their precious defence resources into keeping kutznetsov afloat and in service. So money not spent elsewhere, I think this will be the vessels death. Looks like a major conflagration.
Worryingly would Rusdia ever buy a type 001A or type 002 carrier from China. They seem to be able to build a carrier in 24months.
Russia are incapable of building carriers nowadays and have been since Ukraine split off from the USSR and took all the major shipyards with them. Russia doesn’t have the cash or probably the naval doctrine to bother with carriers again and will continue down the SSN and hypersonic AshM route
They did gain some shipyards back in Crimea, with the largest dry dock in “Russia”, capable of building carriers. Assuming that is to stick.
But I agree with you, subs and missiles seems the best investment right now (for a lot of countries).
I think much of China’s current fleet could be sold off, I’m sure some will end up in Argentina for example as well as many BRI countries that China will be locking into their defense ecosystem.
I am sure they would love to but the hit to their ego and reputation (yeah I know) would be so bad internally that I doubt it would be a feasible solution. However that said I could see in years to come such a move portrayed as an equal partnership being considered at the very least to save face and keep in the Carrier business. More worrying just imagine if they had a US type super carrier. It could go anywhere unchallenged the fear of its imminent combustion would be the perfect regional threat. Countries would I am sure pay… Read more »
Never mind when Comrad Cobyn gets in (god forbid )he might let them have one of ours as we wont be able to run two will we
Speaking of fires and storms…. And its off topic… But…. More quid pro quo and interference in open markets. Japenese interest in Tempest being pressured.
https://www.defense-aerospace.com/articles-view/release/3/208157/trump-pressuring-japan-to-choose-lockheed-over-bae-for-future-fighter.html
That ship is cursed. You wouldn’t catch me anywhere near it.
The USN has been suffering a spate of shipyard fires as well… Odd. Hope the missing are located alive and well.
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/russias-only-aircraft-carrier-admiral-kuznetsov-has-erupted-flames
Cheers
Also – Not much heard about this accident. A terrible loss – especially at this time of year.
https://news.usni.org/2019/12/11/u-s-navy-p-8a-to-assist-in-search-for-missing-chilean-c-130
Cheers
RIP…
https://www.navytimes.com/news/your-navy/2019/12/11/chile-searchers-find-debris-from-missing-plane-carrying-38
USS MIAMI , Los Angeles class attack sub written off for $700 million following a dockyard fire caused by a disgruntled cleaner.
They just badly damaged a DDG51 as well and thats looking at a 12 month repair to fix.
Not to mention this one…
https://news.usni.org/2019/11/15/11-sailors-injured-in-5-hour-fire-aboard-amphib-uss-iwo-jima-3rd-warship-damaged-in-fire-during-maintenance-in-last-year
The loss of the Miami was a major blow to the fleet. That kid should NEVER get out of jail IMO…
Cheers
HMS Audacious seems to be off to a bad start too with a 17month delay due to unspecified technical problems. How it effects future builds or indeed in service vessels isn’t (understandably) mentioned either.
Insurance job. Hope workers are OK.
You can only but hope that there no fatalities. Of course, you can only but hope that one day Russia gives itself a collective head wobble and joins the free world and enjoys the fruits of cooperation. It’s Christmas! I’m allowed to dream!
Yeah I remember thinking why are people so concerned about a Hong Kong /China agreement about 15 years before its return, under the (laughable in hindsight) delusion by that time China would be a fully paid up member of the Asia branch of the Western World.
If there is one thing the RN has learnt in recent years it is that it is more expensive to keep an old vessel in service than it is to build a new one. The Russian Navy is in just such a situation. It isn’t just the Kuz, how about their Slava Cruisers, Udaloy destroyers and Krivak frigates, not to mention Kilo subs?
Our QE class carriers look even more impressive beside the Kuznetsov. What a piece of junk.
QE has had a bad fire in the pyrolysis compartment already.
Fire and floods happen on ships.
However good firefighting skills and equipment can stop a bad situation in its tracks and recover it . The RN has very very good equipment and everyone who serves on a ship gets very well trained in Fire Fighting. Not just using extinguishers but wearing and using full fire suits, Breathing sets , 3 hose fire fighting, foam, boundary cooling, fighting fires from the same level and from above and below.
A fuel fire on a vessel is about as bad as it gets for firefighting. Its bloody awful and I would not wish it on anyone to experience it ever. If the reports of the size of the fire are true it will be a nightmare to put out and will take DAYS to properly extinguish. Its no surprise that its gone up. Russian “ship repair ” is notoriously bad in the world wide industry. In properly regulated ship repair companies Hot work has a number of safety requirements to be in place to stop fires starting. Clear the area… Read more »
Excellent explanation G.B.
Thanks
It’s hard to imagine being in metal corridors with decks above and below fighting a fire. On a list of places I’d rather not be it would be pretty near the top of the list. It must be just so easy to get trapped and lost in the smoke.
Yeah now imagine that in a submarine! Takes a certain person.
You fight in teams of 5. You have (nowadays) radio comms and bloody good kit. Further back are another team ready to go in and relieve you and behind them maybe another team. In the clear air you have hose handlers, Air Bottle chargers, Engineering specialists, people countering flooding( You put a lot of water into a ship fighting fires) Boundary coolers who keep adjacent bulkheads cool stopping the fire spreading, People manning doors to stop smoke spreading, Chefs keeping people fed and watered as you sweat and burn off lots of energy fighting fires. A major fire on a… Read more »
It seems their ship repair yards and our Historic building repair companies have a lot in common.
A friend of mine used water to try and put out an oil fire and it exploded on contact and half the house burned down in the fire!, they are so dangerous. But on the positive side they got a whole new house with brand new modern everything in it, it was far better than what they had before.
Terrible time for the families of those missing.
I may have misunderstood, but has there been a suggestion that the UK MOD is looking to buy a small number of F35C aircraft to cross deck on USN carriers to allow us to train & maintain some RN pilots for CATOBAR operations in anticipation of either a mid life re-fit of QEC or replacement come end of life cycle as the cost to start from scratch is enormous? I’ve not heard this before other than a comment or two on STRN comments section but now I’ve heard it, it actually seems quite a good idea. Also confirmed that QE… Read more »
Why would we need to buy them? Couldn’t we just operate a pilot exchange program as we do in many areas?
I don’t disagree with you, just repeating what I’ve read elsewhere.. The same could be said for UK / US F35B though… Why don’t we just buy more, sooner, as opposed to leaning on USMC… I realize they share the platform already etc I just enjoy playing devils advocate 🙂
Even if we had enough f35bs just now we should still embark USMC Jets as Its too good of a training opportunity for the USMC and UK to miss, giving us both an even closer relationship.
I would hope UK pilots would fly from USMC ships in future though, anyone know anything about that yet?
Given that they’re going to get masses of experience of F-35B over the next 5-10 years I’m not sure I see a point of changing. I can maybe see some being changed to F35-A for the RAF if the carrier aircraft are proving more durable and long lasting than expected but even then why not just wait for Tempest and maybe cut the order for F-35B.
It may be more of a case of temporary emplacement. We and a lot of NATO have been cross decking pilots and embedding them with other Nations Airforces/Army/Navy. It allows everyone to get a handle on how other Nations do everyday stuff. So when the cack hits the fan you can operate together more efficiently. It would make perfect sense for pilots trained in the B version to be embedded with the US Navy to try the C version, like you say just in case we actually fit cats and traps. We did have a number of pilots trained to… Read more »
I’d be inclined to hold off and hope we build two versions of Tempest. Supersonic speeds could cause big problems for the F-35′s stealth coating. “It may be some future advanced materials that can withstand the pressure and the temperature,” Winter said. “Then we see that, and we go, ‘Hey, look, we’ve got this on the book,’ [and] we do a test check to see if that new material solves that problem.” The Defense Department has also instituted time limits on the number of seconds the F-35B and F-35C can fly at speeds in excess of Mach 1.2 while at… Read more »
To be fair, the issue with the F-35 stealth coating being damaged at high speeds has only happened once, and LM couldn’t replicate it when trying to find a solution. I think it was just a fluke personally.
Two versions of tempest would be nice though.
No, the MoD is not looking at acquiring any F-35C’s. Wherever you read that nonsense is plain wrong.
I’m sure we could just use American jets, we share hardware all the time and I’m sure we had a yank flying typhoons with the RAF not long ago, can’t remember where I read it or watched it!
Its intended to have a minimum of 24 x F35B on QEs first operational deployment. 12 x UK and 12 or more USMC F35B.
Sad for the workers but the safest thing for all is this ship never gets to sea again.
The Russian’s can sell it to us for a fiver and we can use it as target practice for our F35 fleet…We can bomb alongside the French carrier which is equally obsolete.
What F35b naval fleet would that be…presumably they could use the equally non-existent anti-shipping missile 🙂
The CdeG is still a going concern that has just completed a new refit and is actually operational currently… But sure whatever.
Peter, less than 4 months ago Charkes De Gaulle emerged from a major 2 year mid life refit, refuelled, reconditioned and ready for action. She should be available at short notice for operational tasking. She went straight back into the frontline launching Rafale Ms against ISIS targets in Syria.
Not exactly defunct and until the RN and RAF get enough F35Bs (2023) in active service CDG is still the premiere warship in Europe.
How many people total have been killed by this piece of junk?
Firstly I hope everyone is safe and all make a full recovery.
Secondly Russia needs to start taking maintenance and safety seriously.
By all accounts she was one of the worst postings in the Russian fleet, the water and sewage main are in a terrible state and the cable and pipe work wouldn’t meet Western fire or safety standards and were a major accident waiting to happen! Not entirely surprising considering as a sub class of the Project 1143 Kiev class that has similar machinery with a history of major fires, boiler room explosions and dangerous machinery failures. I think the only the Kiev and her sister ship the Lioning have yet to have some form of serious accident. When the Admiral… Read more »
Hope the crew and dock workers are ok. However Russia and its leaders seem to make the same mistake over and over. As many of the regulars here know I come from a techy background, one of the first lessons I learnt was that if you want to build a house you first make a very good foundation. The foundation of the Royal Navy started with King Henry VIII, bases, yards, supplys all the things that you need to build, maintain and supply. It does seem that our Government is forgeting that but Russia never had that to start with.… Read more »
Russia should just get out of the big carrier business. They just aren’t any good at it and could use the money elsewhere.
Clearly we have our own problems too.
Maintenance problems for the Royal Navy mount up.
https://www.savetheroyalnavy.org/maintenance-problems-for-the-royal-navy-mount-up/
I have just done a month working on the UK’s Gulf deployed T23 . We had a few small steel inserts to do along with other maintenance tasks and we didn’t burn the ship down.
It helps if you have robust safety and quality plans in place and know what you are doing and we do.
Fires on ships being repaired are common under all flags. U.S. ships are no exception. Don’t knock the ship or its crew for things of this nature. Do a little homework on U.S. Naval ship repairs in Florida the last few years before blowing too much hot air. Norwegian ships have had problems too.
Anyone know when the F35 in Pompey is departing?
Meant to be today I believe?
Second bout of sabotage