January 2012

New NATO Submarine Rescue System – this month the new NATO system was put through its paces over four days.   The divers, doctors, nurses and specialist operators from Britain, France and Norway operated as a team for four days in Exercise Massivex, which replicated an actual rescue timeline, from initial alert response to 18 hours of simulated decompression time.   Costing £130m and with a weight of 360 tonnes it as one of the most sophisticated pieces of equipment in the world.    It can dive to 2,000 feet (610m) - deep enough to operate anywhere around the world's continental shelves.  

The NATO Submarine Rescue System (NSRS) is stored and maintained in a giant purpose built hangar at HM Naval Base Clyde. and is always on standby.     During the tests, 25 volunteers were entombed in the NSRS's two giant decompression chambers for 18 hours to see how they would react to the confines and changes in atmosphere and pressure that they would experience during a rescue from a stricken sub.    The NSRS can be on the move within three hours - on 27 lorries.      The whole loading platform can be bolted onto a ship's deck and the system's submersible - with its glass-fronted nose - is ready to be lowered into the water by the giant cranes that are part of the kit.     If a submarine's hull is breached it is automatically sealed and the rest of the hull becomes pressurised. The NSRS's decompression chambers, which can take up to 35 people at a time, are set up and the rescue submersible transfers survivors straight into them.     If the hull of the stricken submarine is still intact, the rescue submersible can do the job on its own, bringing up 15 survivors at a time.    Timing is important because it can take up to four days to get someone fully decompressed - so the rescuers need to get as many people out of the submarine as they can and as quickly as possible.