Jump to full article: The Times of India, 2008-11-11
Intro: Unauthorised smoking could have triggered on the fire-extinguishing system that led to 20 people losing their lives on the Russian nuclear submarine, to be leased to India next year, a naval expert said on Tuesday.
The new theory on what led to the worst accident in Russian navy's history came as top former naval commander Admiral Vladimir Komoyedov, described the massive death toll on board a brand new submarine "gross unprofessionalism and negligence". . . .
Pressing at the possibility of cigarette smoke triggering the mishap, Chairman of St Petersburg club of submariners, Capt (rtd) Igor Kudrin said a person might have lighted a cigarette near a safety gauge switching on the fire-extinguishing system.
"After its modification the fire-extinguishing system (inclusion of automatic Freon release system) began reacting to smoke and temperature above 70 degrees C. In principle it could have been activated by cigarette smoke," Kudrin was quoted as saying by 'Moskovsky Komsomolets' daily.
"Since it is very difficult to control civilians, may be one of them, instead of waiting for his turn to go to smoking room, lighted cigarette near a safety gauge," he said.
While older generations of submarines had fire safety systems that were activated on the captain's command, new submarines have systems that switch on automatically
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