” What was that ? Watch British Navy react to break-in with Russian submarine
Leonard T. Koonce
2 min read
A British Royal Navy warship had a collision with a Russian submarine, it was a track that suddenly disappeared from the ship’s radar. The break-in shocked the sailors on board and their reactions were captured by a team of documentaries from the British news network Channel Five.
The incident occurred in late 2020 when HMS Northumberland was patrolling the North Atlantic, tracking down a Russian hunter-killer submarine that had appeared inside the Arctic Circle.
The captain of the Northumberland ordered the crew to move closer to the Russian submarine, stopping roughly parallel to it where the Russians could detect it and know they have been discovered. However, the frigate stopped at a safe distance to avoid alarming the Russians into taking sudden action.
It is a routine task for the Royal Navy to track and watch Russian ships pulling away from their Arctic naval bases, but Northumberland’s mission got complicated when the submarine disappeared from its radar. But then he reappeared with a thud.
“What was that?” British sailors can be heard asking at 1:42 in an excerpt from the documentary, shared by the London Evening Standard.
One of Northumberland’s towed sonars, a tube-shaped device with microphones that listen underwater, struck the Russian submarine a few hundred yards behind it. Just before, the frigate’s helicopter reported spotting a periscope before the submarine plunged underwater to avoid detection.
After the encounter, the Northumberland returned to its base in Scotland to replace the damaged sonar. The frigate itself was not damaged and it is not known whether the Russians suffered any damage.
Encounters at sea between the Royal Navy and their Russian counterparts can be more trying than that endured by the Northumberland and her crew. Last June, HMS Defender was followed by Russian ships in the Black Sea and fighter jets were scrambled as the Defender passed the coast of the Russian-occupied Crimean Peninsula. Russian defense officials say they fired warning shots at defender and president Vladimir Poutine accused the UK of being deliberately provocative.
