After being battered by North Atlantic gales for more than 25 hours in a stranded, fire-damaged submarine, a Canadian sailor died in an Irish hospital last night after a dramatic helicopter rescue.
Lieutenant Chris Saunders died after he and at least six other crew members on the HMCS Chicoutimi suffered smoke-inhalation injuries while they fought two fires, one of them serious, early Monday afternoon.
The fires totally disabled the newly rechristened, secondhand British diesel vessel after it had travelled only 140 kilometres on its voyage from Scotland to its new home in Halifax.
The injured sailors were part of a crew of 57 who were trapped all Tuesday night and most of the day yesterday in nine-metre waves as Irish and English rescue craft were driven away by the heavy seas. It was not until 4:30 yesterday afternoon that British sailors were able to board the submarine.
Prime Minister Paul Martin returned to the House of Commons last night to inform shocked members that Lt. Saunders had died: "The circumstances of his death have yet to be determined, but I know that all of us in this House will want to pass on our condolences and those of our country. He gave his life in the service of his country, and we pay him our profound respects and his family our deepest condolences."
The House then observed a moment of silence for the sailor, who leaves a wife, Gwen, and two young children.
His death followed a day of dramatic attempts to reach the floundering vessel, during which it became apparent that Monday's fires were far more serious than had previously been thought.
At about 8:30 yesterday morning, an Irish frigate attempted to reach the Chicoutimi, which lay 140 kilometres off the coasts of Scotland and Northern Ireland. But the waves were so heavy that they damaged the hull of the frigate, forcing it to turn back.
A British Nimrod aircraft stayed overhead, keeping radio contact with the increasingly desperate crew.
It was only in the late afternoon yesterday that the seas became calm enough for a British frigate, the Montrose, to approach the Chicoutimi. It sent an engineer and a doctor in an inflatable yellow dinghy to board the crippled submarine, an operation that veteran sailors described as extremely difficult and dangerous.
"I think probably it was extremely difficult -- boats aren't used to boarding submarines in these conditions," said Commander Richard Buckland of the Royal Navy. "They would have used rigid yellow inflatable boats. It's a very tricky job doing anything in that, especially if you look at how much the submarine is rising and falling on the sea. I've boarded a fishing boat in a gale, and that was extremely frightening, but you've got to be pretty sharp to do something like this."
After boarding the submarine, it became apparent that the "damage was more extensive than first thought," according to Commodore Tyrone Pile of the Canadian Navy's Atlantic Marine Command.
"This was a major fire and it caused extensive damage to the electrical cabling," Cmdre. Pile told reporters in Halifax yesterday. The electrical equipment room received heavy damage, as did the captain's cabin one deck below. The cause of the fire is unknown, but it was serious enough that the crew used most of the submarine's portable firefighting equipment to put it out.
Later on Monday, the Chicoutimi suffered a second "minor fire" in a portable oxygen generator. That fire, which Cmdre. Pile said was completely unrelated to the first, was quickly put out.
At about 6:30 last night, doctors decided that three of the crew were injured badly enough that they should be taken to a marine hospital in Northern Ireland. A British Sea King helicopter winched the three men off the submarine.
"En route to the hospital in Northern Ireland, part of a sortie to take the three worst-injured sailors for assessment ashore, one of the casualties -- the one who was the most seriously injured -- started to take a turn for the worse," Cdr. Buckland said. "The helicopter crew decided they would rather make a landing as quickly as possible at the nearest hospital rather than the planned hospital."
The Sea King made an emergency landing at 8 p.m. last night at the general hospital in Sligo, a small city on the western coast of Ireland. A hospital spokeswoman said last night that two of the men "are quite stable, but the third is critically ill and is under intensive treatment from physicians."
Lt. Saunders was shown on Irish television being wheeled quickly into an ambulance with breathing apparatus covering his face and several medical officials treating him. His death was announced about two hours later, after his family had been notified.
For the remaining 54 crew members of the Chicoutimi, it could be a long wait in a wave-tossed ship. Royal Navy officials said last night that it will take at least until Friday morning to attach a towing line to the submarine. At a towing speed of six knots, it will take at least two more days for the submarine to be returned to Faslane submarine base near Glasgow, Scotland.
However, Canadian and British navy officials reported yesterday that the sailors have enough heat, food and power to keep their conditions from becoming unbearable.
"The conditions aren't too bad," Captain Mike Finney of the Royal Navy said last night after talking to the crew of the rescue craft. "The submarine has lighting, and the temperature on board is pretty ambient, about 20 degrees Celsius, so there's plenty of life support, so now we're looking at how we could restore propulsion or prepare it for a tow. We're supporting the engineers on board with their assessment on this decision."
Nevertheless, the crew members are stuck on a heavily swaying, powerless boat in darkness. They are relying on dim, battery-powered emergency lights, and make their way around the ship using flashlights. When the seas are at their roughest, most of the crew are confined to their bunks.
As long as the seas remain relatively calm, the Chicoutimi sailors could be on land by Sunday night, eight days after the mothballed diesel vessel was turned over to the Canadians and a week after it left port.
"Because of the weather conditions out there -- we still have six- to eight-metre waves and 35-knot winds, so it's still pretty much a gale -- there might not be a window of opportunity until Friday to try to get a tow line to her," Lieutenant-Commander Denise Laviolette of the Canadian Armed Forces said yesterday.
British military officials continued to defend the submarine's integrity yesterday, hinting that the fire may have been caused by the Canadians. "The first indications are that the problem has nothing to do with any technical aspect of the boat or the design or the build," Capt. Finney said.
Doug Saunders