Talk:Soviet submarine K-219

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Some comments dating from 2006[edit]

Am I confused, or are you saying the sub sank in Oct'86 and the captain was imprisoned until May'86? I'm notoriously unreliable about time (and space), but this sounds impossible: released 5 months BEFORE the sub sank?

The author of this page shows a certain lack of care and accuracy in their writing. I suggest that the wording and accuracy needs to be checked. As another example stating as a fact that the USS Augusta interfered with rescue efforts, rather then it is a Soviet charge that the USS Augusta interfered.

Yes, this article does seem to have some bias and (currently) unfounded claims. I've flagged it as biased, so the "interference" from the USS Augusta can be either cleared up or have a citation & explanation added. (Russell Newman 00:36, 3 April 2006 (UTC))[reply]

What's in a name?[edit]

What are the Eng translation of Navaga? Trekphiler 19:39, 25 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

19-year old?[edit]

This sort of is in keeping with the other complaints, but it appears that the seaman who sacrificed his life was 20 and not 19-years old according to the article about him. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Wilkyisdashiznit (talk • contribs) 04:21, 24 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Say what?[edit]

"Not to be confused with Soviet submarine K-219"? TREKphiler hit me ♠ 04:27, 30 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Looking at the page history, it seems Pamporoff mistakenly changed it. I'm not sure a dab to K-19 is really necessary...so I propose deleting. TREKphiler hit me ♠ 04:32, 30 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I went ahead and changed it back. The edit was unexplained and doesn't make any sense on the surface. CarbonX (talk) 13:43, 30 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Crew roles[edit]

Valery Pshenichny was regarded in the article as a political officer (zampolit) , but he was the security officer, the political officer was a diferent crew member i corrected it . Actually they played very diferent roles in the incident. Several withness described the political officer as short of a coward, while Pshenichny as security officer was well regarded by the crew and worked alongside the rest of them to control the crisis. The movie also incorrectly identifiques Pshenichny as political officer, but that was as dramatic licence since they deleted the character of the zampolit. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.9.166.57 (talk) 00:53, 23 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Missing nukes?[edit]

No explanation is given as to the nuclear missiles that were apparently missing. This seems a bit strange, surely someone cared that the weapons were gone and made an effort to find out what happened to them? 59.167.49.215 (talk) 10:51, 7 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]


Robert Ballard went and did recon on it before finding Titanic. It is unknown still who did the work to recover the items. Russia never released any photos that ive been able to find. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.64.185.60 (talk) 15:18, 5 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]


The only source for the "forced hatches/missing nukes" story is the "Hostile Waters" book by Kurdin, et. al. Is there any reason to believe it's true? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.165.172.37 (talk) 01:29, 22 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

”Hostile Waters” is a dramatised account, and should not be used as a source. The only information regarding the missing missiles is heresay as the Russians never released photos or a statement to confirm they were actually missing. No credible reference showing they are actually missing exists. Enderwigginau (talk) 06:55, 2 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]


Given the context and the timing, one explanation that *must* be considered is that there never were any nukes on board in the first place. Recent studies showed that Cold War USSR had nowhere near the number of all sorts of military hardware that the US claimed they did. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2001:8003:E448:D401:300C:3520:DD18:4DEA (talk) 03:14, 14 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Casualties: specific cause of death[edit]

This edit changed an unsupported assertion re Sergei Preminin's cause of death from "overheating" to "radiation poisoning." AFAICS, any unsupported editorial assertion re specific cause of death is WP:OR. I've changed the assertion at that point so as not to contain an unsupported assertion re cause of death.

FWIW, Hostile Waters, Huchthausen, Kurdin & White 1997 (a novelization cited in a number of places in this article), on p.199 says, speaking of Preminin, ".. he yanked [his OBA] off. He took a small breath, testing. The burning got worse. His nostrils began to gush green foam. It was almost over. ... He looked at the steel hatch, opened his mouth wide, sucked in a tremendous gasp of poison, and let his soul go free"; p.202 says, "The wet tissues of their lungs had been seared by nitric acid. The foam was the body's protective response to those burns. But the protection was drowning the injured sailors. Three had already died and Preminin made four."; p. 203 says, "[Kochergin had] left three dead back in eigh; two of the missilemen from four and Weapons officer Petrachkov. Their bodies had bloated in the heat ..."; p.224 says, re Petrachkov and two other crewman who died in the missile compartment (as if quoting): michman:"They're in the next compartment, Petrachkov and two more. Their bodies, I mean, ..." Kapitulsky:"The heat?" michman:"And the poison. The bodies swelled up like balloons. ...". Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 00:18, 4 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Not worth a anything - a work of fiction.50.111.42.37 (talk) 23:24, 30 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Assertion re collision with Augusta[edit]

Per WP:BRD, in this edit I had reverted an unsupported bold edit to this article which contradicted cited supporting sources. That was unreverted here. I'm going to re-revert and request that this be discussed here before the changes are reintroduced. The supporting surce cited in the article says, "The Soviet Union claimed that the incident was due to a collision with a U.S. submarine. Captain Britanov says, 'There was no collision.'" and "... I do not tell the story the way my government wants me to tell it. I did not collide with an American sub.", citing further sources named therein. If this is contradicted by other reliable sources, neutrality requires that this article fairly represents all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in the published, reliable sources. (see WP:DUE). Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 00:12, 11 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I also find odd this mention of a story (that) "government wants be the one told", but then no details about it. If it's (or was) the officious / official Russian story, that surely deserves a paragraph, yes? Unless there has been nothing "official" published, which would not be too surprising (too many negatives, sorry, just lost) 72.48.98.210 (talk) 06:42, 22 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Source[edit]

I cant find the TV programme with the interview with CINC Northern Fleet. --109.91.86.174 (talk) 00:05, 17 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Hmmm. I haven't seen/heard the documentary myself, and the article says that it was interview recorded in February 2013. Confusingly, there was a 2011 documentary about India titled "The Silent War" (see [1] and [2]), and an episode by that same name in a 2013 series on the Cold War (see [3]). Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 01:22, 17 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Here are the details of the programme containing the piece about K219: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03lnswn. Vladimir Chernavin is listed as a participant. Eckaslike1 (talk) 01:28, 31 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

External links modified[edit]

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Were there nukes?[edit]

THe lede says that "it carried" so many of such a nuke. Given that there is some doubt as to this, perhaps that should be changed to something along the lines of "it was capable of carrying". — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2001:8003:E448:D401:300C:3520:DD18:4DEA (talk) 03:16, 14 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The following Source claims that Russian investigators discovered plutonium traces on floating debris. I'd argue that it is thus relatively likely that there were nukes aboard K-219.
https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Sunken-Soviet-sub-leaked-Plutonium-3113164.php Darkcoucou (talk) 22:06, 10 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
That source says explicitly at several points that there were nuclear missiles aboard. That info is already in this WP article, supported by cites of several other sources. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 08:47, 11 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Aftermath and Wreckage[edit]

For anyone editing this article later:

I intended on writing about the Wreckage of the K-219, when I discovered that an archived version had a claim in which it is stated that: 'In 1988, the Soviet hydrographic research ship Keldysh positioned itself over the wreck of K-219, and found the submarine sitting upright on the sandy bottom. It had broken in two, aft of the conning tower. Several missile silo hatches had been forced open, and the missiles, along with the nuclear warheads they contained, were gone.'

This phrase seems to have sparked the attention of conspiracy theorists, which have spun a lot of theories about who 'stole the warheads', making my attempts to find out whether or not this claim is true quite difficult.

I'd like to offer my alternative explanation: As the K-219 sunk beneath the depth it was engineered for, water started to leak inside the missile containers, putting the missiles under extreme pressure. The R-27 Zyb Missiles that were usually carried by subs of this class are fueled with hypergolic propellant (fuel and oxidiser ignite on contact), meaning that when the missiles were finally crushed by the water pressure, they must have exploded, ripping off the silo covers and ejecting any warheads carried on them out of the sub. What remains of the warheads is very likely crushed and scattered around the wreckage of the sub in 6 000 meters depth. I cannot confirm this claim, but I'd like to leave it here in case another editor wants to make an edit in this regard. Darkcoucou (talk) 22:01, 10 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

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