On Friday I heard a fairly long news report about the Russian minisub that had gotten tangled in an undersea cable. The newscasters talked about how British and American technicians were rushing to the remote area with Scorpios (remote-controlled subs) in the hopes that the Scorpios could cut the cables and free the sub before the minisub’s air supply (which the radio report said was about 30 hours) ran out.
Good news: The British got there in time:
St. Petersburg, Russia — The seven Russian sailors trapped aboard a small, dark, cold submarine on the Pacific floor were rescued today after a British remote- controlled vehicle cut away the undersea cables that had ensnared their vessel.
British crews, who arrived while U.S. rescue crews were still en route to the remote Kamchatka Peninsula site, maneuvered their Super Scorpio unmanned robotic vehicle from the surface of the sea and managed to untangle the Russian Priz AS-28, Russian news agencies reported.
(The fact that the US crews weren’t there is mentioned more than once in the story, which I find interesting. Does everything have to have an American angle for us?)
I don’t know why this kind of story gets to me, but it does. I’m not sure whether it’s the idea of being trapped on a submarine—definitely one of my personal worst nightmares—or just the idea that in situations like this it’s still possible for everything to turn out all right.