Back to the Atule "TOC" 

Peruvians remember sub sinking,  By Rick Vecchio, The Associated Press, Thursday August 17, 2000

LIMA, Peru (AP) -- Pascual Gomez doesn't have to imagine what it is like for Russians trapped in a nuclear submarine Kursk on the ocean floor. With oxygen running out and toxic gas threatening to seep in, he and crewmates used an emergency pressure tube in a daring escape that shot them to the water's surface.

It was a Saturday morning, Aug. 27, 1988, that navy divers tapped out Morse code on the hull of the submerged Peruvian submarine Pacocha, relaying permission to go ahead with their risky plan.

Over the next several hours, Gomez and 21 others formed small groups and in succession crammed into the tiny chamber, similar to a torpedo tube, sealed themselves from the craft and allowed water in to equalize pressure with the ocean.

Then they shot up, breaking the Pacific's surface, gasping and screaming from pain.

"I would have nightmares in which I heard and saw my crewmates screaming for help," Gomez, now retired, told The Associated Press on Wednesday, recalling the months afterward. "I was terrified of the dark. It made me claustrophobic."

The Pacocha, a 312-foot former U.S. Navy attack submarine, had been accidentally rammed by a 412-ton Japanese fishing boat shortly after sunset on Aug. 26, about three miles from the port of Callao, eight miles northwest of Lima.

Within seven minutes the submarine, which carried more than 50 sailors and officers, sank 137 feet to the Pacific floor.

Gomez recalled the absolute darkness, broken by brilliant flashes of sparks from short-circuiting control panels, as the vessel made its rapid descent.

In the waters above, three officers and 23 sailors who had managed to abandon ship formed floating circles in the frigid water and waited for rescue. But before help arrived, three crewmen were separated from the rest. Their bodies were never found.

A lieutenant commander and two sailors died aboard the submerged submarine, according to an account published two years later by retired Peruvian navy Rear Adm. Ramon Arrospide. The officer drowned and the crewmen were asphyxiated when oxygen in an air bubble ran out.

But 22 crewmen, including Gomez, then a 34-year-old electrical technician, managed to seal themselves inside a forward torpedo room.

By morning, Peruvian navy officials had decided to await help from the United States. A U.S. navy team was due to arrive late Saturday, or possibly Sunday, with a diving bell specially designed for submarine rescue.

But air supplies dwindled faster than expected and carbon monoxide was building up fast. Attempts to inject air into the disabled vessel from another submarine failed.

Meanwhile, toxic chlorine gas produced by the vessel's flooded batteries threatened to seep into the dry compartment where the sailors had sealed themselves.

"The lack of oxygen and the carbon monoxide was practically lethal to us," said another retired sailor, Jose Contreras, 41.

Gomez said he and the other sailors donned inflatable life vests and prepared to swim their way out.

The crew knew the risk they took with their plan to catapult themselves to the surface, Contreras said.

An instant before opening the escape chamber, the sailors exhaled as much air as possible to avoid collapsing their lungs in the sudden shift of pressure.

That is how one sailor died, Contreras said, and another suffered a cerebral embolism caused by his ascent from the ocean floor.

The survivors were rushed to decompression chambers, suffering from severe cases of the bends. Many suffered health problems for years, shortening their military careers, Contreras said.

Both Gomez and Contreras have been closely watching developments with the Russian submarine, the Kursk, which lies in the Barents Sea more than 350 feet below the surface.

"They are in much deeper than we were, about twice as deep," Contreras said.

Both, however, held out hope the crew might survive.