The trinational NATO Submarine Rescue System has been developed in response to naval staff requirements first raised in the late 1980s. Rupert Pengelley looks at how European navies pooled their resources to create a potentially global submarine rescue service There have been more than a hundred inadvertent submarine sinkings over the past century, nearly all of them in waters above a submarine's crush depth and therefore survivable - in principle. Over the last 20-30 years, views have changed on the most practical means of escape from sunken submarines. Single-man escape systems (based on the use of escape towers, SEIE [submarine escape immersion equipment], breathing hoods et al) are routinely provided for submarine crews, but these cannot be used below a water depth of 180 m. Nowadays it is preferred - not only to cope with greater depths but also to avoid hypothermia and to simplify recovery and co-ordination once on the surface - for survivors from a sunken submarine to be brought up in a controlled manner using a shuttle. The latter is based on a manned or unmanned mini-submarine - or submarine rescue vessel [SRV] - operating from a mothership.
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