China constructed a trap to catch U.S. and allied submarines and one of its own submarines reportedly got trapped, dooming 55 Chinese sailors to their death.
The Chinese PLA Navy submarine “093-417,” which is 351 feet long and armed with torpedoes, was traveling in the Yellow Sea near China’s Shandong Province when it encountered a chain and anchor obstacle.
“Intelligence reports that on 21st of August there was an onboard accident whilst carrying out a mission in the Yellow Sea,” a secret U.K. report stated, according to The Daily Mail.
“Incident happened at 08.12 local resulting in the death of 55 crew members: 22 officers, 7 officer cadets, 9 petty officers, 17 sailors. Dead include the captain Colonel Xue Yong-Peng,” the report continued. “Our understanding is death caused by hypoxia due to a system fault on the submarine. The submarine hit a chain and anchor obstacle used by the Chinese Navy to trap U.S. and allied submarines.”
The submarine, surprisingly was reportedly not equipped with proper gas detectors.
The Type 093 submarine was reportedly quieter than its predecessor, the HAN, and carried more advanced weapons, such as anti-ship cruise missiles and more modem torpedoes.
A British submariner explained to The Daily Mail:
It is plausible that this occurred and I doubt the Chinese would have asked for international support for obvious reasons. If they were trapped on the net system and the submarine’s batteries were running flat (plausible) then eventually the air purifiers and air treatment systems could have failed. ‘Which would have reverted to secondary systems and subsequently and plausibly failed to maintain the air. Which led to asphyxia or poisoning. We have kit which absorbs co2 and generates oxygen in such a situation. It is probable that other nations do not have this kind of tech.
China has not admitted any accident occurred, calling reports of the accident “completely false” and allegedly refusing to request international assistance.
Russia and China are apparently vis-à-vis submarines. “On December 12, 2022, the Russian state-owned Rosatom Corp. supplied 6,477kg of highly-enriched uranium (HEU) to China’s fast-breeder reactor CFR-600 on Changbiao Island,” the Eurasian Times noted, adding that a Chinese news article stated, “The weapons-grade plutonium it will soon produce could be used for warheads, but alternatively, commentators from the submarine research community have discussed the possibility that it could also be intended as fuel for future nuclear-powered submarines.”