Deep Rescue In The Nuclear Age

After the tragic loss of the nuclear submarine Thresher , in 1963, the U.S. Navy undertook the development of Deep Submergence Rescue Vehicles (DSRVs). On the basis of knowledge gained from earlier submarine-escape research and from the Navy’s bathyscaphe Trieste , which descended to a record depth of 35,800 feet in 1960, plans were made for six vessels, each capable of carrying a crew of three and twenty-four evacuees.

Thus far, two have been built. The Mystic , just under fifty feet long, was launched in 1971; her twin, the Avalon , was completed a year later. They can operate at depths of five thousand feet after being launched either underwater from a submarine or from a submarine rescue ship on the surface. They also can be transported by plane or by a special trailer on land.

Once on the scene, the DSRV, a sort of modern-day McCann Rescue Chamber, hooks up with an escape hatch on the sunken submarine. The submariners climb into the DSRV, and it carries them either to its “mother” submarine or to one of two specially built, catamaran-like rescue ships.

Neither the Mystic nor the Avalon has been called on for an actual rescue mission so far, nor have the submarine rescue ships. No U.S. military submarine has sunk since 1968, when the nuclear sub Scorpion disappeared off the Azores. All ninety-nine men aboard the Scorpion were dead before any trace of the vessel was even located. The DSRVs remain deployed and ready aboard submarines at sea; the rescue ships serve as platforms for deep-sea diving operations.