'Ocean astronauts' ready for their submarine rescue

In this story: 'The undersea helicopter' 'Rehearse, rehearse, rehearse' The rescue team RELATED STORIES, SITES

By Gaven Morris, CNN.com writer

LONDON (CNN) - The British rescue team mounting the last-chance effort to free any surviving occupants of the Kursk are among a world-wide elite of divers who have trained most of their lives for such a mission.

"They're the most skilled group of professionals you can think of ... they're basically astronauts of the ocean," Don McGregor, head of Scotland's specialised Underwater Training Centre.

On Saturday, a LR5 mini-submarine piloted by the divers and supported by technicians, medics and the British and Russian navies will attempt to dock with the Kursk and rescue any survivors.

Despite more than 60 years of training between them, Scotsmen Tom Heron and Eric Wrightson and Englishman Sam Samson, are preparing to guide the unique craft on its very first rescue attempt.

'The undersea helicopter'

"There's great anticipation," said Liz McGuire, a spokeswoman for Rumic, the company contracted to operate the LR5, said. "They've practiced for so long."

The three are the only fully qualified LR5 pilots. They call the submersible, "the undersea helicopter" because of its manoeuvrability.

The men are required to have experience in engineering, electronics, navigation, hydraulics as well as medical training.

"It is truly a handful and they need nerves of steel," McGregor said.

"If something goes wrong and they are trapped on the ocean floor, they're in the same position as the sailors on Russian submarine."

'Rehearse, rehearse, rehearse'

A team of eight people maintain the LR5 for 24-hour-a-day readiness. Intensive dive training is conducted four or fives times a year.

One of those exercises take place at the facility run by McGregor on Loch Linnhe in Scotland.

"Despite an extremely complex job, the job description is simple: rehearse, rehearse, rehearse and rehearse," he said.

"We drop a bell somewhere in the loch and the pilot is required to find it and dock the craft exactly onto an 'x' painted on it. It could be in any position."

The loch is at least as deep as the area of the Barents Sea where the stricken Kursk is.

In Saturday's planned operation, two other submersible craft known as Scorpios will be lowered to the seabed first to "clear an apron" for the LR5, the British Ministry of Defence officials said.

The LR5 is contracted to Britain's Royal Navy.

The rescue team

Tom Heron, 49, has been a pilot with the craft since 1980. Originally an engineer, he began working with the LR5 when it was used in the oil mining industry.

Co-pilot Eric Wrightson, 55, is just as experienced -- particularly with the electronics of the LR5.

Sam Samson, the back-up pilot, is in his mid-thirties, and is a newer recruit to the project but has still been in maritime work for many years.

"They're all very sensible, reliable people ... with a sense of humour," McGuire said. "They need one because it enables them to cope with traumas."

McGregor said the men also needed extraordinary patience.

"These guys are so laid back -- they have to be. They are trained to sustain the painstaking pressure of nothing happening for long periods of time," he said.

While the pilots are prepared for the technical task ahead, encountering badly injured and traumatised sailors or worse, many fatalities, is a prospect they might not be as prepared for.

"They have some idea of what they're going to face but it would be very hard to prepare for," McGuire said.

She said the company would look at counselling for the men.

McGregor most mini-submarine pilots have undertaken first aid courses and many had full paramedic training.

Many had been involved in work recovering bodies from maritime accidents.

On Saturday, the LR5 pilots will learn whether their latest mission at the bottom of the Barents Sea will be their first rescue or another recovery.

Damaged hatch a blow to Russian sub rescue hopes
August 18, 2000
How glider enthusiast may help save Russian sub
August 18, 2000
LR5: The world's most advanced submarine rescue craft
August 16, 2000
No signs of life on sunken Russian sub; Britain helping in rescue
August 16, 2000

Underwater Training Centre
Britain's Royal Navy
Jane's Defence Weekly Online Service - the most up to date weekly on global defense
Deep Submergence Rescue Vehicle - DSRV
Perry Slingsby Systems: LR5 manufacturers

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