INS Sindhurakshak - what is going on with the investigation?

Something peculiar is going on here. From Business Standard newspaper -Russian experts denied access to the sunken INS Sindhurakshak

Why the Russians should be denied access doesn't make much sense. The Russians have as much of an interest in finding the cause of the disaster as the Indian Navy, since they're the one building and operating the submarines in question. The Kursk accident taught the Russians to put aside pride accept help when offered - why repeat the mistake the Russians made thirteen years ago?

Also valid is the point about Russian and Indian operating procedures being different. What in the operating procedures might have caused the accident?

And to ask an old question - was it a 53-65 torpedo?

Anyway, this entire "international tender" business is going to take its own time. The families of those killed will just have to wait.

INS Sindhurakshak - obsessed with the sabotage angle

Via Times of India -

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/INS-Sindhurakshak-tragedy-Veteran-submariners-suspect-sabotage-angle/articleshow/21848395.cms

This is getting ridiculous. Who are the 'veteran submariners' in question? Why is there such a fuss about sabotage? And who claims that Sindhurakshak was heading for the Pakistani coast on patrol? The last claim in particular is downright toxic. Dubious reporting of this nature doesn't help the mounting India-Pakistan tension at the moment, especially since blowing up another nation's submarine is an open act of war.

Some of the points in the article are very questionable indeed. To refute some of the things-

1. "Submarines have a sprinkler system" - Submarines don't carry sprinklers that spray water and foam like surface ships, due to very restricted liquid storage and the need to use the fire suppression system underwater, where the pressure of the seawater outside would simply flood the entire submarine. The subs use gas-based fire suppression systems, in case of the Russians, Freon-based systems. These use on-board refrigerants to displace the oxygen from the region of a blaze while the crew put on their gas masks, and this system is typically triggered manually to prevent an accident. An automatic version of this system caused an accident on the submarine K-152 Nerpa in 2008 - ironically, that's the same nuclear leased to the Indian Navy as the INS Chakra.

Since Freon works by displacing oxygen, a fire that doesn't need oxygen from the surrounding air - such as that caused by peroxide leaking and reacting with metal to release oxygen, or burning rocket propellants (which use their own oxidizer) won't be affected from Freon like a normal fire would. The possible culprits for the fire are the same materials that won't be put out by Freon. If Sindhurakshak used a manually triggered system, it is possible that the crews in the command spaces couldn't activate it,

2. "Missiles and torpedoes carry multiple layers of protection" - the level of protection varies from weapon to weapon, with the highest levels of protection being reserved for warhead safety. And it's a known fact that some of the weapons aboard the submarine - the 53-65 torpedoes in particular - are pretty dangerous by design and require very careful handling.

3. I'm going to argue against sabotage from the point of view of accident investigation. Sabotage is the laziest, lowest-effort explanation possible, and it places the blame entirely on easily acceptable targets (spies, traitors, terrorists, et cetera) rather than taking into account an objective view of the event. Accidents involving large, complex systems sometimes have a long chain of failures - it just needs one failure not to happen to prevent the entire accident.

For instance, the 1967 fire on the Aircraft Carrier USS Forrestal involved its own chain of failures - bringing aboard decaying World War Two era bombs, the loss of the safety pins in the rocket pods due to high wings, plugging in the pods early to reduce takeoff time, the randomness of electrical short circuits, and the loss of the ship's fire control team during their heroic attempt to delay a catastrophic explosion as long as possible. In 2002, a Boeing 747 blew up due to poorly repaired damage from a tailstrike 22 years earlier - damage that would have been caught in another few months - showing that old accidents can set up time bombs for the future.

If the system aboard the submarine had multiple levels of safeguards, there were likely multiple levels of failure involved. Finding the answer may be hard, but it mattters to the safety of everyone who serves aboard these vessels - not just in the Indian Navy but all over the world. Seeking out sabotage before all accidental causes have been conclusively ruled out is a grave disservice to submariners.

INS Sindurakshak - accident while loading missile onboard suggested

UPDATE: The situation grows increasingly grim.
http://www.livefistdefence.com/2013/08/40-hours-after-explosions-on-ins.html

UPDATE: 15Aug 20:38 IST :
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/INS-Sindhurakshak-tragedy-Hopes-fade-as-Navy-divers-fail-to-find-missing-sailors/articleshow/21846774.cms
Still no luck.
 
http://www.ndtv.com/article/india/ins-sindhurakshak-tragedy-no-word-on-sailors-yet-initial-probe-hints-at-lapses-406131

This is an interesting new suggestion. A preliminary inquiry suggests that procedures for loading a Klub missile onboard were violated, and this caused the explosion. The Klub has a multi-stage rocket/turbojet engine, but there's an entire complex of missiles, and some of them just use a rocket. So whether it was the rocket fuel, or the turbojet fuel, or the missile warhead itself that started the blaze isn't elaborated upon.

No mention of a torpedo - at least, not yet.

Business Standard gets it right on INS Sindhurakshak

Business Standard has an article on INS Sindhurakshak that is very detailed and explains things wonderfully well, courtesy of Vice-Admiral (Retired) A. K. Singh.

http://www.business-standard.com/article/current-affairs/ins-sindhurakshak-crippled-all-18-aboard-declared-dead-113081400919_1.html

1. A straight-out confirmation of the same issue the diagram shows - the torpedo storage is above the battery compartment in the Kilo class and it is a genuine danger.

2. Hydrogen fire/explosion + munitions explosion suggested.

3. The torpedoes carried on board are the 53-65 and the TEST 71-76. The TEST is a battery-powered torpedo but the 53-65 runs off a mixture of kerosene and either hydrogen peroxide or oxygen.

The submarine really was carrying torpedoes capable of replicating the Kursk accident - this point has to be driven home. It remains to be seen what the Board of Enquiry finds regarding the torpedoes. The British and the Americans got rid of Kerosene-Peroxide torpedoes after the loss of HMS Sidon in 1955, but the Russians persisted in using them. Kursk showed that it was not a good idea - is this or is this not another warning that Peroxide has no place on a submarine?

4. Explosions suggested to have been between 500-1000 kilograms of high explosive, and the missiles carry warheads of up to 450 kilograms (ouch!). A 200 kilogram torpedo warhead is bad enough but multiple explosions from the missiles and torpedoes on board would get rid of the front of the sub. Like the Admiral himself says, it's good that the Kilo class has a double hull.

5. The 2010 battery fire was caused by a ventilation system malfunction that let gas build up. The batteries were made by Exide, but the ventilation system appears to have been Russian. So the fault seems to lie with the Russians for not fixing it.

6. Or maybe the Russians aren't to blame after all. Crucial information right here - submarines in the dock are charged from a shore supply rather than using their own diesels. Did this cause a violation of normal operating procedures regarding ventilation? Was the sub's ventilation system simply switched off rather than malfunctioning? More unanswered questions.

I suppose I'll leave things here for this evening. When Admirals start throwing in their two cents, geeks like me can only sit and watch.

INS Sindhurakshak - Critical look at the Hindustan Times report

http://www.hindustantimes.com/India-news/NewDelhi/What-exactly-lead-to-the-INS-Sindhurakshak-blast/Article1-1108110.aspx

(Linked above)

"What exactly lead to the blast?" The Hindustan Times asks. A perfectly good question. In line with the three scenarios of doom that I've put together with what little information I have, I'm going ahead and taking a good look at this report.

First off, it seems like the reporter here has been talking to quite a good source. I can't imagine most people who are not Naval experts/fans/nerds describing the vessel as a "classic" diesel-electric submarine. The epithet is true - diesel-electric submarines have been around for over a century now, and the Sindhurakshak is indeed a descendant of the same submarines that caused terror on the high seas during World War One. Their batteries do need to store a lot of energy to move a 3000-ton vessel around for hours.

That being said, there are some details here that call for further explanation. Quoted below-

 There are usually two battery rooms on a submarine. Forward battery room is placed beneath the officer’s quarters and aft battery room is beneath control room.

I'm placing the image I used in the three scenarios of doom post below this one.  (Click to enlarge)

Looking through the labels on the original image, there is indeed an 'accommodation' between the forward battery bank and the torpedo storage area above it (The "1" is right on it, in fact). Whether this is a crew accommodation or officer's quarter isn't evident from the sources I have. However, the aft battery room in the diagram that I have (labeled in Russian) is under another crew's quarters, not the sub's control spaces. What the HT reporter has either not mentioned or not been told is that the forward batteries are separated from the torpedo storage by just one deck. Hydrogen, the lightest of all gases, would go up and collect in the torpedo room through ventilation ducts (and there's the issue of blowers not working, which I'll come to). It just needs a spark for hydrogen leaking from the forward batteries to blow up in or near the torpedoes - with catastrophic results.

I am in no position to comment on the hydrogen build-up rate, concentration or mixture. The article states that the blowers used to suck hydrogen out of the battery compartments were not working. The one-crore-rupee-questions here are : why were the blowers not working, and where do the blowers usually vent their hydrogen gas?

A submarine recharges its batteries and replenishes its air on the surface - so presumably the blowers would be working and blowing the hydrogen out of the submarine with the waste air during the normal course of a battery recharge. Why was that not being followed? Was it merely an oversight caused by the submarine being at the dock, or had something else broken down? Was the submarine being charged by an external diesel generator rather than its own engine at the time?

Now comes the haunting part of the report -

Two separate explosions happened almost simultaneously, one after the other on the aft side of the shift, which is adjacent to the ship’s torpedo department.
The first explosion was comparatively small, and could have triggered the second explosion.

This brings to mind Kursk, almost 13 years ago. Nevertheless, I'll take this apart slowly. 

By "aft side of the shift", he really should mean "aft side of the ship". This is confusing. Looking at the diagram, it's quite clear that the torpedo compartment is forwards in the bow, or the front end of the shift. The aft, or rear end of the ship is occupied by the diesel generator, electromotors, steering and auxiliary mechanisms. The reporter seems to have jumbled the layout of the submarine quite badly, or perhaps his source messed up (An older generation of submarines- such as the majority of World War Two submarines and the Project 645 'Foxtrot' do have an aft torpedo compartment, but this submarine very plainly does not).

However, if the report is right and the fire and explosion happened somewhere close to the aft end of the submarine, it supports the rear bank of batteries exploding in an unusually violent manner, violent enough to rupture the submarine's hull. This is as strange as it is horrific - how much hydrogen could have built up to cause such a volcanic explosion? 

The odd thing is that the two separate explosions are said to have happened nearly simultaneously - and the first one is said to be much smaller - which is quite hard to reconcile with the explosion happening aft and blowing a hole in the submarine's hull.

"The first explosion was relatively small and could have triggered the second explosion" - this is, in a nutshell, what happened to Kursk on August 12, 2000. A hydrogen peroxide torpedo exploded and knocked out the submarine's command spaces. The resultant fire set off multiple torpedo and missile warheads, causing Kursk to explode. An explosion of hydrogen gas or a faulty torpedo in the bow torpedo room seems quite likely to have caused the first explosion in a confined space. That, in turn, could easily have set off a few torpedo or missile warheads and in turn caused the second, larger explosion. Much like Kursk, the second blast would have turned the front of the submarine into a mangled wreck.

Probably the key to understanding the blast is whether the second explosion happened instantly after the first, or if there was a delay of a few minutes as the fire from the first explosion cooked off the warheads. The rocket motors of any Klub missiles on board would also be a 'wildcard' if on board- their propellants, if ignited, would start a blaze that could not be starved of oxygen.

"What exactly lead to the Sindhurakshak blast" does not do a good enough job of explaining the disaster on all these points. Nevertheless, for a highly trained crew to be caught unawares and left without time to prepare speaks of a sudden, horrific disaster on board, and that such a disaster should happen does not bode well at all.

Inside the INS Sindhurakshak : Three scenarios of doom (Updated to four)

UPDATE: Additional information in this post, via Business Standard:
http://keshavkrishnamurty.blogspot.in/2013/08/business-standard-gets-it-right-on-ins.html

I managed to find the internal layout of a Russian Kilo-class submarine off the internet. It took me a while to clean up the image and label the neccessary components, but here it is. (Original image courtesy deepstorm.ru - fair use for educational purposes)

To the security-conscious : Internal layout schematics of the Russian Kilo class and several warships of various navies are available on the internet. How accurate these schematics are is a matter of question. I will take this particular image as accurate for the sake of finding out how far any sailors trapped in INS Sindhurakshak are from the batteries and torpedo units, and I assume it's accurate enough. The Kilo is an old boat and there is nothing at all in the way of secrets to spill.

(Click on image to enlarge)

The Project 877, known to NATO as the 'Kilo' class and the Indian Navy as the 'Sindhughosh' class, has been around since the early 1980s. It's 72.6 (some sources say 72.9 meters) long and 9.9 meters wide and approximately as tall since the submarine's hull is circular. The displacement (weight) of the vessel varies in various sources. There are two major possible culprits for the Sindhurakshak accident - Hydrogen Peroxide torpeodes (like the ones that destroyed Kursk) and a possible hydrogen leak from the batteries. I've coloured the torpedoes red and the batteries yellow.

1. Scenario one: A repeat of the Kursk accident. A torpedo leaking hydrogen peroxide that came into contact with rust or corrosion in the torpedo room. A Kilo-class submarine carries a total of 18 torpedoes in the torpedo room, and some of the news sources I see claim that the submarine had a full load of torpedoes. Of course, I have no way to know how true this is - but even a single torpedo carries several hundred kilograms of explosive.

Whether anything up front leaked hydrogen peroxide or not is an open question in the absence of testimony from the sailors on board. There was apparently enough warning for several sailors to jump off the submarine and run for their lives. A peroxide leak falling onto rust would cause high temperatures and a release of oxygen, igniting the kerosene fuel of the torpedoes if in close proximity. A fire started in such a manner would have sent any crew in the vicinity fleeing, and it would take a couple of minutes for the torpedo warheads to cook off and produce the giant fireball seen in video footage.

A torpedo explosion would completely obliterate compartment 1 and compartment 2, as well as the submarine's sonar dome and torpedo tubes. Compartment 3 is not likely to survive either, and compartment 4's bulkhead is only 15 meters from the explosion. Compartment 5 and 6 have their bulkheads 24 and 31.5 meters from compartment 1's bulkhead and are shielded by the heavy diesel generator and other machinery in Compartment 4. It's in these two compartments that the 18 sailors would have to run into and shut themselves in if they were likely to survive. Russian submarines have extensive watertight compartmentalization unlike their American equivalents, and in the event of a torpedo explosion it's still likely that compartments 5 and 6 are safe. There are air flasks above compartment 5, so the crew can still breathe.

There's a real problem with the torpedo scenario - in Kursk, the fire and explosion happened in the closed confines of a poorly-secured, rusty torpedo tube, not inside the torpedo room itself. It's possible to have a repeat accident within the torpedo room, but this is pure conjecture.

2. Scenario two: Hydrogen fire from the forward batteries causing the torpedo fire. I didn't know about the torpedo room batteries when I made my last post. In this case it's not a leaky torpedo starting the fire, but the batteries up front leaking hydrogen and causing the fire. The extent to which the burning hydrogen would have spread prior to the explosion of the torpedoes and the huge fireball is not determinable without a clear understanding of air circulation within the submarine. I can't say whether or not the hydrogen fire would have been worse than a torpedo catching fire either. But the crew should be safe in compartments 5 and 6.

UPDATE: In Business Standard, Vice Admiral (Retired) A.K. Singh has pointed out this very issue with the location of the torpedo compartment above the batteries. This particular submarine had ventilation worries too.  So there's definitely one expert favoring Scenario Two : a hydrogen fire from the front batteries setting off the torpedoes.

3. Scenario three : Hydrogen fire in the rear batteries spreading and causing the torpedo fire. This is the worst scenario of the three, because the rear batteries are located in compartment 3, housing the crew. That means the fire was effectively centralized in the submarine and free to spread to the diesel generator room to the aft, or to the command spaces in front. The torpedo compartment isn't adjacent to this bank of batteries, so the fire from this would have to be especially bad to reach and set off the torpedoes in the front.

This scenario also places the men trapped behind in even greater peril. A fire powerful enough to set off torpedoes two full compartments forward would have used a lot of the air in the submarine already. The likelihood of crew injuries from fire and smoke is magnified. Compartments 5 and 6 are closer to the blaze, making it less likely that they were properly secured before the torpedoes went off.

Hopefully, scenario three is not the scenario that will manifest itself.

4. Scenario four (Information from 15 Aug 20:41 IST) -
Based on this NDTV news report and a later Times of India report. A preliminary inquiry suggests that the 3M-14E land attack cruise missiles (aka the 'Klub-S') on board were not being loaded into the submarine properly and that these may have been to blame. Apparently these had been just integrated into the submarine. The land-attack missile has the 450 kilogram warhead mentioned by VAdm(Ret.) A.K. Singh.

The 3M-14E uses a combination of a rocket first stage and a turbojet 'sustainer' engine. The turbojet engine should not be any great danger if it uses standard aviation kerosene, which is not volatile by its very nature (You can toss a lighted match into aviation kerosene and it'll be put out). I've looked in the public domain but haven't been able to find out what solid propellant this missile uses and whether or not it's highly sensitive in nature. Normally the missile's propellant is capped off to prevent it from being exposed to the air, as well as to prevent the crew from coming in contact with the often-toxic chemicals. If a Klub indeed caused the explosion, it would appear to be a fairly bad violation of operational procedures. Then again, this is a preliminary report, and there's a lot of information that I can't find out about the missile.

If I were to risk a little wild speculation, a loaded missile may have been dropped onto a 53-65 torpedo, and leaking turbojet fuel from the missile and leaking High Test Peroxide from the torpedo could have caused a flash fire and explosion. This would be a real stretch, but it seems to me a little more feasible based on what little I've read about missiles and torpedoes. (And assuming that the Klub's propellants are not very volatile, something I am not certain of).

UPDATE 1 (Aug 14): Another very intriguing news article comes up. A Mumbai fire bridgade officer managed to stop the fire from spreading to INS Sindhuratna, which was moored alongside. For how long had Sindhurakshak been burning like that? A sustained fire suggests diesel fuel - so this sub was fully fueled and was charging her batteries to head to sea when the big bang happened, it looks.
 http://www.hindustantimes.com/India-news/Mumbai/Alert-Mumbai-fire-officer-helps-save-2nd-sub-from-disaster/Article1-1108097.aspx

If this article is accurate, it raises the question of what the Navy officers aboard Sindhurakshak and Sindhuratna were doing when the second sub was in danger. What exactly was going on there? Exactly how long did it take for the fire engines to arrive? How long did it take for Sindhuratna to get underway? Too many questions, no clear answers yet. The quality of the reporting itself is suspect - which adds to the question of what happened.

INS Sindhurakshak fire - weird news reporting and distasteful comparisons to Khukri

(Edited to activate links) 
http://zeenews.india.com/news/nation/ins-sindhurakshak-indian-navys-2nd-big-tragedy-after-ins-khukri_868970.html

This confuses me. It says that 18 sailors on board are feared dead - so the ones on board who were trapped are likely to be the casualties? Or were others killed? I must admit I'm not happy with the comparison to INS Khukri, which went down fighting. What happened on board that submarine was an accident, possibly caused by criminal negligence. It's a different story altogether.

While I would otherwise have said "Rest in Peace" for those who died, that's a hollow thing to wish for - there are enough families and friends grieving for those lost, or for those trapped in the wreck. And they will want answers.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-23691561
The BBC article claims that the submarine was sent to Russia because of the battery fire in 2010 that killed a sailor. This is significant, because in the link below, the Admiral interviewed said that the battery could have leaked hydrogen while charging and caused the fire -

http://zeenews.india.com/news/nation/live-ins-sindhurakshak-fire-quite-a-setback-for-navy_868919.html

If it had been the batteries and not the torpedoes, that raises issues of its own. The Kilo-class submarine is not a particularly large submarine, but the batteries are usually located in middle or rear of the submarine. The torpedoes and missiles(which were responsible for the huge fireball witnessed) were all the way up in the front. What caused the fire is connected with the survival of the 18 sailors on board. If it was a battery fire starting further aft that sank the sub, the possibility of their survival is pretty small. If it was a torpedo fire up front, it's good news for anyone in the stern. The sub is in shallow waters, and if any survivors aft have sealed the watertight doors, it's quite possible they're alive and well.

Other sources, which I've not quoted here, say that the submarine lacked an automatic system for getting rid of the hydrogen and needed the crew to take care of the problem manually. Not surprising, since this is an older Kilo-class submarine. The Russians may not have bothered building the required level of automation into an export vessel.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-23691558
And now this is being characterized as a 'major setback' due to the delays in acquiring conventional submarines.

This accident is highly disturbing - leave aside the usual cries of 'treachery' and 'sabotage', the more likely causes are the technical failure of the submarine itself (either its batteries or its torpedoes) and human error in failing to stop charging and disposing of the excess hydrogen. The Indian Navy can afford neither at this juncture, with the other Kilo-class subs getting old and the Scorpenes being delayed.

INS Sindhurakshak on fire - battery fire or possible torpedo explosion like Kursk?

UPDATE: Put up a new post showing the insides of a Kilo-class submarine and explaining three (updated on 15 August to four) possible scenarios for this disaster.
 http://keshavkrishnamurty.blogspot.in/2013/08/inside-ins-sindhurakshak-three.html

UPDATE 2: Have taken a look at Business Standard's excellent article on the accident, in which Vice Admiral (Retd.) A.K. Singh, a former submariner,  gives his opinion on the possible causes. Blog link goes here.

UPDATE 3: (August 16, 2125 IST) - A last update to this post. Four bodies have been found in the "second comparment behind the conning tower" - is it compartment 2 or compartment 4? The rest of the submarine is so badly mutilated that it's near-impossible to further into the submarine. Compartments 5 and 6 remain the most logical places for sailors to be safe - but do they have the oxygen? Were their watertight doors sealed? I suspect a long body count is forthcoming, so I'll put a stop to speculation for now.
 

http://www.ndtv.com/article/india/navy-submarine-ins-sindhurakshak-gutted-after-explosion-18-sailors-feared-trapped-405494

This is horrible. Eighteen sailors trapped aboard a submarine in the dockyard ( 11:14 PM IST 14 August - still no word on whether anyone is alive but the situation looks very grim). At least this is not like the disaster on Kursk, which landed up a hundred meters below the Barents Sea. The men inside this submarine probably have access to oxygen and may be able to get out of the Kilo-class diesel submarine (Project 877EKM) alive.

Russian submarines and warships have long since suffered from substandard maintenance as the result of the fall of the USSR, and as far as I know the Russians never put into operation a SUBSAFE-style quality control program to prevent disastrous accidents from happening on their vessels. Submarines have had collisions, onboard fires and other accidents, Russian subs suffering pretty badly at times. So what happened on this Russian-built submarine?

http://www.hindustantimes.com/News-Feed/India/Fire-mishap-on-INS-Sindhurakshak-due-to-explosion-in-battery-Navy/Article1-513475.aspx

This submarine has had a battery fire before. Batteries can overheat and catch fire at odd times - the case of Boeing 787 Dreamliner aircraft shows that batteries can cause trouble where least expected. But judging from the sheer size of this blaze, it's more likely that this is not a battery fire, but something far more ominous : a torpedo fire.

The most infamous victim of a torpedo fire was the Russian submarine K-141 Kursk,  which blew up and sank on 12 August 2000, almost exactly 13 years ago (superstitious people, please take note of this). The mighty Kursk was doomed by an exploding 650mm practice torpedo, powered by hydrogen peroxide. The link below identifies the practice torpedo in question as a 65-76 'Kit'. The hydrogen peroxide explosion and fire knocked out the command post and set off a second, much larger explosion of torpedoes stored forward, blowing the entire submarine to bits.

Did something similar happen aboard the Sindhurakshak? Quite possibly so. Take a look at the Russian torpedoes in the link below-
http://www.navweaps.com/Weapons/WTRussian_post-WWII.htm
Several Russian 533mm weapons, such as the 53-65 torpedo, run off Kerosene and either Hydrogen Peroxide or Oxygen. A Kerosense-Peroxide practice torpedo, if leaking, could come into contact with rust or similar corrosion and start off a fire. Such a fire could 'cook off' torpedo warheads and cause the kind of explosion seen on film footage. While I can't claim to be an expert and determine the size or intensity of the blast from such footage, this is at least a plausible explanation for the explosion seen. (11:14 PM IST - Expert confirms the presence of the 53-65 and places explosion at 500-1000 kilograms HE.)

This submarine was back from an 80 million dollar modernization before it blew up. I won't be surprised if shoddy worksmanship had something to do with this disaster. If that's the case, it's going to be hard to trust Russian shipyards on anything, especially after the mess they made with Vikramaditya's modernization. Hopefully there won't be any more torpedoes on board to endanger the 18 men trapped inside. What a mess.