Project 685

Mike class

Drawings:

• --

Ships:

K-278 - Severodvinsk Shipyard - serial no. 510 - laid down 22.4.78 - launched 9.5.83 - completed 20.10.83; 8.83 sea trials begun - testbed for future Soviet submarines; from 18.1.84 attached to the 6th Submarine Division; 31.7 to 7.8.85 deep dive trials in the Norwegian Sea - conducts a 1000 m dive for 51 min (max. depth reached 1027 m); 8.85 to 11.85 final work on submarine at Severodvinsk; 30.11.86 to 20.2.87 operational tour; 8.87 to 10.87 operational tour - one of the crew put ashore, due to illness; 31.1.89 renamed Komsomolets; 28.2.89 left on an operational deployment - 7.4.89 while returning home in the Barents Sea at a depth of 380 m, a fire breaks out, and the submarine makes an emergency ballast tank blow, and then surfaces - most of the crew abandons the submarine, which sinks five hours later - Il-38 had arrived at the scene within a few hours and drops lifeboats, and about an hour after the sinking, the fish factory ship "Aleksey Khlobystov" arrives, and takes the survivors onboard - 42 men died, most from hypothermia and drowning in the cold water