Fatal combination that led to disaster

implications of the

Antares sinking.

THE Antares sinking was a tragedy which may have been repeated up to

16 times in the last 10 years in the crowded fishing grounds of the

Firth of Clyde and the Irish Sea. But the truth about the fate of the

lost trawlers has gone to the bottom with their crews and may never be

known for sure.

Fishermen at ports along the west coast are willing to ply all who

will listen with tales of hairs-breadth escapes and expensive nets

snagged by prowling submarines and cut adrift to avoid swamping. It is a

story told with monotonous regularity and varying success to insurance

companies.

The only hard facts to emerge from a decade of claim and counter-claim

is that more than 60 men have died in suspicious circumstances, and that

there is enough evidence to have forced the Ministry of Defence to pay

compensation in at least 11 damage cases before the Antares incident.

Until this year, the Royal Navy hid behind a combination of outright

denial of responsibility and the shroud of secrecy surounding operations

in the Clyde. It has never before admitted causing loss of life.

Even at the height of the Cold War, missile boats leaving Faslane or

Holy Loch, the US base, were clearly visible to anyone ashore with a

pair of binoculars. It was a standing joke that the Soviet KGB and its

military intelligence counterpart, the GRU, were the best customers of

the scenic-cottage-for-rent industry on the lower stretches of the

river.

The joint problem for the navy and the Clyde's 150-strong trawler

fleet is that the deep-water trenches running in a horshoe around Arran

from the north are ideal both for submarine activity and for fishing.

The Antares proved beyond doubt that it is a fatal combination.

Further out into the Irish Sea, the problem is complicated by the fact

that British and US submarines are not the only vessels lurking beneath

the waves. Soviet and other Warsaw Pact boats were -- and still are --

regular visitors on the task of trying to detect and follow a Polaris or

Poseidon missile submarine as it leaves the Clyde for patrol duty in the

North Atlantic or the Norwegian Sea.

Despite glasnost and the collapse of the Soviet state, a Russian AGI

-- an intelligence-gathering trawler -- is still more or less a fixture

in the waters off the Scottish coast. Its duties are unchanged. It is

there to monitor the movement of allied submarines and pass that

information to one of its own hunter-killer boats. The strategic game

may have shifted its centre of gravity, but it is still being played.

The navy's concession that it now informs the fishing fleet of

submarine movement areas is a major step forward for an organisation

based on the foundation of total security. It is also a concession which

is effective only as long as the trawler crews pay heed to the warning.

The Antares inquiry findings call for an end to submarine exercises in

the Clyde, and for more stringent safety measures such as a minimum of

1.5 nautical miles' separation between submerged submarines and fishing

vessels on the surface.

The navy has already tightened up its own procedures, and new VHF

transceivers have been fitted to all submarines operating in the area to

enable them to communicate with trawlers.

A Defence Ministry spokesman said yesterday that nothing which might

improve safety and prevent another tragedy would be ruled out, including

the possibility of carrying out exercises elsewhere on the coast away

from the main fishing grounds.

The Ministry has also ordered a #4.5m hi-tech coastal surveillance

system which will result in the construction of three monitoring

stations equipped with radar and electro-optical sensors linked to a

central control point. This will be used for both traffic management on

the river and for search and rescue missions as well as ''deconflicting

fishing vessel and submarine activity''.

There is also talk of supplying ''pingers'' -- electronic sonar

beacons -- for attachment to fishing nets to allow submarines to detect

the presence of trawlers more easily, although the passive sonars in all

ballistic and hunter-killer submarines should already be sufficient to

pinpoint traffic accurately.

The navy is reluctant to talk about anything which impinges on the

security of Polaris missile boats, but the captains of these submarines

have standing orders not to compromise the safety of their vessels even

if an incident involving a trawler occurs.

While a nuclear-powered hunter-killer boat might surface, as in the

case of HMS Trenchant after the Antares sinking, a Polaris submarine

would remain submerged to preserve the secrecy of its own position. That

will not change, no matter what deals or compromises are finally

reached.

In the end, the growing co-operation between fishermen and submariners

can only serve to enhance safety. But the closest links and the finest

technology are always subject to the peril of human error. According to

the bulk of the evidence in the Antares case, it was the human factor,

in combination with circumstance, which cost four men their lives.