Submarines

More than 20 people died in an accident aboard a nuclear- powered Russian navy submarine in the Pacific, the navy said. The accident occurred when a fire-extinguishing system went into operation in error, navy spokesman Capt. Igor Dygalo said. He said the reactor was working normally and radiation levels were normal. Dygalo said the dead included sailors and shipbuilders. The navy has been plagued by deadly accidents. In August 2000, the Kursk nuclear submarine exploded and sank in the Barents Sea, killing its entire crew of 118.

The Navy says a sailor died in an apparent accident on the ballistic missile submarine Nebraska off Oahu over the weekend. Spokesman Lt. Cmdr. David Benham said the accident didn't affect the ship and no one else was injured. Lt. Kyle A. Raines said the sailor, whose name hasn't been released, was mortally injured while the sub was submerged and conducting routine operations. He was given emergency treatment and placed on a medical helicopter, but died before reaching a hospital.

The Venezuelan government announced Sunday that four Russian naval vessels will participate in joint exercises in the Caribbean this year, a move that could heighten already strained relations between Washington and Moscow. Venezuela's naval intelligence chief, Adm. Salbatore Cammarata Bastidas, said in a statement that a task force including four Russian naval vessels and 1,000 Russian military personnel would take part in mid-November exercises with Venezuelan frigates, patrol boats, submarines and aircraft.

The capture was worthy of an action thriller: elite Mexican troops rappelling from a helicopter onto the deck of a mysterious submarine. The 33-foot vessel turned out to be crammed with parcels apparently containing cocaine, possibly tons of it. The disheveled crew of four had emerged in stocking feet and baggy shorts, claiming to have shipped out from Colombia a week earlier under threat of death.

The nation's drug wars sank to new depths Wednesday as the Mexican navy announced it had seized a submarine that was transporting cocaine off the southern coast. The navy intercepted the 33-foot vessel about 125 miles south of Puerto de Salina Cruz in Oaxaca state. Jose Luis Vergara, a navy spokesman, said in a radio interview that special forces waited until the vessel surfaced before rappelling from helicopters and overpowering the four-man crew.

The Navy's newest attack submarine, the New Hampshire, was christened in Groton by the widow of a pilot killed in the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. "I believe I'm looking at heroes," Cheryl McGuinness of Portsmouth, N.H., told its crew. "You all are my heroes." Thomas McGuinness was co-pilot of American Airlines Flight 11, which was flown into the World Trade Center's north tower. The 7,800-ton, 337-foot nuclear-powered submarine will have a crew of 134.

Peter Thomas Stephens was 3 and America had just entered World War II when his father, a naval officer, last held him. "I had scarlet fever," remembered Stephens, 69. "He was at the door and I was in his arms." His father, Lt. Millener W. Thomas, left to serve on the U.S. submarine Grunion. Months later, it vanished in the Pacific. For the next six decades, the fate of Thomas, who was the Grunion's executive officer, and 69 other crewmen was a mystery. Then, in late 2006, Stephens got a letter from a stranger.

Capt. Andy Hale has just worked out and is still in a sweaty T-shirt and shorts as he stands in the battle command center. He is watching a flat-screen display that shows what's happening outside on the bow and the aft. His billion-dollar submarine -- the U.S. Navy's newest twist on underwater warfare -- is hovering just below the surface off the Pacific island of Guam as a submersible disappears into the dark waters, carrying a team of commandos....

Marines seized a makeshift submarine capable of smuggling 12 tons of cocaine through the Pacific to Central America, making it one of the largest such craft found, authorities said. The nearly completed fiberglass submarine, found in a rural area in south Narino province, had space for four crew members.

It was on a routine patrol that the Colombian coast guard stumbled upon an eerie outpost amid the mangroves: a mini-shipyard where suspected drug traffickers were building submarines. Perched on a makeshift wooden dry dock late last month were two 55-foot-long fiberglass vessels, one ready for launch, the other about 70% complete.