British nuclear submarine with trident II missile catches fire, aborts 'secret mission'

British Navy’s Vanguard-class nuclear submarine HMS Victorious on Monday, Nov 7 aborted the “top secret mission” after it caught massive fire, a Sunday article published by The Sun revealed. The vessel's 130-plus crew, including those off-duty, responded to the fire incident by dousing the electrical fire aboard. The submarine was carrying the Trident 2 nuclear ICBMs when the submarine went into flames. 

An emergency situation was declared by the ship’s captain as the fire that spread quickly forced the submarine to float to the surface at an undisclosed location in the North Atlantic.  A Navy source told The Sun that “every seagoing member of the Royal Navy is a qualified fire-fighter." Further, he noted that the British ships and submarines were able to respond to such incidents with immediate effect without it compromising the operational outputs of the vessels. The massive damage caused by the fire prompted the submarine’s captain to abandon an unspecified “top secret mission” the source stated. The vessel was then commanded to return to base at HMNB Clyde in Faslane, Scotland. 

UK submarine collides with Russian submarine

In a rare incident in history since the Cold War era, a towed sonar array trailing behind the Royal Navy's warship collided with a Russian Navy submarine, the UK Ministry of Defence said. Royal Navy's Type 23 frigate HMS Northumberland collided with a Russian Navy submarine in the North Atlantic Ocean in 2020. During the collision, the vessels of both countries were damaged. It is worth noting that the latest revelation was first disclosed in a recent episode of the television show Warship: Life At Sea. The television show telecasts the day-to-day operations of an actual Royal Navy warship.

"Television footage captures the moment crew onboard HMS Northumberland sounds the alarm, shouting 'what the hell was that,' 'shit,' 'what the f*** have I just hit' as the boat crashes into its towed array sonar," The Drive published the quote from a report of The Times newspaper. The incident was one of the rarest of its kind as the latest vessels are now equipped with advanced sensors and sonars that help the Captain keep an eye more precisely.