Royal Navy Submarine Responsible For Fishing Trawler Incident
By Aiswarya Lakshmi
Wednesday, September 09, 2015, 1:37 AM
HMS Astute. Photo: Ministry of Defence
Britain’s Ministry of Defence has admitted a Royal Navy submarine was responsible for dragging a trawler backwards off the Northern Ireland coast earlier this year.
A Royal Navy submarine did get entangled in a fishing boat's nets and dragged it for 18 miles, almost pulling the vessel underwater.
The admission however comes 5 months after the incident.
There was widespread speculation at the time that a Russian submarine had been involved following comments from UK Government ministers expressing confidence that no British submarines were involved.
“…the RN [the Royal Navy] has now confirmed that a UK submarine was, in fact, responsible for snagging the KAREN's [fishing vessel] nets,” Penny Mordaunt, minister of state for the Armed Forces, said in a statement.
The fishing vessel KAREN sustained damage to its nets and deck equipment while in the Irish Sea after it was dragged violently by unidentified vessel.
“It is standing Ministry of Defence [MOD] policy not to comment in detail on submarine operations but, exceptionally, I can say that this incident occurred because the [UK] submarine did not correctly identify the KAREN as a fishing vessel with nets in the water, and thus did not give her the berth she would otherwise have had.”
The Karen's crew confirmed that following the encounter 18 miles off the port of Ardglass there was no sign of the vessel that had nearly sank them.