First collision between Russian and British vessels since end of the Cold War occurred in late 2020
Summary
- A Russian submarine collided with a British warship’s sonar as it was tracking its movements in the North Atlantic, in the first collision between Russian and Royal Navy vessels since the end of the Cold War.
- Following the collision in late 2020, HMS Northumberland was forced to abort its 48-hour mission to find the Russian submarine by using a towed array sonar.
- However, it was damaged to such an extent that the warship had to return to port in order for the sonar to be replaced.
- One Navy source told The Telegraph that the noise made when the submarine collided with the towed array would have been so powerful that “they probably would have scared themselves s–tless when they did it”.
- They added that the probability of a submarine hitting the towed array was “infinitely tiny”.