Supervisor Elham AbolFateh
Editor in Chief Mohamed Wadie

BREAKING: Fire Breaks Out at Russian Aircraft Carrier


Thu 12 Dec 2019 | 11:10 AM
Yassmine Elsayed

Moments ago, Russia's only aircraft carrier, Admiral Kuznetsov, caught fire during maintenance work in Russia's Arctic port in Murmansk, with three people unaccounted for, Russian news agencies reported.

One source told the TASS news agency that the fire had started on the upper deck and that thick, black smoke was billowing from the vessel.

According to Russia Today, the blaze, broke out during repair works aboard Russian Navy’s sole aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov, spread, until now, to 120 square meters. Eight people have been reportedly rescued.

The ship caught fire during repairs while being docked in the Barents Sea port of Murmansk.

According to preliminary reports, the blaze was sparked by welding, after which the fire spread. An emergency services source said that firefighters are, up to the moment, battling the blaze.

It was built by the Black Sea Shipyard, the sole manufacturer of Soviet aircraft carriers, in Nikolayev within the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic (SSR). The initial name of the ship was Riga; it was launched as Leonid Brezhnev, embarked on sea trials as Tbilisi, and finally named Admiral Flota Sovetskogo Soyuza Kuznetsov after Admiral of the fleet of the Soviet Union Nikolay Gerasimovich Kuznetsov.

It was originally commissioned in the Soviet Navy in 1981, and was intended to be the lead ship of the two-ship Kuznetsov class. However, its sister ship Varyag was still incomplete when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991.

 The second hull was eventually sold by Ukraine to the People's Republic of China, completed in Dalian and commissioned as Liaoning.

The design of Admiral Kuznetsov-class implies a mission different from that of the United States Navy's carriers. The term used by her builders to describe the Russian ships is Tyazholyy Avianesushchiy Kreyser (TAVKR) – "heavy aircraft-carrying cruiser" – intended to support and defend strategic missile-carrying submarines, surface ships, and naval missile-carrying aircraft of the Russian Navy.