Sergei Preminin
Encyclopedia
Sergei Preminin was a Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...

n sailor
Sailor
A sailor, mariner, or seaman is a person who navigates water-borne vessels or assists in their operation, maintenance, or service. The term can apply to professional mariners, military personnel, and recreational sailors as well as a plethora of other uses...

 who sacrificed his life on the submarine
Submarine
A submarine is a watercraft capable of independent operation below the surface of the water. It differs from a submersible, which has more limited underwater capability...

 K-219
Soviet submarine K-219
K-219 was a Navaga-class ballistic missile submarine of the Soviet Navy. She carried 16 SS-N-6 liquid-fuel missiles powered by UDMH with IRFNA, equipped with an estimated 34 nuclear warheads....

, when he manually prevented an impending meltdown
Nuclear meltdown
Nuclear meltdown is an informal term for a severe nuclear reactor accident that results in core damage from overheating. The term is not officially defined by the International Atomic Energy Agency or by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission...

 by means of a reactor SCRAM
Scram
A scram or SCRAM is an emergency shutdown of a nuclear reactor – though the term has been extended to cover shutdowns of other complex operations, such as server farms and even large model railroads...

.

Biography

Preminin's father was an electrician and his mother worked in a flax factory. The couple had three sons. Sergei attended school in the city Krasavino and decided to follow in the footsteps of his older brother Nicholas by graduating from engineering school in Veliky Ustyug
Veliky Ustyug
Veliky Ustyug is a town in the northeast of Vologda Oblast, Russia, located at the confluence of the Sukhona and Yug Rivers. Administratively, it is incorporated as a town of oblast significance . It also serves as the administrative center of Velikoustyugsky District, by which it is completely...

 in the Vologda Oblast
Vologda Oblast
Vologda Oblast is a federal subject of Russia . Its administrative center is Vologda. The largest city is Cherepovets.Vologda Oblast is rich in historic monuments, such as the magnificent Kirillo-Belozersky Monastery, Ferapontov Convent , medieval towns of Velikiy Ustyug and Belozersk, baroque...

. On 23 October 1984 Sergei was drafted into the Soviet Navy. He served on the K-219, a Soviet strategic nuclear-powered submarine.

Death

On 3 October 1986, while on patrol 680 miles (1,094.4 km) northeast of Bermuda
Bermuda
Bermuda is a British overseas territory in the North Atlantic Ocean. Located off the east coast of the United States, its nearest landmass is Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, about to the west-northwest. It is about south of Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, and northeast of Miami, Florida...

, the K-219 suffered an explosion and fire in the missile compartment VI. Three sailors were killed outright in the explosion. The vessel surfaced to permit its twin nuclear reactors to be shut down.

The remaining crew was assigned to the bow or the stern, as far away from the explosion site as possible, and had been issued gas masks. Soon after, the temperature indicator showed very high temperature on the nuclear reactors, the flow of coolant in the reactor gradually decreased further. This meant that a meltdown was imminent. However, the reactor shutdown could not proceed as planned from the control station - the trigger of the control rods had been damaged, either because the expanding gases or the intense heat. For this reason, the reactor SCRAM
Scram
A scram or SCRAM is an emergency shutdown of a nuclear reactor – though the term has been extended to cover shutdowns of other complex operations, such as server farms and even large model railroads...

 had to be carried out manually, directly into the reactor chamber. This also meant that they were exposed to strong radiation, since the on-board contamination coveralls were not in position to protect the sailors from the strong gamma and neutron radiation directly in the vicinity of the reactor core.

The officer of the reactor department, Nikolay Belikov, and his subordinate - sailor Sergei Preminin - went into the reactor chamber to complete the reactor SCRAM. They dropped three of four rods, but because of the high temperature (about 70 degrees) Belikov lost consciousness. Left in the reactor compartment alone, Sergey Preminin had to put the fourth rod in place. This was a job that required great physical strength, as the holders of the rods from were now severely deformed by the heat.

As he was leaving the reactor chamber he could not open the hatch, as a pressure difference had been established between the reactor chamber and the reactor control station. After further attempts from other colleagues to force the opening of the hatch from outside, Preminin died in the hot reactor chamber, as the rest of the crew had to move further towards the rear, to escape the poisonous gases that spread out in the boat.

Fiction

The sinking of the submarine and Preminin's feat were the subject for the book Hostile Waters
Hostile Waters (book)
Hostile Waters is a 1997 nonfiction book by Peter Huchthausen, Igor Kurdin and R. Alan White that describes the 1986 loss of the Soviet submarine K-219 off Bermuda....

, written by Peter Huchthausen
Peter Huchthausen
Peter A. Huchthausen was a Captain in the United States Navy and the author of several maritime books.-Naval career:The son of the late Chaplain and Mrs. Walther A...

, Igor Kurdin and R. Alan White. BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...

 produced a television movie of the same name in the same year, under the direction of David Drury of the Warner Bros. Rob Campbell
Rob Campbell
Rob Campbell is an actor with experience in the stage, television and films.A graduate of Wesleyan University and the Yale School of Drama, Campbell performed in numerous Yale Repertory Theatre productions. On Broadway, he appeared as Lvov in Ivanov and as Manus in Translations...

played the role of Preminin.

Honors

  • Order of the Red Star (posthumously) the decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR (23 July 1987).
  • Hero of Russia (posthumously), President's decree number 844 of 7 August 1997.
  • Medal of the Order of service to the Fatherland I degree (31 October 2003, posthumously).

Monuments

  • In the city Gadzhiyevo a monument was erected, where a road and two schools were named after him.
  • In the city Krasawino a monument was erected in his honor.
  • In Preminin's native Skornyakovo, a marble plaque commemorates Preminin's heroism with an inscription that reads: "To Russian Seaman Sergei Preminin, who has saved the world from a nuclear catastrophe."
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