Museum submarine partially sinks in river

PROVIDENCE, R.I. — Salvage crews are determining how to raise a Russian submarine and museum that partially sank during a storm earlier this week, leaving just about two feet (0.6 meters) of its periscope above water.

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The submarine was used to film the Harrison Ford movie "K-19: The Widowmaker," a Cold War thriller.

But salvage experts yesterday discovered that water had flooded the back quarter of the Juliett 484 submarine, including the aft torpedo and control rooms, Museum President Frank Lennon said. Museum engineers suspect water leaked through several of the ship's hatches, which dipped beneath the waterline when the submarine wedged on the shoal.

Water also seeped into the 300-foot (91.4-meter) submarine's ballast tanks, or the empty space between the inner and outer hulls. A working submarine dives beneath the ocean surface when its ballast tanks are filled with water. It rises when those tanks are emptied.

The ship sits in only a few feet of water, so there's no danger it will completely submerge.

"It's not like the sub is going to float out into the channel," Lennon said. "It's not going anywhere."

The Soviet Navy built the diesel-powered Juliett 484 during the 1960s to target cities along the U.S. coast. It was later equipped to hunt other warships.