Soviet submarine K - 429 K - 429 ( often incorrectly referred to as K - 329 ) was a Project 670 - A " Скат " ( " Skat " , meaning " ray " ; also known by its NATO reporting name of " Charlie - I " class ) nuclear submarine of the Soviet Navy . Her keel was laid down on 26 January 1971 at Krasnoye Sormovo in Gorky . She was launched on 22 April 1972 , and was commissioned on 31 October 1972 into the Soviet Pacific Fleet . Sinking incident . In the spring of 1983 , " K - 429 " returned to base needing overhaul after a long patrol . After turning their boat over to the shipyard , crew departed on leave . However , her nuclear weapons remained aboard . Ordered to sea . That June , Captain First Rank Nikolay Suvorov was ordered by Rear Admiral Oleg Yerofeyev , commander of the Pacific Fleet , to reassume command of " K - 429 " and to take part in an exercise . Suvorov questioned the order : the exercises had been planned for autumn , the boat was being repaired , the crew was on leave , and Suvorov expected a transfer to St . Petersburg . Yerofeyev explained that Suvorov ' s Communist Party membership would be revoked and he would have to face a tribunal if he asked such questions . ( Without Communist Party membership , Suvorov would not be allowed to command a warship . ) Suvorov recalled his crew and returned to " K - 429 " . Much of the crew could not be contacted , and their places were filled by sailors from the naval base and from five other boats that were in port at the time . Nearly one - third of the 120 crewmen had never been on " K - 429 " before , and none of them received any training on " K - 429 " . On 23 June 1983 , " K - 429 " was ordered to proceed immediately to the torpedo firing range . Suvorov refused that order , replying that standard operating procedures required him to perform a test dive first . The sinking . In the late evening on 23 June , " K - 429 " arrived at her testing area in Sarannaya Bay , just south of Petropavlovsk - Kamchatsky , and Suvorov gave the order to dive to periscope depth . However , he had not given the preliminary command to set the diving watch — the crew neither aligned the boat ' s systems for sea , nor were they at their stations to control the boat during the dive . Because the boat had not been prepared to dive , instrumentation valves were not aligned properly , and even though the main ballast tanks were filling , their indicators read empty . Confused , Suvorov ordered auxiliary ballast tanks filled . Over - ballasted to about 60 tons negative buoyancy , the boat dove very quickly . While " K - 429 " was in the shipyard , her ventilation system had been opened to the maximum extent possible , so as to exhaust fumes from welding . Various interlocks that would automatically shut ventilation valves were disabled . This lineup was not corrected before the boat dove . The open ventilation system caused immediate catastrophic flooding of the forward compartments . Suvorov ordered an emergency ballast blow , but the operator became confused and shut the flood valves on the bottoms of the tanks , while opening the vents on the tops of the tanks . About half of the boat ' s supply of high - pressure air was wasted through the vents without displacing any water . The forward compartments took on about 420 cubic meters ( 420 tons ) of water before the ventilation system could be secured , killing 14 men immediately . At about midnight , the boat hit bottom , about 39 meters down . Although Suvorov had made mistakes that contributed to the sinking , his insistence on a test dive had saved the remaining men : the torpedo firing range was around 2000 meters deep . If Suvorov had proceeded there directly , " K - 429 " would have been lost . The rescue . The boat ' s emergency buoys and escape capsules had been welded to the hull to prevent losing them at sea , so escape would require the crew to make a free ascent in Arctic waters . Suvorov assumed that his report that he would make a test dive had been received , and that the duty officer would give the alarm in about an hour when he failed to report re - surfacing . He ordered his crew to remain at their stations and await rescue , even though the boat ' s battery had begun releasing hydrogen . Several hours later , during the morning of 25 June , Suvorov called for volunteers . Two of his original crew donned escape gear , locked out of the torpedo room escape trunk , and successfully ascended to the surface . They saw no ships in the area , so they swam to shore , where they were arrested by military police . Their report reached Admiral Yerofeyev at about noon . By 19 : 15 that evening , the boat had been located , and the first sailor ascended to the waiting rescue ships at 22 : 36 . During the rescue , two more seamen were lost during their ascent . The last seaman reached the surface at 23 : 00 . Aftermath . On 6 August " K - 429 " was raised and towed into shallow water , and salvage began . It transpired that the reactor had shut down automatically , but that its control rods had jammed before reaching their full stroke and the reactor had been operating at about 0 . 5 % power since the disaster . No radiation or contamination leakage was found . On 8 August , " K - 429 " was raised into dry dock . Suvorov was sentenced to ten years in prison . Likhovozov , chief of the fifth compartment , was sentenced for eight years . They were arrested in the barracks where the court took place , without letting them to say good - bye to their wives . Suvorov told an interviewer , " I am not fully innocent . But a fair analysis should have been made to avoid such accidents in the future . I told the judges in my concluding statement : if you do not tell the truth , others do not learn from bad experiences — more accidents will happen , more people will die . " Admiral Yerofeyev was promoted to Commander - in - Chief of the Northern Fleet . On 13 September 1985 , " K - 429 " sank at her moorings . She was again raised and decommissioned .