Submarine incident off Kola Peninsula The Submarine Incident off Kola Peninsula was a collision between the US Navy nuclear attack submarine and the Russian Navy nuclear ballistic missile submarine K - 407 " Novomoskovsk " some 100 miles north of the Russia n naval base of Severomorsk , on 20 March 1993 . The incident took place when the US unit , who was trailing her Russian counterpart , lost track of " Novomoskovsk " . At the time that " Grayling " reacquired the other submarine , the short distance of only half mile made the ramming unavoidable . The incident happened just a week before the first summit between American president Bill Clinton and the president of the Russian Federation , Boris Yeltsin . Previous incident . Despite the end of the Cold War and the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union , the United States government tasked the US Navy to continue to keep a close watch on the main bases of Russian nuclear submarines to monitor developments , especially those related to strategic assets that remained under Russian control . This kind of submarine surveillance was officially known as " Operation Holy Stone " and " Operation Pinnacle " or " Bollard " in the submariners ’ s jargon . The intelligence - gathering included the tapping of Soviet submarine communication cables , the recording of the pattern of noises from Soviet submarines , and the observation of submarine - launched ballistic missile tests . On 11 February 1992 , the American attack submarine collided with the Russian Navy nuclear submarine B - 276 " Kostroma " off Severomorsk . The mission of " Baton Rouge " was reportedly the recovery or delivery of intelligence - monitoring devices on the seabed . The American press claimed that the submarine was checking wireless traffic between Russian bases , but the Russians and other sources asserted that the two units were engaged in a ‘ cat - and - mouse game ’ . According to some sources , " Baton Rouge " was written - off due to the high costs of repairing the damaged pressure hull , along with a programmed refueling . The collision . " Novomoskovsk " , commanded by Captain First Rank Andrei Bulgarkov , was performing combat training tasks at a site north of Murmansk . Having reached the northern border of the designated area , she turned back , making between to . Twenty - five minutes later , while submerged at 74 meters , " Novomoskovsk " felt an impact followed by screeching noises . Immediately afterwards , her sonar reported noises of a foreign submarine close by . Before clearing the area , the " Grayling " checked that the Russian submarine had not sustained serious damage . An investigation revealed that " Grayling " had been tracking " Novomoskovsk " from a position between 155 and 165 degrees to port and from distances of between . " Grayling " lost contact with " Novomoskovsk " when the Russian submarine changed course to 180 degrees . To reacquire the target , " Grayling " sped to the location of contact loss at . The breaking waves created in the shallow waters of the Barents Sea generate background signals , so that when two submarines approach one another head - on , each detects the other when the distance is of just a couple of hundred of meters . " Grayling " s passive sonar detected " Novomoskovsk " at a distance of about a kilometer ( 0 . 54 nautical mile ) . With the distance closing and " Grayling " s Combat Information Center still trying to decide on the best way of avoiding a collision , " Grayling " s commanding officer , Captain Richard Self , tried to change course and to surface , but the attempts were thwarted by " Grayling " s momentum . " Grayling " collided with the upper structure of " Novomoskovsk " , which suffered a large scratch on her starboard bow . The American submarine limped away also with minor damage . The American submarine was repaired and remained in service until her decommissioning in 1997 . " Novomoskovsk " also returned to service , and after a major upgrade she is expected to stay in the Russian Navy until 2020 . Political consequences . The second clash between American and Russian submarines in a year unleashed a flurry of angry reactions , both inside the Clinton administration and in Yeltsin ’ s Russia . The news that the US Navy was still keeping a close watch on Russia ’ s ports and bases came barely a week before a scheduled summit between the presidents of both countries . At that time , the US government was trying to improve relationships with Russia , especially by supporting Yeltsin ’ s reforms . During the meeting , which took place in Canada , Clinton promised that he would conducted a review not only of the incident itself , but of the policies “ of which the incident happened to be an unintended part . ” Clinton ’ s statement caused concern in the US Navy , but after a briefing for top officials , among them the new national security adviser , Anthony Lake , the submarine force got the green light to continue its activities in the Barents Sea , although at a greatly reduced pace . The result was a major effort to restrict the operational procedures and improve the training of submarines ' commanding officers .