Crashed Subs Carried '1200 Hiroshimas'

Lawmakers demand answers after British, French subs collide under the Atlantic
By Rob Quinn,  Newser Staff
Posted Feb 17, 2009 7:15 AM CST
Crashed Subs Carried '1200 Hiroshimas'
Britain's HMS Vanguard, seen here in a 1992 file photo, limped back to port showing significant damage after a collision with a French submarine earlier this month.   (AP Photo/PA, Chris Bacon, File)

British lawmakers are demanding to know how the flagships of the British and French nuclear submarine fleets—each carrying missiles with enough power for 1,250 Hiroshima bombings—managed to collide earlier this month, the Independent reports. Defense sources say the crash was just incredibly bad luck, but experts are amazed that sonar supposedly keen enough to spot a fish missed vessels several times longer than the biggest whale.

Britain's Ministry of Defense "needs to explain how it is possible for a submarine carrying weapons of mass destruction to collide with another submarine carrying weapons of mass destruction in the middle of the world's second-largest ocean," said an opposition politician in Parliament.
(More submarine stories.)

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