In November 1990 the trawler Antares sank in the Firth of Clyde with all four crew members on board all losing their lives. The loss of the vessel was immensely controversial as it emerged that the Antares was sunk when its nets became tangled with a Royal Navy nuclear submarine which passed underneath. The incident led to major changes in the way the Royal Navy carried out training in areas where civilian vessels were likely to be present.
Background
The Antares was a small, wooden trawler which was built in Sandhaven, Aberdeenshire in the 1960s. It was around 15 metres (50 ft) in length, had a crew of four, and was used to fish for mid-water species such as mackerel and herring. The Antares left its home port of Carradale on the 19th of November 1990 and began to fish in the Firth of Clyde.
The other vessel involved in this incident was the Royal Navy’s nuclear-powered submarine, HMS Trenchant. A Trafalgar-class submarine, Trenchant was 85 metres (278 ft) long, displaced 5,300 tons and had a crew of around 130. The submarine was in the Firth of Clyde to take part in the Submarine Command Course. This course is designed for officers looking to take command of their own submarine eventually and is known as the Perisher due to its extremely demanding nature and low success rate. Taking place over sixteen weeks, the Perisher sees the officers (who are known as ‘students’) take part in land-based training, simulator work and simulated warfighting. The Perisher course culminates in each student taking command of a submarine during a simulated war scenario where they are ‘hunted’ by other Royal Navy vessels in a mock battle. Any student failing the Perisher course is immediately removed from the submarine and cannot serve on a Royal Navy submarine in any capacity for the rest of their career.
Timeline of the Incident
On the 21st of November, the Antares travelled to a deep-water area known as the Arran Trench and began a long period of fishing which would continue overnight. Two other fishing vessels, Heroine and Hercules III were also fishing in the same area. The captain of the Antares made a telephone call to shore at approximately 22:30 and reported that everything was fine and there were no issues with either the boat or the crew.
On the same night, HMS Trenchant was in the same area conducting the Perisher course. As this was the final stage of the course a student was in command of the vessel under the supervision of a commanding officer. The student was required to carry out a simulated mine-laying operation while the Royal Navy’s Leander-class frigate HMS Charybdis hunted for the submarine on the surface.
At 02:17 the sonar of HMS Trenchant detected two vessels on the surface, and, as one was approaching, turned away to avoid contact. Loud banging was then heard by the crew of the submarine followed by scraping noises along the side of the submarine and further ‘disturbance’ noises. HMS Trenchant returned to periscope depth to assess the situation and saw only two fishing vessels (Heroine and Hercules III) which did not appear to be in any distress. HMS Trenchant then surfaced and part of a trawl net was found around the hull of the submarine, along with the remains of trawl wires. Trenchant then attempted to radio the two fishing vessels which it could see nearby. Although radio contact could not be made the trawlers appeared to be engaged in normal fishing activity. The Trenchant then radioed HMS Charybdis which also reported that they had not noticed anything amiss in the area. The crew of HMS Trenchant assumed that they had collided with the trawl nets of one of the fishing boats, but since both of the boats they could see appeared to be continuing fishing they reasoned that no damage had been caused and that the collision was a relatively minor issue. Following this HMS Trenchant submerged to continue with the Perisher course.
Only on returning to the naval base at Faslane did the crew of the Trenchant realise that the situation may have been more serious than they realised. The damage caused to the submarine by the trawl net was more severe than they initially thought, as the full extent could not be seen when the submarine was at sea. Trawl wires had gouged deep grooves into the casing of the submarine, and a sonar dome was seriously damaged. News of the incident was then circulated around the fishermen of the Firth of Clyde.
On hearing that there had been a collision between a trawler’s nets and a submarine the Secretary of the Clyde Fisherman’s Association was highly concerned. He began contacting trawlers which were out at sea, eventually reaching the crews of Heroine and Hercules III. It soon became apparent that the Antares had not been seen by any other trawlers since 2 am and had not returned to shore or docked in any port. A full-scale search for the Antares was then started. Helicopters, lifeboats and coastguard vessels all joined the search, soon joined by trawlers which broke away from fishing. HMS Charybdis was also recalled to the Firth of Clyde to coordinate rescue efforts. While no sign of the Antares or its lifeboat could be located, oil and fish boxes were found floating on the surface at the last known location of the Antares, and the sonar of one of the search vessels located a new, uncharted wreck on the seabed. The next day, this wreck was confirmed to be the Antares. In the following days, the wreck was raised to the surface and the bodies of three of the crew members were recovered. The following year the body of the fourth crew member was recovered when it was brought up in the net of a trawler fishing in the area.
What Happened to the Antares?
After the incident, a full investigation was carried out by the MAIB (Marine Accident Investigation Branch), the department of the British government which is responsible for investigating all accidents involving British ships. The full MAIB report was published in 1994, two years after the incident took place. The MAIB stated that the Antares was fishing in the Arran Trench, with its nets being pulled through mid-water. HMS Trenchant then collided with the trawl nets, causing the Antares to capsise and then turn upside down. The Antares was then dragged along the surface by HMS Trenchant in this inverted position, eventually being pulled below the surface, causing the warp wires (which connect the nets to the submarine) to snap. Following this, the Antares sank to the seabed. The banging noises heard by the crew of the Trenchant were the sounds of the trawl nets and wires making contact with the submarine, while the disturbance noises were likely the sound of the Antares sinking.
The MAIB report concluded that no blame at all could be attached to the crew of the Antares who were going about their legal business of commercial fishing, and instead placed all of the responsibility on the crew and commanding officers of HMS Trenchant. The official findings of the investigation said that there was a “partial breakdown in both the standards and structure of watchkeeping on board HMS Trenchant.”
The report went on to list the series of errors made by the crew and commander of the Trenchant. The key factor was that the crew were paying more attention to the simulated battle with HMS Charybdis than avoiding contact with surface vessels. Indeed, the belief that there were only two trawlers above them was wrong – there were three (Antares, Hercules III and Heroine) but the crewmembers operating the sonar had mistaken two of the trawlers passing each other as a single vessel. This meant that when they returned to the surface they were not aware that there should have been three trawlers present on the surface, not two.
The crew of the Trenchant were also mistaken in their belief that, at sixty metres below the surface, they were clear of trawl nets and should have known that due to the depth of the Arran Trench, trawlers operating in the area would have their trawl nets set much deeper than this. Furthermore, they should have known that a collision with a trawl net would have been very serious for the fishing boat involved and it was highly unlikely that any trawler involved in such an incident would simply continue fishing. Reporting back to Faslane that all vessels involved in the incident were safe meant that it took eight hours before it could be established that the Antares was missing and the search operation launched.
The official report into the loss of the Antares made a number of recommendations which were aimed at preventing an incident such as this from happening again. These were formalised in a document entitled The Code of Practice for the Conduct of Submarine Operations in the Vicinity of Fishing Vessels, which was a collaboration between the Royal Navy and the Maritime Safety Agency. The code applied to all Royal Navy submarines operating within British territorial waters and included the following:
- All submarines should keep a distance of 1,500 yards from fishing vessels when at periscope depth and 4,000 yards when submerged.
- Designated Submarine Exercise Areas were set so that fishing vessels could clearly distinguish if they were operating in an area where submarine training or operations were taking place.
- A designated Fishing Vessel Safety Ship (FVSS) should be used when submarines are on exercises. The role of this ship is to provide information to the submarine to help avoid fishing vessels and also make fishing vessels aware that submarine activity was taking place in the area. Any fishing vessels coming within 6,000 yards of the FVSS must inform the FVSS of its presence.
- Foreign submarines operating in British waters must also be fully briefed and operate in keeping with the code.
Following Events
After the recovery of the wreck of the Antares, the vessel was restored and was displayed at the Scottish Maritime Museum in Irvine, North Ayrshire. However, the vessel was removed and scrapped in Troon in 2008 as the cost of maintaining the vessel had become prohibitive. HMS Trenchant remained in active service with the Royal Navy until 2021. She was officially decommissioned in May 2022.
It is believed that since 1970 there have been at least twenty cases across the world of submarines snagging the nets of trawlers with as many as 150 fishermen losing their lives in these incidents. An article covering some of these incidents can be viewed by clicking here.