'Failures' led to submarine blast

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Operator Mechanic Anthony Huntrod, 20, from Sunderland, and Leading Operator Mechanic Paul McCann from Halesowen, West Midlands, died when an oxygen generator exploded two years ago while HMS Tireless was on a war games operation.

Sunderland coroner Derek Winter gave a narrative verdict saying "systemic failures led to the contamination and damage" of the oxygen generators on board "which in turn caused the explosion".

During the seven-week inquest the coroner heard a batch of almost 1,000 Self Contained Oxygen Generators (SCOGs) left in a hazardous waste depot in Devonport were returned to Royal Navy service in 2006.

Mr Winter said it was "a significant possibility" that the SCOG which exploded was one that had originally been sent to the dump.

But it was impossible to say because the method of tracking and accounting for SCOGs was incomplete.

Mr Winter said: "There was a culture of complacency regarding the risks posed by SCOGs and a tolerance of practices likely to increase those risks."

He said at Devonport the practices were much less rigorous than at the UK's other main nuclear sub base at Faslane, Scotland.

The inquest heard the explosion happened 8,000 miles from the UK, 170 miles north of Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, when Tireless was on an exercise with an American sub USS Alexandria.

The blast happened in the submarine's cramped forward escape compartment, which quickly filled with smoke. The explosion caused hatch doors to buckle trapping the men inside for almost three quarters of an hour while fellow submariners tried desperately to reach them.