At the start of the millennium, Britain, France and Norway got together to develop a world-class system that could rescue personnel trapped in a submarine hundreds of metres below the surface.

The NATO Submarine Rescue System has just been tested the furthest north it’s ever been, in the icy waters of the Arctic Circle.

However, the work doesn’t end when the submariners get back to the surface.

The NATO Submarine Rescue System is the best in the world because it has a portable hyperbaric chamber welded onto the ship.

No other system has anything like it.

After a casualty has been transferred straight from the back of the rescue vehicle they come into the Transfer Under Pressure System (TUP).

The TUP is a giant decompression chamber which is able to counteract the impact of nitrogen gas on the body, known as decompression illness, or the ‘bends’.

When a submarine gets into distress it’s likely that its inhabitants will be exposed to an increase in pressure, squeezing their oxygen levels and causing more nitrogen to form in the body.

The danger comes if a person returns to the surface too quickly and that nitrogen gas tries to escape.

To give a rescued submariner the best chance of survival they stay in the five chambers of the TUP system for hours, even days, as they are slowly brought back to normal surface pressure.

Looking after them are specially-trained submariners and divers, including Royal Navy reservists, who are on high readiness if the system is ever needed for real.

This is a tri-nation system and the roles between them are fully interchangeable.

The team play to their own country’s strengths, bringing different things to the table.

In a time of increased global tension a system like this has its place.

Exercise Northern Sun has been a test not only of the kit in an Arctic winter but of the impact of the cold on personnel too.

However, the relationship between the countries is as strong as ever, and the system is ready to rescue trapped submariners, whenever and wherever it’s needed.

(BtBs, N.Sethu)

U.S. Air Force WC-135C Constant Phoenix Nuclear explosion “sniffer,” serial number 62-3582, deployed to RAF Mildenhall, UK, using radio callsign “Cobra 55.”

Whereas it was not the first time the Constant Phoenix visited the British airbase, the deployment to the UK amidst growing concern about an alleged spike in iodine levels recorded in northern Europe fuelled speculations that the WC-135 might be tasked with investigating the reason behind the released Iodine-131.

In fact, along with monitoring nuclear weapons testing, the WC-135 can be used to track radioactive activity, as happened after the Chernobyl nuclear plant disaster in the Soviet Union in 1986 and Fukushima incident back in 2011, by collecting particles and chemical substances in the atmosphere, days, weeks, or sometimes even month after they were dispersed.

Whilst the reason of the deployment has yet to be confirmed (actually, there are still contradictory reports about the spike in Iodine-131) the WC-135 has departed for its first mission since it arrived at Mildenhall: on Feb. 22, at around 11.50LT, the nuclear “sniffer” aircraft has departed for a mission towards Norway and the Barents Sea.

The WC-135C (radio callsign “Flory 58”) was supported by two KC-135 tankers (“Quid 524” and “525”)suggesting it had just started a very long mission and somehow accompanied, along the same route, by an RC-135W (“Pulpy 81”) and another Stratotanker (“Quid 513”).

(N.Sethurupan)

EIELSON AIR FORCE BASE, Alaska — Personnel from the 55th Aerospace Medicine Squadron and 55th Aircraft Maintenance Squadron report a “thumbs down,” which indicates the WC-135 Constant Phoenix aircraft is above acceptable levels of contamination and needs be parked in an isolated location to be decontaminated. This initial radiation survey was done every time the WC-135 landed after collecting air samples in international airspace over the Pacific as part of Operation Tomodachi. (Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Christopher Boitz)

On Feb. 17, 2017, U.S. Air Force WC-135C Constant Phoenix Nuclear explosion “sniffer,” serial number 62-3582, using radio callsign “Cobra 55” deployed to RAF Mildenhall, UK.

As we have already reported the WC-135 is a derivative of the Boeing C-135 transport and support plane. Two of these aircraft are in service today out of the ten examples operated since 1963. The aircraft are flown by flight crews from the 45th Reconnaissance Squadron from Offutt Air Force Base while mission crews are staffed by Detachment 1 from the Air Force Technical Applications Center.

The WC-135, known as the “sniffer” or “weather bird” by its crews, can carry up to 33 personnel. However, crew compliments are kept to a minimum during mission flights in order to lessen levels of radioactive exposure.

Effluent gasses are gathered by two scoops on the sides of the fuselage, which in turn trap fallout particles on filters. The mission crews have the ability to analyze the fallout residue in real-time, helping to confirm the presence of nuclear fallout and possibly determine the characteristics of the warhead involved: that’s why the aircraft is important to confirm the type of explosion of today’s test.

Along with monitoring nuke testing, the WC-135 is used to track radioactive activity as happened after the Chernobyl nuclear plant disaster in the Soviet Union in 1986 and Fukushima incident back in 2011.

One of these aircraft was deployed near North Korea in anticipation of Kim Jong Un rocket launches then was spotted transiting the UK airspace in August 2013 raising speculations it was used in Syria thanks to the ability to detect chemical substances down wind from the attack area days, or weeks after they were dispersed.

Although they cross the European airspace every now and then, their deployment in the Old Continent is somehow rare. As of yet, there has been no official statement from the U.S. military about the reasons why such nuclear research aircraft was deployed there. However, many sources suggest the aircraft was tasked with investigating the spike in Iodine levels detected in northern Europe since the beginning of January.

Iodine-131 (131I), a radionuclide of anthropogenic origin, has recently been detected in tiny amounts in the ground-level atmosphere in Europe. The preliminary report states it was first found during week 2 of January 2017 in northern Norway.

Iodine-131 was also detected in Finland, Poland, Czech Republic, Germany, France and Spain, until the end of January.

However, no one seems to know the reason behind the released Iodine-131. Along with nuclear power plants, the isotope is also widely used in medicine and its presence in the air could be the effect of several different incidents.

Or, as someone speculates, it could have been the side effect of a test of a new nuclear warhead in Russia: an unlikely (considered the ability to detect nuke tests through satellites and seismic detectors) violation of Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.

Maybe the WC-135 will help authorities find out the origin of the Iodine-131.

(N.Sethu, the aviationist)