Australia — Exercise Black Carillon 2011–1

Sub­ma­rine escape and res­cue capa­bil­i­ty exer­cised off the west coast
The Roy­al Aus­tralian Navy (RAN) has suc­cess­ful­ly demon­strat­ed its sub­ma­rine res­cue capa­bil­i­ty as part of as part of Exer­cise Black Car­il­lon 2011–1, which con­clud­ed off the West Aus­tralian coast on Fri­day.

The exer­cise, which com­menced in mid-May, is designed to test and demon­strate the RAN’s sub­ma­rine escape and res­cue capa­bil­i­ty in a real­is­tic sce­nario and is a require­ment of the RAN’s sub­ma­rine safe­ty program. 

The method of sub­ma­rine escape exer­cised as part of Black Car­il­lon 2011–1 involved per­son­nel trans­fer­ring from a bot­tomed sub­ma­rine into the James Fish­er Sub­ma­rine Res­cue Ser­vice (JFSRS) res­cue vehi­cle, the LR5, for trans­porta­tion to a ves­sel at the sur­face. At depth, the mat­ing of the LR5 res­cue vehi­cle to the sub­ma­rine requires a high lev­el of exper­tise and proven technology. 

Upon being recov­ered to the sur­face, the res­cued sub­mariners were tend­ed to onboard the res­cue moth­er­ship, in this instance the Ves­sel of Oppor­tu­ni­ty Sea­horse Stan­dard, with spe­cialised RAN med­ical teams and equip­ment embarked. The sub­ma­rine res­cue capa­bil­i­ty proven dur­ing Exer­cise Black Car­il­lon 2011–1 involved sim­u­lat­ed med­ical sce­nar­ios both in the ‘dis­abled sub­ma­rine’ and on the surface. 

Com­man­der Sub­ma­rine Force, Cap­tain Brett Samp­son, said that the com­ple­tion of a com­plex sub­ma­rine res­cue sce­nario proves that sub­mariners should be con­fi­dent in the sub­ma­rine res­cue capa­bil­i­ty pro­vid­ed by the RAN. 

“Black Car­il­lon is an extra­or­di­nar­i­ly valu­able oppor­tu­ni­ty to exer­cise our sub­ma­rine escape and res­cue capa­bil­i­ty,” said Cap­tain Brett Sampson. 

“The suc­cess­ful com­ple­tion of the sub­ma­rine escape as part of Exer­cise Black Car­il­lon 2011–1 proves that the RAN is well equipped to take action to res­cue sub­mariners in the unlike­ly event of a sub­ma­rine incident.” 

Black Car­il­lon 2011–1 is the thir­teenth in a series of RAN sub­ma­rine escape and res­cue exer­cis­es designed to test and demon­strate RAN sub­ma­rine res­cue capability. 

Press release
Min­is­te­r­i­al Sup­port and Pub­lic Affairs,
Depart­ment of Defence,
Can­ber­ra, Australia 

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