HMS Ambush alongside Valiant Jetty at Faslane.
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This post will be updated as additional information is available.
One of the Royal Navy’s nuclear submarines limps back to port in Gibraltar after colliding with a merchant vessel.
The Astute-class HMS Ambush sustained some “external damage” (coning tower), but there were no injuries.
No one was injured and the merchant vessel was not damaged, according to initial reports.
The Astute-class vessel suffered “some external damage” but no crew members were injured in the incident.
The 7,400-ton attack boat returned to a British base in Gibraltar for additional examination and an investigation is underway.
The submarine, HMS Ambush, was not carrying nuclear weapons as it is not part of Britain’s ballistic missile submarine fleet, a ministry spokesman said.
That was more understandable because both of these submarines have a degree of “invisibility” when on operations and both are elderly.
HMS Ambush, an nuclear-powered submarine of the British Navy, sits at anchor.
It has to be a matter of concern that so advanced a submarine, the second built of the new Astute class of hunter-killer submarines and commissioned in March 2013, was apparently unable to “see” another vessel in close proximity.
The following is the complete July 20, 2016 statement from the Royal Navy.
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The nuclear submarine, HMS Ambush has been involved, in what the Ministry of Defence is describing as a “glancing” collision with a merchant vessel just off Gibraltar.
