APLIS POSTCARD #10

21 March 2007

Position: 73-11N/145-51W

Temperature: -13ºF

Greetings from APLIS, adrift in the Arctic Ocean.

Tragedy here at APLIS. Overnight, an accident aboard TIRELESS took the life of two sailors and left one injured.

I’m not going to recount the story - the news has already done that.

For our part, we had a team travel over the ice to where TIRELESS was surfaced to render assistance. We evacuated the injured sailor to the camp. From there, our helo pilots made a heroic dead-of-night flight south across the ice to Prudhoe Bay where the Alaska Air National Guard was waiting to transport him to a hospital in Anchorage. We understand that he is recovering well.

Our sincerest condolences go to the families of the fallen sailors. Their deaths are a reminder of the sacrifices made and dangers faced by submariners on a day-to-day basis.

Our sympathy and support also goes out to the surviving crewmen of HMS TIRELESS who have lost two of their shipmates. Many of us here at APLIS are or were submariners and we all share in your loss.

HMS TIRELESS

Jeff Gossett

Arctic Submarine Laboratory