French Nuclear Sub More Damaged Than Reported

The French nuclear-armed submarine that collided with a British submarine in the Atlantic is more damaged than the government has reported, a regional newspaper said on Thursday.

France's defence ministry officials, under fire for initially saying the missile-loaded submarine had rammed a submerged object, probably a container, said it would be out of service for several months but details were secret.

"We have given the details we can give, which is, the sonar dome was damaged," navy spokesman Jerome Erulin told a news conference on Thursday when asked to elaborate on the exact state of the submarine. He added that an investigation was under way and France's nuclear deterrence capacity remained intact.

Newspaper Ouest France said in an unsourced report the submarine's conning tower and its immersion controls had also been damaged, and that this raised questions about France's nuclear deterrent capacity.

France and Britain have said the two submarines -- Le Triomphant and HMS Vanguard -- collided at very low speed, having failed to detect each other because they were designed to be silent and invisible.

France said on Feb. 6 that Le Triomphant had hit an object, probably a container, as it was returning from a mission. It later turned out that it had run into the Vanguard on the night of Feb. 3 to 4.

MISSION SECRET

French journalists, furious that they first read about the accident in the British press, grilled a group of flustered defence ministry officials over the communications blunder.

"Exchanges over that kind of mission are extremely limited," Erulin said when asked why it took France so long to figure out it had clashed with a British submarine. "The deterrence mission is strictly national and secret," he added, refusing to say when exactly France found out what had happened.

Pressed on whether the navy could have known at the time that the object it had rammed was not necessarily a container, Erulin said: "As far as I know, no."

Defence Minister Herve Morin has said Britain and France could consider coordinating underwater patrols to avoid another accident, but officials said they would need to wait for the results of the investigation before drawing any conclusions. Le Triomphant, part of a fleet of four nuclear-armed French submarines, carries 16 nuclear missiles and measures 130 metres in length. The Vanguard, one of four British submarines carrying the Trident nuclear missule, measures 150 metres.