ACCIDENT ON SUBMARINE.

Dominion, Volume 2, Issue 533, 14 June 1909, Page 7

ACCIDENT ON SUBMARINE.

EXPLOSION OP PETROL. ' (BT TBLEGBArH—I-BESS ASSOCIATION— COPYUIoiIT.) ] ■ London, Jnne 11. ] Leakage caused an explosion of petrol on board tho submarino A 4 at Portemouth. ] Lieutenant T. C. B. Harbottle, who was ] in conwand, arid three others were injured. : DANGER IN SUBMARINES, v The last serious' accident in,a submarine oe-enrrod-in July last year, when a.leakage of gasoleno in submarine A9—caused by a spring controlling a valve failing to act—prostrated t tho crew.. Lieutenants Warren and Orov«s, i noticing a eraell of petrol in the conning tower, wont below and found the men over- 1 powered by fumes. Lieutenant Groves just man- n aged to reach the engines and to turn off. tho sun- ■ ply of petrol.ithus stopping the ongincs. The Aeolus, the parent ehip of tho submarine flotilla, sent a rescue crew, who found the wholo „complement of A 9 lying about as if dead. Some of them woro unconscious for some time. At one time white mice, which aro exceedingly sohsitivo to tlio fumes, were kept on submarines in order to detect such leakages, hut the mice were subsequently with- r drawn. A member of a submarine's' crew, S when spok.cn to on the subject, said:—"When o the engines aro running it is difficult to make each other heard, much more to hear a mouse squeak."