Inside the rescue submarine the Navy hopes it never has to use

There are no windows in the back, the condensation from your breath clinging to the roof drips down your neck, and you have to fold your body in half just to fit, but for a submariner stranded hundreds of metres underwater, boarding the LR5 would feel like getting into the back of a Rolls Royce.

The LR5 is operated by the Australian arm of James Fisher Defence and is one of six air dispatchable submarines in the world that can be called on with just 12-hours notice to rescue submariners stranded underwater.

For the past few weeks, the LR5 has been running simulated submarine rescue missions at the bottom of the Cockburn Sound and off the coast of Rottnest Island to ensure they’re match fit if the real thing ever happens.

WAtoday joined the JFD team alongside senior Royal Australian Navy personnel for one of those simulated missions last week when the LR5 had to locate and connect to a fake submarine hatch known as a target plate 20 metres underwater.

The simulation tests all facets of the rescue chain, from deploying the vessel to locating the submarine, rescuing the crew and bringing them back to the surface where they exit the LR5 straight into hyperbaric chambers.

JFD has held the rescue contract with the Navy since 2017, but neither the company nor the Navy would reveal the exact cost – only that it was about $23 million per annum.

That cost covers at least two full-scale training simulations each year.

RAN Submarine Force commander Commodore Dan Sutherland said the LR5 and its supporting systems was essential to Australia’s submarine operations.

“This submarine and the system that supports it is really important to us. It provides assurance that should the worst happen, and all the design redundancies and features built into our submarines, should they fail or in the event of some unforeseen catastrophe, this is our lifeline,” he said.

“This is the hope that we have that we will get home to our loved ones, back to Australia and to where we’ve come from in one piece, safe and sound.”

JFD Australia managing director Adrian Capner said he didn’t believe it was expensive when it came to preserving lives.

“There’s a number of different ways you can cut that, but not least of which is how much is a life worth,” he said.

“We’re only going to get one chance in a generation to prove ourselves with this system, and you know it’s going to happen on a day where it’s going to be after a grand final, or in the middle of school holidays, or like most things that happen, you know, seems to be Christmas Day.

“So we have to be ready every time, fully booted and spurred.”

Our simulation involved bundling into the back of the LR5, a narrow steel tube, no wider than two metres in diameter, and being slowly lowered into the ocean from the Stoker, the privately operated Navy ship transporting the submarine and hyperbaric chamber set up.

To locate the target plate, connect, disconnect and head back to the surface took about two hours and by that time this reporter’s lower back muscles were on fire.

In a real scenario, the submarine can pick up between 14 and 16 submariners from a stranded submarine and depending on the depth of the sub and difficulty of connecting with it, could be more than six hours for a round trip.

If the stranded submarine was a fully manned Collins Class that would mean days of ferrying back and forth.

For the Virginia-class submarines Australia plans to purchase from the US under the AUKUS agreement, a fully manned submarine could mean more than 130 submariners needing rescue, so both JFD and the Navy are contemplating scaling up rescue capacity when the LR5 comes to the end of its life by 2032.