Thread by @johnkonrad

This is the Russian Flagship #Moskva before she sank. It's impossible to fully assess the situation aboard based on one picture but marine salvage masters must make assumptions based on little information. As a ship captain and ship fire author here's what appears to be likely🧵

The first question any salvage expert will ask is how close is she to sinking. The red line on this photo shows the approximate location of the new waterline. As you can see by comparing the photos she has lost a significant amount of buoyancy and is listing to port.

She, however, is probably not in immediate danger of sinking for a few reasons:
1) She has some reserve buoyancy left because she has not reached deck edge immersion, which is the point where no freeboard is left and stability goes from bad to worse.

2) The spraying water means they have at least emergency power which could be - if the crew had enough time - set up to help dewater the ship.
3) The weather is relatively calm. If the waves picked up the danger of sinking would increase exponentially.

What else do we know?
The Lifeboats have been deployed and nobody is on deck, even back aft where it's smoke-free. Hoses are rigged to spray in the air. Those could have been rigged to help cool the ship but more likely are there to let nearby ships know when she lost power.

So it's likely been fully abandoned. It's possible that some people remain down below but staying in the engine room without proper boundary cooling and topside assistance from trained shipboard firefighters would be suicidal.

What else do we know?
The Smoke is dark and heavy. This is a serious fire with a lot of heat. Dark smoke is a result of the burning of heavy fuels or synthetic materials and incomplete combustion. It's a very hazardous situation.

We know the picture was taken relatively soon after the fire grew this large. We can assume this with some confidence because most of the grat paint is intact. Another hour under those conditions and the paint will likely peel and get covered in soot.

We know don't see any nearby ships. Professional salvage teams require a lot of heavy equipment and firefighting gear. They would likely get a tugboat to spray the forward end with fire monitors to cool the ship before boarding with fireteams. No nearby ships are cooling her.

The next question is why? There is a rescue ship nearby (that ship took this photo) Is she not equipped with fire monitors capable of shooting water outward? Or is she keeping a safe distance because there is a real danger of a secondary explosion from munitions stored aboard?

Next, we have to ask what's unusual about this photo? To me, the most striking part is the smoke is being blown forward and she has reserved buoyancy. This is a dangerous situation but the aft helideck is free of smoke and should be cool enough to work.

If this was a commercial ship the captain would likely have abandoned "non-essential" personnel and regrouped his fire teams at a "safe staging area" (likely the helideck) but this is a warship so the salvage team would have to know the location of all explosives before boarding

Finally, us captains don't care about equipment, we live and die by one rule during emergencies at sea. In an explosion of this magnitude, our job is not to save everyone but to save the highest percentage of people possible. This could lead to hard decisions.

As a commercial ship captain, the likely correct answer here is to abandon the ship knowing she would likely sink, and let insurance cover the loss.. but a Navy captain does not have that luxury.

The biggest difference between a commercial ship captain and a navy captain is that we civilians only have to worry about our own crew. Navy guys don't have that luxury. They must think about their crew and the strategic mission.

Remember the golden rule - "save as many people as possible" - well, the people a navy captain has to think about are not just the crewmembers but also the army and marines his ship provides air cover and artillery support for.

By abandoning his ship early he may save his crew but lose the war.

By most accounts, this flagship ship was critical to these war efforts. My best assumption - again based on too little evidence - is because of
1) the importance of this ship to the war effort
2) because the Montreux convention prevents Russia from sending a replacement

3) the calm weather, reserve buoyancy, and the fact she still had power means she could possibly have been saved
4) the fact the helideck was smoke-free

For these reasons my best guess is the captain of the Moskva abandoned his ship too early.

P.S. If you've read this far and want to learn more about evacuating a ship under hotter and more explosive conditions please consider reading my book amzn.to/38XY7kF

Update: looks like a salvage tug WAS alongside at the time of this photo. Good catch @MisrememberedY

https://twitter.com/johnkonrad/status/1515856651793969154?s=20&t=VS_om_ApEmWx8TgWqcUKsg

UPDATE 2: @R_P_one shares some solid technical information here:

https://twitter.com/R_P_one/status/1515829242801672194?s=20&t=-vE2beda061lZHU9bXprFQ

UPDATE 2: A few have pointed out there is a boat, probably a salvage tug, close alongside starboard aft.

In that case, the water stream pointing aft is likely coming from the tug & means there isn’t much heat stbd aft. Salvage tug monitors (like garden hoses) have straight spray and fan spray… you would use fan spray as a shield if heat and smoke were a problem. Example:

Many older fire monitors require special pumps that can’t be turned off and on with a switch… so they are probably just spraying it aft to keep it out of the way but available if the smoke and heat shifts.

There is a *small* chance they hooked the tug pump into the ships’ main to provide water pressure to the pipe on the port side… so it’s possible the ship did lose emergency power.

It is also possible the tug is made fast and is pulling the ship astern. That might explain why the smoke is streaming fwd and away from the heli-deck. Hard to tell for certain.