Submariner saved by unmatched rescue effort

Roger Chapman, who has died aged 74, survived the world’s longest, deepest underwater rescue.

In the early hours of Aug. 29, 1973, Chapman and Roger Mallinson, pilots of Pisces III, a submersible two metres in diameter, began a routine dive to 500 metres, off the southern coast of Ireland. Their task was to use water jets to liquefy the mud and bury a telephone cable.

With the job done after eight hours, Pisces III was about to be lifted into their mother ship, Vickers Voyager, when the tow line snagged and wrenched open the hatch to a self-contained compartment.

Water flooded in and Pisces III sank to the seabed; at 60 metres the tow line broke, and as the submersible plunged to the bottom, the pilots shut off the electrical systems, released a 180 kilogram ballast weight and braced themselves for impact. They hit the bottom at about 25 kph, their vessel burying itself in the mud.

They had about three days of oxygen left, a sandwich and a can of lemonade. They made themselves as comfortable as possible, Chapman recalling: “Our job was to act as vegetables most of the time, but still perform as intelligent human beings every half an hour for essential life support jobs.”

After two days, during which rescuers made several unsuccessful attempts to attach a lifting line, Chapman and Mallinson were cold, wet, disoriented and suffering from severe headaches.

Only on the third day did rescue ships succeed in fixing lifting tackle. At 13:17 Pisces III broke the surface: later it was determined there was 20 minutes of oxygen left.

Roger Ralph Chapman was born in Hong Kong on July 29, 1945 and joined the Navy in 1963. He volunteered as a submariner in 1967 and subspecialized as a navigator, but left the service after his eyesight was found to have weakened. He then founded Sub Sea Systems, operating two- man submersibles engaged in the protection from trawling of subsea telephone cables.

His company was bought by Vickers Oceanics, and Chapman was appointed manager of the survey department.

After his escape, Chapman established Rumic to pioneer a new generation of submersibles. Inspired by Chapman’s experience in Pisces III, the company developed the LR5, a manned submersible designed for rescuing 16 men at a time from stranded submarines, and operated Scorpio- class submersibles.

In 2005, when a Russian submersible became snagged in wires and sank to the bottom of the Pacific, Scorpio-45 was flown to Kamchatka and effected a successful rescue.

When Chapman and his wife sold Rumic, they founded a charity to help disadvantaged children.

In 1971 he married June Sansom, who survives him with their two sons.