Fears 55 Chinese sailors are dead after submarine got ‘caught in trap targeting UK’

A leaked intelligence reports allegedly details the incident

A leaked UK intelligence report has claimed the crew of China’s PLA Navy submarine ‘093-417’ suffered a catastrophic failure, poisoning the crew on August 21.

China has denied the incident and Beijing is said to have refused to request aide for the trapped sub.

The report, seen by the Daily Mail, states: "Intelligence reports that on 21st of August there was an onboard accident whilst carrying out a mission in the Yellow Sea.

"Incident happened at 08.12 local [time] resulting in the death of 55 crew members: 22 officers, 7 officer cadets, 9 petty officers, 17 sailors. Dead include the captain Colonel Xue Yong-Peng. Our understanding is death caused by hypoxia due to a system fault on the submarine.

"The submarine hit a chain and anchor obstacle used by the Chinese Navy to trap US and allied submarines. This resulted in systems failures that took six hours to repair and surface the vessel. The onboard oxygen system poisoned the crew after a catastrophic failure."

It is though that the sinking took place off the coast of China's Shandong Province.

No independent confirmation of the suspected tragedy is currently publicly available, with Beijing saying the reporting of the alleged sinking is "completely false."

The Royal Navy has also not commented on the report.

A British submariner told the Mail: “It is plausible that this occurred and I doubt the Chinese would have asked for international support for obvious reasons.

“If they were trapped on the net system and the submarine's batteries were running flat (plausible) then eventually the air purifiers and air treatment systems could have failed.

“Which would have reverted to secondary systems and subsequently and plausibly failed to maintain the air. Which led to asphyxia or poisoning.

“We have kit which absorbs co2 and generates oxygen in such a situation. It is probable that other nations do not have this kind of tech.”

The Type 093 is one of China's more modern submarines, measuring 351ft-long and armed with torpedoes. They are known for emitting lower noise levels.

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