Page 29: of Marine Technology Magazine (November 2025)

By David Pasho ore than ? fty years ago in March 1968 the US

Navy observed a massive Soviet naval and air search in the North Paci? c Ocean. The USN monitored the search over the next few months

Mand concluded the Russians lost a submarine and were unable to ? nd her. Using acoustic records from lis- tening stations in the Paci? c, the Navy discovered an explo- sive event that occurred just before and in the same area where the Soviet’s were looking. The Navy deployed a specially equipped spy submarine to secretly search the seabed where the event occurred and found and photographed the wreckage of the Russian submarine K-129 that rested on the sea? oor of the North Paci? c Ocean.

The K-129 was a diesel electric Golf II-class Soviet subma- rine armed with nuclear tipped ballistic missiles. The large intact portion of her wreckage included one ballistic missile with its warhead, the submarine’s sail where top-secret code equipment and documents would be found, and her bow sec- tion with nuclear torpedoes. It would be an amazing intelli- gence coup if the US could secretly recover the submarine.

The problem was that it lay on the bottom of the North Paci? c

Ocean at a depth of sixteen thousand feet. But, the Central In- telligence Agency came up with an audacious plan to recover the submarine without the Russians knowing. It became a top- secret project code named Azorian.

How to Secretly Recover the Submarine

Initially, a Navy special projects group proposed using small, unmanned vehicles to recover selected components that had particular intelligence value. However, the Chief of Naval Op- erations wanted to recover the whole submarine, and the De- fense Department turned to the Central Intelligence Agency and asked if they could come up with a way to secretly pick up the forty-million-pound section of the submarine from a depth of three miles.

The challenge was accepted by the “wizards” of the CIA’s

Science and Technology Directorate who developed the ? rst

OSSIBLE’ intelligence satellites and the high-altitude U-2 reconnais- sance spy plane. Although the group had near zero knowledge or experience in ocean technology, they came up with a plan to use a giant surface ship to lower a three-mile-long pipe string with a claw or capture vehicle on the end to grab the

The Glomar Explorer submarine and raise it to the surface.

Aside from the extreme technical challenge, they would have off Maui after the to do it without the Russian suspecting what they were doing. To recovery mission. hide the real purpose of Azorian, the CIA developed an elaborate

Credit: David Pasho www.marinetechnologynews.com 29

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