China's
Aircraft Carrier Trouble: Spewing Steam and Losing Power
'Liaoning' shut down during
recent sea trials
There’s no more of a conspicuous and potent
symbol of China’s growing naval power than the aircraft carrier Liaoning.
But the 53,000-ton, 999-foot-long carrier could
be dangerous to her crew and prone to engine failures. If so, that makes the
vessel as much of a liability as an asset to Beijing.
The ex-Soviet carrier once went by the
name Varyag until a cash-strapped Ukraine sold the ship to
Beijing in 1998. The Chinese navy has since invested considerable resources
into modernizing the warship and testing
her at sea.
But on at least one occasion during recent sea
trials, Liaoning appeared to suffer a steam explosion which
temporarily knocked out the carrier’s electrical power system. The failure,
reported by Chinese media site Sina.com, resulting from a leak in “the machine
oven compartment to
the water pipes.”
We’re only able to glimpse at the carrier’s
engine problems, as we know very little about what’s inside the ship. This
includes even what kind of engines Liaoning has.
The Chinese government also doesn’t like to
admit to problems with its military hardware. When it does—and that’s never
guaranteed—the admissions often come months or years after problems come up.
During the accident, hot water and steam began
“spewing” out of the engine’s oven compartment, Sina.com reported. One cabin
became “instantly submerged in water vapor,” the report added.
The crew immediately evacuated the cabin, with
one officer apparently pulling a sailor out by his collar to save him from the
extremely hot steam. The carrier then lost power, but the crew “eventually
restored power to ensure the smooth operation of the ship.”
Fortunately, this doesn’t appear to have been a
catastrophic boiler failure of the kind that would unleash almost
instantaneously lethal, high-pressure steam. It’s possible Liaoning instead
suffered a low-pressure steam release involving a faulty heat exchanger.
Vessels commonly use heat exchangers to control water temperature necessary for
regulating internal power and heating.
The Chinese navy began modernizing the ex-Varyag in
2005—essentially rebuilding the carrier from the inside. New electronics,
self-defense anti-aircraft guns and new engines were just some of the upgrades.
The warship in her unimproved condition was a “basket case,” an unnamed officer
told the Website.
Engine failures are not an unknown phenomenon
aboard ex-Soviet carriers. The 40,000-ton displacement Indian carrier Vikramaditya—first
a Soviet Kiev-class carrier commissioned in 1987 and sold in
2004—temporarily shut down at sea after a boiler overheated two years ago.
The 50,000-ton Russian carrier Admiral
Kuznetsov also goes
nowhere without a tug escort in
case her engines break down while underway.
The Chinese navy isn’t going to get rid of Liaoning any
time soon. She’s Beijing’s first serviceable carrier and the ship is a valuable
resource for naval flight operations. Even if China never sends her into
battle, she’s useful for training and learning how carriers
work.
But powerplant problems can also make it so
China can do little else. Failures can add costly repairs, shorten the vessel’s
lifespan and force her to crawl along the water at slow speeds. Beijing also
lacks large overseas naval bases—a necessity if trouble arises while Liaoning sails
far from China’s shores.
If she ever does. Liaoning is
more alike to its ex-Soviet cousins than different—confined to home ports and
restricted from challenging rivals like India.
“Since China began to send navy convoys on
anti-piracy missions to the Gulf of Aden and the Somali coast in 2008,”
military analyst Liu Zhongmin wrote in Global Times in 2010.
“The lack of overseas bases has emerged as a major impediment to the Chinese
navy’s cruising efficiency.”
Now add the possibility of engine problems.
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