An investigation has been launched after documents marked ‘officially sensitive’ were found on the floor of a toilet pub in Cumbria, UK (Image: Twitter/@warshipworld)
HMS Anson is one of the world’s most advanced hunter-killer submarines and was welcomed into the Royal Navy’s fleet in August last year.
The Royal Navy will launch an inquiry into how official paperwork for one of its £1.3billion ‘hunter killer’ submarines was found in a pub toilet in Wetherspoons, the Sun and the Associated Press said in a report.
Files containing details of HMS Anson were left in the Furness Railway pub in Barrow, Cumbria. The report says documents marked “official sensitive” show the inner workings of the nuclear-powered submarine.
The submariners would use the information in these documents to learn how to isolate and depressurize the elements of his system, the PA Media says the report.
“These are generic training documents that do not contain any classified information. However, we take all matters of safety very seriously and will investigate the circumstances of their discovery,” a Royal Navy spokesman said. PA Media Media.
THE Sun in his report said the pub was packed with customers when the papers were found on the cabin floor. The pub is not far from the BAE Systems shipyard in Barrow-in-Furness where the submarine was being built.
The submarine is the fifth of new Astute-class attack submarines set to join the Royal Navy fleet. These submarines can fire tomahawk missiles and the Royal Navy claims they are the “largest, most advanced and most powerful attack submarines” in the UK.
“HMS Anson represents £1.3 billion of naval stealth and strike power – capable of gathering vital intelligence, protecting other Royal Navy ships from threats above and below the waves and destroy enemy military infrastructure with pinpoint accuracy,” the Royal Navy’s website reads.
People familiar with the developments said PA Media that these documents help submariners and contractors understand how the systems interact but do not reveal how they work. They stated that these files consisted only of designs of embedded systems but did not reveal how they work.
Another person familiar with the developments told the Sun that it was a matter of luck that no Russian spy found them indicating that details of HMS Anson’s hydraulics, which control torpedo hatches, steering and buoyancy, were in the file.
Sensitive official documents in the UK are classified one level below “Secret”.
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