In hot water?

A little over 3 years since it happened, the world has learned of a near disaster involving a British nuclear submarine on patrol in the Indian ocean on May 28, 2011. Air-conditioning on the boat malfunctioned leading to excessive temperatures throughout it's interior. With no respite from the rising temperature possible, many crew members began to succumb from heat exhaustion. The captain initially decided to surface to take advantage of fresh air but the idea was thwarted when they found the air temp. to be 42C! Help from other surface vessels would have taken untold hours to materialize, whilst trying to obtain permission to take a 'broken' nuke-powered sub into a foreign port would've been unlikely to succeed in time to save his ailing crew members. What a dilemma?!

Ultimately, the captain saved his command by taking the boat down to 200 metres where the ambient sea temperature was low enough to cool the boat and gradually neutralize the temperature inside the vessel. With the temperature down, the faulty aircon. resumed normal operation and a potential mass tragedy was averted. The cause of the aircon. 'blip' was later found to be inlet pipes choked with minute crustaceans.

The retired captain has now belatedly told of the terrible adventure in an interview, The sub. itself was de-commissioned in 2012.

The beauty of near tragedies is that the inherent humour of the situation can be examined later without loss of respect for participants(?)