FV Antares

[1] She was fishing off the coast of the Isle of Arran on 22 November 1990 when she foundered with the loss of four crew members after her trawl line was snagged by Royal Navy Trafalgar-class nuclear powered submarine HMS Trenchant.

[2] Antares was a 55 ft wooden-hulled motor fishing vessel of 34 tons built in 1965 by J and G Forbes in Sandhaven, Aberdeenshire[3] and registered in Campbeltown.

[2] On 21 November one of the students took over command as Duty Captain to undertake a simulated mine laying exercise while evading detection by the Charybdis on the surface.

Following the salvage operation, the men of Carradale saturation trawled the area around the wreck in an unsuccessful attempt to find the remains of the fourth crew member.

[2] The investigation found that when Trenchant changed course to avoid the Heroine it snagged Antares trawl line causing the trawler to capsize and rapidly fill with water as it turned upside down.

[2] Among the investigation's findings were that the submarine's command team were unaware that there were two vessels within the sonar contact, that no proper surface assessment of the incident was carried out by the command team following the collision, that attempts to contact the fishing vessels in the area were inadequate, and that initial incorrect reports from Trenchant to Faslane resulted in an eight hour delay in mounting a search and rescue operation, which may have contributed to loss of life.

[2] The investigation reported that the Antares was very well maintained, however its liferaft had been stowed incorrectly and as a result it did not float free and inflate when the vessel sank and that this could have contributed to the loss of life.

[9] The fatal accident inquiry and the Marine Accident Investigation both made a series of recommendations chief of which were that immediate action should be taken to establish a mandatory separation zone of at least 3,000 yards between dived submarines and vessels engaged in fishing, and that submarine warfare exercises should be moved to more remote areas of the Firth of Clyde and segregated completely from fishing interests.

[2][9] The Royal Navy accepted the recommendations and the separation distance between dived submarines and vessels engaged in fishing was increased from 2,000 yds to 3,000 yards.

[10][9] George Foulkes, MP for Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley, and families of the deceased, expressed anger at the outcome of the court martial and the Armed Forces Minister Archie Hamilton's decision not to take further disciplinary action, as they believed that as a student officer under training, McDonnell had been made a scapegoat by the Royal Navy.