That day, while on patrol 680 miles (1,090 km) northeast of Bermuda, K-219 suffered an explosion and fire in a missile tube.
According to one press version, the Soviet Navy claimed that the leak was caused by a collision with USS Augusta (SSN-710).
While waiting for his trial in Sverdlovsk in May 1987, Defense Minister Sergey Sokolov resigned and was replaced by Dmitry Yazov; subsequently, the charges against Britanov were dropped.
The Soviet Union - and by some accounts apparently to this day, the Russian government - claimed that the K-219 collided with Augusta off the coast of Bermuda, and that is what resulted in the sinking of the submarine.
"I did not collide with an American sub.” In 1997, a film of the incident called Hostile Waters was released by Warner Brothers, starring Rutger Hauer as Captain Britanov.