Norwegian fishermen accidentally catch US nuclear submarine in net

A Norwegian fishing crew was surprised last week by the day’s big, rare catch — a U.S. submarine longer than a football field.

Harald Engen was delivering halibut to a village on Norway’s west coast when he got a message that a U.S. submarine had gotten entangled in his 32-foot boat’s trawl nets while sailing near the surface and were dragging them out to sea, broadcaster NRK News reported.

The 377-foot, 7,800-ton, nuclear-powered USS Virginia was headed to port with a Norwegian Coast Guard vessel escorting. The Coast Guard crew needed to cut the submarine free.

“I know about other vessels that have sailed over fishing nets, but no one out here have ever heard about a submarine doing so,” Engen said.

Lt. Pierson Hawkins, a spokesperson for the US 6th Fleet, told Insider no one was hurt and the Navy was looking into what exactly happened.

The exact reason for the sub’s location was not given, but the vessels do surface to bring aboard supplies and new crew members from a cooperating vessel, like one from an ally coast guard or navy.

Both the Norwegian Coast Guard and U.S. Navy indicated the fisherman would be reimbursed for the destroyed nets.

A similar incident turned tragic in 1999 when a British fishing boat’s net was snared by a Royal Navy sub, sinking the boat and killing the four-person crew.