Azorian

Azorian

Coordinates: 40°06′N 179°54′E / 40.1°N 179.9°E / 40.1; 179.9

"Azorian" (erroneously called "Jennifer" after its Top Secret Security Compartment by the press) was the code name for a U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) project to recover the sunken Soviet submarine K-129 from the Pacific Ocean floor in the summer of 1974, using the purpose-built ship Hughes Glomar Explorer. The 1968 sinking of the K-129 occurred approximately 1,560 nautical miles (2,890 km) northwest of Hawaii. Project Azorian was one of the most complex, expensive, and secretive intelligence operations of the Cold War at a cost of about $800 million ($3.7 billion in 2013 dollars).

In addition to designing the high tech recovery ship and its unique lifting cradle, the U.S. used concepts developed with Global Marine (see Project Mohole) that utilized their precision stability equipment to keep the ship nearly stationary above the target (and do this while lowering nearly three miles of pipe). They worked with scientists to develop methods for preserving paper that had been underwater for years in hopes of being able to recover and read the submarine's codebooks. The exact reasons why this project was undertaken are unknown, but likely reasons included the recovery of an intact nuclear missile (R-21 (missile) also known as NATO SS-N-5-SERB), and cryptological documents and equipment.

After the Soviet Union performed their unsuccessful search for the K-129, the U.S. undertook a search, and by the use of acoustic data from four AFTAC sites and the Adak SOSUS array located the wreck of the submarine to within 5 nautical miles. The USS Halibut submarine used the Fish, a towed, 12 foot, 2 ton collection of cameras, strobe lights, and sonar to detect seafloor objects and built to withstand extreme depths. The recovery operation commenced covertly (in international waters) about six years later with the supposed commercial purpose of mining the sea floor for manganese nodules under the cover of Howard Hughes and the Hughes Glomar Explorer.