a depth in excess of . Sealing all of the compartments and full engagement of the sea water pumps in the stricken compartments enabled the depth to be stabilised. Up to 25 sailors were trapped in a sealed section, and it was only after a conference with his incident specialists that the Captain allowed the Chief Engineer to open the hatch and save the 25 lives. It could be seen from instruments that although the nuclear reactor should have automatically been shut down, it was not. Lt. Nikolai Belikov, one of the reactor control officers, entered the reactor compartment but ran out of oxygen after turning just one of the four rod assemblies on the first reactor. Twenty-year-old enlisted seaman Sergei Preminin then volunteered to shut down the reactor by following the instructions of the Chief Engineer. Working with a full-face gas mask, he successfully shut down the reactor. A large fire had developed within the compartment, raising the pressure. When Preminin tried to reach his comrades on the other side of a door, the pressure difference prevented him from opening it, and he died of asphyxiation in the reactor compartment.For his actions, Sergei Preminin was posthumously awarded the title Hero of the Russian Federation. In a nuclear safe condition, and with sufficient stability to allow it to surface, Captain Britanov surfaced K-219 on battery power alone. He was then ordered to have the ship towed by a Soviet freighter back to her home port of Gadzhiyevo, away. Although a towline was attached, towing attempts were unsuccessful, and after subsequent poison gas leaks into the final aft compartments and against orders, Britanov ordered the crew to evacuate onto the towing ship, but remained aboard K-219 himself. Displeased with Britanov's inability to repair his submarine and continue his patrol, Moscow ordered Valery Pshenichny, K-219 security officer, to assume command, transfer the surviving crew back to the submarine, and return to duty. Before those orders could be carried out the flooding reached a point beyond recovery and on 6 October 1986 the K-219 sank to the bottom of the Hatteras Abyssal Plain at a depth of about 6,000 m (18,000 ft). Britanov abandoned ship shortly before the sinking. K-219 full complement of nuclear weapons was lost along with the vessel. Aftermath Preminin was posthumously awarded the Order of the Red Star for his bravery in securing the reactors. Britanov was charged with