Lithuanian Divers Discover an Abandoned Missile Silo But One Dies on Their Return Dive

[Pictured: One of the Missile silos]

Hi everyone! I’ve been a certified SCUBA diver for about 16 years now. I'm also a true crime/unsolved mysteries fan and love listening to podcasts. I took all three interests and combined them into one!

Narcosis: Into The Deep is a new type of investigative podcast focusing on scuba diving and marine accidents and deaths. The best part is you don't need to know anything about diving or boating to enjoy the podcast/post!

Below, you’ll find the transcript to the episode titled "Lithuanian Divers Discover an Abandoned Missile Silo But One Dies on Their Return Dive" but I do hope you’ll subscribe to my audio podcast and listen each week as a new diving or marine accident will be presented along with facts or theories on what caused the event.

TL;DR is at the end.

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On June 12, 2011, three Lithuanian cave divers enter an abandoned, flooded ballistic missile mine. Only two of them would return to the surface alive.

What caused the death of one of the divers? And what was inside the missile mine? Find out on this week's episode of Narcosis: Into The Deep.

[intro music]

Hi everyone, I'm your host Alex and welcome to Season Two of Narcosis: Into The Deep! We are starting our newest season off with an interesting topic… cave diving a now-flooded man-made structure. I'm going to give you a little bit of a history background on this military base before discussing the dive and potential ways it went wrong. But let's not waste any more time and dive right in to this week's episode…

[Pictured: The military base, seen from an aerial view]

When the United States started building underground military bases in the late 1950s, the Soviet Union felt the need to also maintain its military capabilities. Therefore, in September 1960, the Soviet Union started the rapid construction of an underground military base. One of the first underground military bases was constructed near the village of Plokščiai in the Lithuanian SSR. Sitting at 520ft (160m) above sea level, this chosen location allowed missiles to reach Turkey and all of the European NATO members. Since there were no large towns or villages nearby, it was the perfect place to constructed an underground military base for missiles.

[Pictured: one of the missile silos covered with concrete]

Although the Plokštinė nuclear missile launch site started operating around three years after it was established, it was one of the top Soviet military secrets and wouldn't be discovered by US reconnaissance until 1978.

[Pictured: an R-12 Missile. EDIT: this isn’t an R-12, this is potentially an air interceptor from a K-12. Thank you @DavidBrooker for letting me know!]

The base contained a large network of tunnels and included four silos with depths between 89 to 112 ft (27 to 34m) deep. In the base's prime, these underground silos housed R-12 missiles with nuclear warheads. But after twelve years of operations, the site was eventually shut down. The missiles were removed from the base on June 18th, 1978 and, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the site was abandoned and not maintained.

[Pictured: inside the military base]

During it's years of abandonment, the base was visited by many urban explorers and numerous metal thefts before eventually receiving extensive reconstruction in 2012. The former military base site now hosts a Cold War Museum. Tourists can go underground, visit the missile silo labyrinth, and get knowledge of the Cold War period, propaganda strategies, consequences of the nuclear explosions, and learn more about life in the military base.

[Pictured: Aidas Žitinevičius]

Before the site's reconstruction, in June of 2011, three Lithuanian divers entered the abandoned, flooded missile silo for adventure and, some speculate, in search of precious metals.
Aidas Žitinevičius and Vytis Vilkas entered the military base on the morning of June 12th 2011. Although the area is potentially dangerous, access was not restricted and warning signs were not present. However, the pair knew just how dangerous this site could be. They wore helmets to protect their heads during the dive, wore two small gas tanks on their sides, and discussed the possibility of tight or blocked corridors prior to their dive.

The pair found an area that was easily accessible and slowly made their way through the labyrinth of corridors. They went through rooms that were only partially flood, pausing to take off their gear and climb through small, cramped spaces, and eventually made their way to the flooded silo. Reaching a depth of about 79ft (24m), they were able to dive straight down the silo and witness what history had left behind.

While it isn't explicitly mentioned anywhere, my best guess is that the pair of divers either found precious metals or other items worth taking because later that same day the two divers would return for another dive but this time with a third diver: their friend Linas Jakštas.

Excited to show their friend the location, the three divers geared up and re-entered the cold waters. However, on his return dive, Aidas would meet a terrible fate. In just a few local papers, Aidas's cause of death is reported as a drowning.

In a video taken at this abandoned missile silo, you can see a few rooms are only partially flooded (video is linked below). However, the video also shows rooms of varying sizes completely filled with cold water and LARGE amounts of silt and sand being kicked up by the diving team.

[Pictured: Aidas Žitinevičius]

From what I could find, Aidas's death was never fully investigated or reported therefore we only know the simple explanation of drowning.

Cave divers face a multitude of hazards during their dives and some of these are: silt, dying flashlight batteries, getting trapped or lost, and even the possibility of having the cave or structure crumble on top of you. These risks are compounded on top of normal diving risks such as running out of air, panic, decompression sickness, etc.

Tight corridors, dark rooms, tons and tons of silt... This location definitely did not meet the criteria for a great diving location. Yet these men entered the same waters twice in one day either in search or riches or adrenaline.

Silt is defined as "fine sand, clay, or other material carried by running water and deposited a sediment, especially in a channel or harbor". It's commonly found in caves or, in this case, man-made caves. Kicking up silt causes what divers sometimes refer to as a "silt-out" or 'white-out" - after disturbing these fine particles, underwater visibility is rapidly reduced to zero.

The best comparison would be entering thick fog. Imagine you're driving on a cloudy day - visibility is good and you have no trouble seeing where you're going. Suddenly, fog appears out of nowhere and you can barely see a few inches in front of your headlights. You were paying attention to where you were going but how well? Can you complete your car ride in this thick fog without getting lost? If you're diving in silt not only do you have to worry about getting lost but you're also on a time constraint. You don't want to run out of air trying to find your way back.

But if silt had been kicked up - at least enough cause the death of one diver - how did the other two survive? It's possible they maintained their composure and found a way out then later alerted authorities that Aidas had not made it out.

Factoring in the tight passageways, this team had to stick together to help pass gear from one side of a room to another so it's unlikely that Aidas drowned after getting lost. However it is completely possible, and highly likely, that Aidas could have gotten stuck. The videos of the dive, which can be found on YouTube (linked below) shows just how snug some of these areas are. Thinking back to Season One, Episode Ten (https://imgur.com/gallery/ZQDDyTB about the two Finnish divers who died while cave diving) it's quite possible that just like Jari H., Aidas got stuck, panicked, and either ran out of air or passed out. Although the missile base is nowhere near as deep as the Steinugleflåget cave, panic can easily set in at any depth and have deadly consequences.

If you recall to earlier in the episode, the dive Aidas died on was actually his second dive on the same day. One thing we haven't discussed yet on the podcast is repeat diving. Although repetitive diving most likely did *NOT* have an effect on Aidas’s death, I think it's important to discuss it now. Repetitive diving comes with increased risks especially for new or inexperienced divers. This is going to get more technical here as I explain a few new terms, but bear with me as I try my best to break it down for non-diver listeners.

[Pictured: dive tables]

During a dive, your body absorbs nitrogen from the air mixture you're breathing. The deeper the dive the less bottom time you have (aka time spent at the deepest part of your dive). Another term we haven't discussed yet it Residual Nitrogen Time.

Residual nitrogen time becomes crucial if you intend to dive more than once because it helps track your nitrogen absorption over a series of dives.

To understand residual nitrogen time, a basic understanding of nitrogen absorption underwater is necessary. When a diver is underwater, his body absorbs nitrogen gas from the air (gas) that he uses. Time limits (called no-decompression limits) exist to reduce scuba diving dangers and risks. A "no-decompression limit" (sometimes also referred to as a "no-stop limit"), is the time interval that a diver may theoretically spend at a given depth without having to perform any decompression stops while surfacing. These time limits are based on depth -- the deeper a person dives, the more rapidly his body absorbs nitrogen, and the more quickly he approaches his no-decompression limit. Nitrogen absorption is (simplistically) proportional to depth.

For example, a diver can theoretically spend 205* minutes at 30ft* (9m) before reaching their no-decompression limit - but obviously you would most likely run out of air before getting anywhere near this amount of time. In contrast, another diver can spend 8* minutes at 164ft* (50m) before reaching a no-decompression limit. *Per PADI tables

As a diver ascends, his body begins to release the nitrogen gas he absorbed during the dive. However, the release of nitrogen from a diver's body is a slow and gradual process. Even after surfacing and spending time out of the water, some nitrogen remains in his system. If a diver makes another dive on the same day, the left-over nitrogen from the first dive will reduce his no-decompression time limit.

At the beginning of a second, third, or fourth dive of the day, the diver still has some residual nitrogen in his body from his previous dives which means this diver can no longer use his actual dive time and depth to calculate his nitrogen absorption on his repeat dives.

You might be asking yourself how this is calculated. It sounds very confusing but it's actually pretty simple. Your scuba certification course will teach you how to read dive tables and if you'd like to learn more on how to read dive tables, I highly recommend going to scuba-tutor.com. They do a great job of breaking down dive tables into simple terms and use great examples to help it all make sense.

But back to Aidas - what does all this have to do with him? This was his second dive of the day and although I don't have access to their dive log from this day, it's important to remember that repetitive diving comes with increased dangers and risks. While it's not very likely, increased nitrogen levels can't be completely ruled out - at least in my opinion.

While we can speculate and debate all day on the different way Aidas drowned during his dive, we'll never truly know what exactly happened on that fateful day.

Shortly after Aidas's death, Vytis and Linas posted a video on Youtube in memory of their friend. The caption reads: "In this Soviet IRBM base died our frined… That can not be undone. "What for?" is self-evident, however - rhetoric question. Non divers will hardly understand. Most of the divers too. To understand this you need to do two things: see such place yourself and take a look at [the] shining eyes of ones who [have] just been there. It is very immature to think that there are some artifacts of great value. We are adults for a while already, we don't believe in fairy tales - there is no treasure in such places. We dive such places because it's interesting and rewarding spiritually."

At the end of the memorial video, the friends state: "In memory of Aidas Z. You were more than just a friend. With [the] loss of you, all of us lost a part of ourselves. We miss you…"

Cat Tax.

If you made it this far, thank you for your time and support! If you have any questions, please leave a comment here, on our Instagram @ NarcosisPOD (https://www.instagram.com/narcosispod/ ), or on our Discord server: https://discord.gg/hepFA9Jtkj

Listen to the podcast here: https://www.narcosispod.com

I would like to reiterate here that I am not a master diver or a diving instructor. If you have any safety questions regarding diving, I highly suggest you talk to a local dive shop to connect with their instructors. But if you have any questions on today’s episode, let me know! :)

Sources:

1. https://baltikadiving.ru/proishestvia/podrobnosti-proisshestviy-2011
2. http://cavingnews.com/20110618-cave-diving-accident-results-in-death-of-lithuanian-cave-diver
3. Cold War Museum Info: https://coldwarsites.net/country/lithuania/plokstine-missile-base-museum-of-cold-war-plateliai/
4. Memorial video: https://youtu.be/fALMHF9_a8M

TL;DR: Two Lithuanian divers discovered an abandoned, flooded military base that contained four Missile silos. They dove the site, entered one of the Missile silos, and later that same day returned with a third diver. However, on the second dive of the day, one of the original divers, Aidas Žitinevičius, would not return alive. His death was reported as a drowning, leaving unanswered questions about what happened during his second dive of the day. You can listen to this entire post here: https://www.narcosispod.com