Aging Soviet Carrier Catches Fire on Yangtze

An aging Soviet aircraft carrier caught fire in a lagoon on the Yangtze River last week, and the blaze may have put her fully out of commission at last.

The carrier Minsk was a Kiev-class carrier built in Mykolaiv for the Soviet Navy in 1978. Along with sister ships Novorossiysk and Kiev, she served Russia's navy into the 1990s, when she was decommissioned and put up for sale. She was purchased by a South Korean firm in 1995 and towed to East Asia for scrapping. However, she was sold onwards to a Chinese enterprise for a low sum before she could go under the torch.  

Minsk was towed to China and refitted as a static display, and in 2000, she became the star attraction of a theme park in Shenzhen known as Minsk World. (Sister ship Kiev underwent a similar conversion and is still in service as a museum ship near the port of Tianjin.)

As a predecessor to China's first (secondhand) carrier, Liaoning, Minsk was given a matching pennant number and billed as a Soviet-era museum ship for visitors. The park stayed open under the management of Chinese holding company CITIC until 2016, when falling ticket sales prompted its closure. 

The Minsk was relocated to Zhoushan for repair work, then onwards to Nantong, where the owners had plans to restart the tour business. She was moored in a lagoon and enclosed by a levee, giving the impression that she had been transported into a small lake. There she has sat for at least six years, gradually deteriorating. 

Last week, a major fire broke out aboard the ship. Towering columns of smoke were captured on video by passers-by, and at least one person obtained footage of a large on the superstructure. By August 16, the blaze appeared to have subsided, though smoke still emanated from the ship's topsides in small quantities.  

The ship's superstructure appears to have collapsed in the blaze, and interior fire and smoke damage will likely reduce the odds of reopening the Minsk for public tours. 

In her heyday, Minsk was a curious hybrid of a cruiser and an aircraft carrier. She carried eight P-500 antiship missiles and four 76mm cannons, giving her reasonable punch as a surface combatant for her era. She also had a short angled flight deck on the waist, which could accommodate a small air wing of STOVL fighter jets and anti-submarine helicopters.