The first of two British nuclear submarines barred from sailing for months after safety concerns about their reactors is set to return to service. HMS Torbay and HMS Tireless were restricted to port because of possible risks posed by manufacturing flaws in their reactors, Armed Forces Minister Adam Ingram recently revealed.
Torbay is set to return to service this month while Tireless needs another year of work and testing, a spokesman for the Ministry of Defence said on Tuesday.
"HMS Torbay's sea trials will finish shortly, and it's hoped that the submarine will return to its fleet by the end of July," he said.
The Royal Navy has five other hunter-killer Trafalgar Class submarines. "We do not expect the rest of the boats to be affected," the spokesman said, adding the problems uncovered were unique to the two.
He did not elaborate and engine maker Rolls-Royce, which designed the reactors, declined to comment.
This marks the second incident involving Tireless, following a controversial coolant leak in 2000 which forced it to make an emergency port call in Gibraltar, where it stayed for almost a year.
That sparked inspections of all the submarines, which they passed and Tireless returned to service.
But improved diagnostic equipment revealed potential problems on Torbay last year and more recently on Tireless, the spokesman said.
Potential risks were found in their nuclear reactors, Armed Forces Minister Ingram said in written answers to parliament last week.
"(They) centred on the potential effect of a number of small manufacturing imperfections in their nuclear reactor plant," he wrote. "The latest information on material properties and component stress values showed an increased theoretical risk of failure."