>Norwegian Fishermen Accidentally Snag U.S. Submarine Near Barents Sea > Many an angler has told of the big one that "got away," but a group of Norwegian fishermen has a "whale of a tale" to tell to top all others. And a very big one did get away because it was nuclear-powered and filled with U.S. Navy sailors. > On Wednesday the fishermen were sailing for halibut near where the Barents and Norwegian Seas meet, but instead netted the U.S. Navy's cruise missile attack submarine USS Virginia (SSN-774). > "We had just emptied the nets and put them out again, and [were] on our way back to shore at Sommarøya when we were called by the Coast Guard on channel 16 on the VHF-radio," Harald Engen, the 22-year-old captain of the Øygutt, a 10 meter-long fishing vessel, told NRK Troms, per The Barents Observer. > It was truly the catch of the day, or perhaps for Engen a catch of a lifetime. It wasn't an oversized halibut, but rather the submarine, which was on the surface when its propeller snagged the net, dragging it more than two nautical miles before it was finally cut off. > This unique incident isn’t the first of its kind. A tragic 1999 event saw a British submarine accidentally snag a fishing vessel, leading to the vessel’s sinking and the loss of four crew members.