 On January 17, 1960, the barge's crew of four was preparing the barge for loading on the Kuril Islands, when they encountered hurricane-force winds.The tackle was torn and the crew, junior sergeant Askhat Ziganshin (, ), and crewmen Filipp Poplavsky (), Anatoly Kryuchkovsky (), and Ivan Fedotov (), drifted for 49 days until the U.S. aircraft carrier "Kearsarge" picked up them on 7 March in stormy waters 1,200 miles off Wake Island.There was not enough food on the barge