Operation Open Spirit 2016 will be conducted by 19 warships, 10 EOD divers teams, and by other specialists from 14 NATO and partner nations: Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Estonia, France, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Sweden, UK, and the U.S.
International explosive ordnance disposal Operation Open Spirit is continued efforts of the Baltic States, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, to clear their territorial seafloor of naval mines and other explosive remnants of World War I, World War II and the interwar period side by side with their allies. Mine clearance operations are conducted to decrease the risk for navigation, fishery and other economic activities in the Baltic Sea. Open Spirits is held in the Baltic Sea on a rotating basis since 1997.
Previous Operation Open Spirits of such scale took place in the territorial waters and exclusive economic zone of Lithuania in August 2013. Warships and diving teams deployed by 10 countries swept seafloor area of 64 square nautical miles (118.5 sq.km) and found 10 naval mines (2 of them dummies), 14 anchor mines and one missile. The explosives were destroyed, and three shipwrecks were found and marked.
In total, 13 large scale international mine countermeasures operations were completed since 1997 in Lithuania’s territorial waters. As a result, seafloor area of 1409 sq. nautical miles was swept and 166 explosives were found and destroyed. Over the same period of time, 13 ship and 2 plain wreckages were detected.
According to representatives of the mine countermeasures efforts, 15 naval mine fields containing over 1,600 naval mines were dispersed in the exclusive economic zone and territorial waters of Lithuania in WWI and WWII.
