Initially the other ships in the exercise, all of which had detected an explosion, did not report it. It's dark here to write, but I'll try by feel. "Those who designed the torpedo couldn't foresee the possibility of its explosion." [7] Autopsies of the crew recovered from the ninth compartment showed that three men suffered from thermal and chemical burns. [101][102], Salvage team members found a large number of potassium superoxide chemical cartridges, used to absorb carbon dioxide and chemically release oxygen to enable survival, in the ninth compartment. [99] Other notes recovered later show that some sailors in the ninth compartment were alive at least 6 hours and 17 minutes after the boat sank. [5][6], At 08:51 local time, Kursk requested permission to conduct a torpedo training launch and received the response "Dobro" ("Good"). [44], United States Secretary of Defense William S. Cohen responded to Russian accusations of a collision with a submarine at a press conference in Tokyo on 22 September 2000. [90] The divers used hydraulic abrasive water jets to cut 26 holes through both the outer and inner hulls. [3] Five days after the accident on 17 August 2000, President Putin accepted the British and Norwegian governments' offer of assistance. A huge explosion sank the giant nuclear-powered submarine Kursk, killing most of its crew and stranding nearly two dozen survivors hundreds of feet underwater. [10], The fifth compartment that contained the boat's two nuclear reactors was built to withstand larger forces than other interior bulkheads. EN NL AR DE ES PT. [16]:35 The crew was also supposed to follow a very strict procedure while preparing the practice HTP torpedo for firing. Adm Kuroyedov said that the silos containing the missiles apparently had not been damaged, allowing navy experts to remove the weapons according to normal procedure. [77], Kursk was equipped with an emergency rescue buoy on top of compartment seven that was designed to automatically deploy when it detected any of a variety of emergency conditions like a fire or a rapid pressure change. ... All personnel from sections six, seven, and eight have moved to section nine. Russian navy officers feared that the buoy might accidentally deploy, revealing the submarine's position to the U.S. fleet. [12]:3 Although Kursk was designed to withstand external pressure of depths of up to 1,000 metres (3,300 ft), the second internal explosion tore a 2-square-metre (22 sq ft) hole in the boat's hull, opening the first through fourth compartments to the sea. Divers lowered a video camera on a rod into the compartment and could see several bodies. Two minutes and fifteen seconds after the initial blast, the sub had reached the sea floor when the intense initial fire triggered the detonation of between five and seven torpedo warheads. [5] HMS Sidon sank in 1955, killing 13 sailors, when an experimental torpedo containing HTP exploded as it was being loaded. [7] Nearly half of the commission members were officials with a stake in the outcome of the investigation. On August 12, 2000, a devastating explosion sank the Russian nuclear submarine Kursk in the Barents Sea. On 26 August, Putin awarded the title of the Hero of Russia posthumously to the submarine’s commander, Gennady Lyachin, and the 117 crewmembers and specialists were posthumously awarded The Order of Courage. [93] Of that number, 23 survived the two blasts and gathered in the small ninth compartment, which had an escape hatch. On 8 October 2001, fourteen months after the disaster, and only five months after the contract had been awarded to them, the salvage team raised the remainder of the ship in a 15-hour operation. The two hulls were separated by a 1-to-2 m (3-to-7 ft) gap. The team then used the four guide cables to lower a custom-made giant gripper, similar to a toggle bolt, which were custom designed to fit each hole, and the divers manoeuvred them through the guidance ring.[91]. Each only knew about its own part in the exercise, and assumed that the explosion was that of a depth charge, and part of the exercise. Lacking information, families of the victims engaged in an angry and volatile meeting with newly elected President Vladimir Putin. They stated that the submarine had "descended to the ocean floor", that they had established contact with the crew and were pumping air and power to the boat, and that "everyone on board is alive. He said, "To me, this is a clear case of negligence. [19] But she was not equipped with stabilisers capable of keeping the vessel in position during stormy weather and could lower her rescue vessels only in calm seas. Kolesnikov wrote the second note at 15:15. Mammoet converted the 24,000-long-ton (24,000 t), 130-metre (430 ft) long, Giant 4 semi-submersible deck barge to carry the sub. They wrote custom software that would automatically compensate for the effects of wave motion due to the rough Barents Sea, which could sever the cables suspending the sub beneath the barge. [2][71] They decided to destroy what was left of the bow where it lay[71] and blew up the remnants in September 2002.[86]. Because Kursk was regarded as unsinkable, family members wished to discount the worst of the rumors. [68][74][79], After the accident, investigators recovered a partially burned copy of the safety instructions for loading HTP torpedoes, but the instructions were for a significantly different type of torpedo and failed to include essential steps for testing an air valve. Some were unable to confirm whether their family members were among the crew on board the boat. Navy officials said that they would be able to remove the weapons without cutting the hull. Instead, the article was replaced with another that speculated the submarine had collided with an "unidentified object". [2][53]:107 The meeting was closed and access was tightly controlled. [8], On Tuesday, 22 August, 10 days after the sinking, Putin met at 8 p.m. in the Vidyayevo navy base officers' club and cultural centre with about 400–600[2]:154[53]:105 angry and grieving residents of the navy base and about 350 family members of the Kursk's crew. No spare batteries were available, so the crew was forced to wait while the batteries were recharged. [80] Another theory was that USS Memphis had fired a torpedo at Kursk. [30] Vice Admiral Vladislav Ilyin, first deputy chief of the Russian Navy's staff and head of the Kursk Naval Incident Cell, concluded that the survivors had lived up to three days. The navy's callous approach to the families of the missing men was reminiscent of an earlier Soviet insensitivity to individual misery. No bodies were found in the seventh or eighth sections. They salvaged a high-pressure compressed air cylinder weighing about half a ton,[87] to learn more about the nature of the explosion. The boat was as long as two jumbo jets. While setting anchor, its crew interpreted an acoustic sound as an SOS from the submarine, but soon concluded the noise had been produced by the anchor chain striking the anchor hole. The bow section of the 'Kursk' suffered severe damage during the … This contradicted earlier statements made by senior Russian officials that all of the submariners had died before the submarine hit the bottom. President Vladimir Putin initially continued his vacation at a seaside resort; he authorised the Russian Navy to accept British and Norwegian offers of assistance after five days had passed since the accident. [97], The newspaper Izvestia reported on 26 February 2001 that another note, written by Lt. Cmdr. Within a 3-month period, over 3,000 tons of custom-made equipment was designed, fabricated, installed and commissioned onto a barge which was mobilized to the Barents Sea in August to raise the hull. [47]:22 Their response was compared to the Soviet style of cover up and stonewalling like that during the Chernobyl disaster. Putin also offered the families additional compensation equivalent to ten years' salary, about US$7,000 at the time. [68], As a result of the disaster, Russia began participating in NATO search and rescue exercises in 2011. [12], Russian Navy officials imposed specific constraints that restricted the Norwegian divers to work on the stern of the boat, specifically the escape hatch over compartment nine and an air control valve connected to the rescue trunk. Specifically, the Kursk was what was known as an Oscar II Project 949A/Antey, which is to say, a nuclear-powered cruise missile submarine designed and built to go after NATO aircraft carrier groups. [69], While the sub was submerged, 78 crew were normally assigned to the first four compartments and 49 to the rear five compartments. Divers cut a large hole in the barge's hull to allow room for the submarine's sail. The Kursk submarine disaster occurred during a major Russian naval exercise in the Barents Sea on Saturday, 12 August 2000. [19], On Sunday, after Popov already knew that Kursk was missing and presumed sunk, he briefed reporters on the progress of the naval exercise. GN40454EN. The Kursk hit the seabed 108 meters below, driving its bow 2 meters deep into the clay. By Duncan Mil August 12, 2020 - An explosion in the bow section of the Russian nuclear submarine Kursk nuclear submarine sinks after two explosions rip through torpedo compartments. But nothing new was said at that day, except for speculations from the Commander of the Russian Navy, Admiral Kuroedov. [2]:160, Putin lashed back at the press, who had been severely critical of his personal response and the entire government's handling of a national tragedy. [72] Once HTP begins oxidising, it is impossible to stop until the fuel is exhausted. They also raised a part of the cylindrical section of the hard frame and part of the left forward spherical partition, to determine the intensity and temperature of the fire in the forward compartment. The damaged hull was lifted from the bottom of the sea this month in a salvage operation costing £45.4m. Mammoet was awarded the salvaging contract in May 2001, with the winter weather starting in early October. [5] The outer hull was constructed using 8 mm (0.3 in) steel "We believed the bodies would be badly disfigured after more than a year under water," he said. K-141 Kursk was a Russian nuclear cruise missile submarine which was lost with all hands when it sank in the Barents Sea on August 12, 2000. Roslyakovo dry dock2. [35] All of the men had clearly been badly burned. Aboard Pyotr Velikiy, the target of the practice launch, the crew detected a hydro-acoustic signal characteristic of an underwater explosion and felt their hull shudder. [78], When Ustinov closed the criminal case without filing charges,[citation needed] family members were angry. Ordnance teams removed the missiles from outside the hull. "[78] In the end, no one was blamed for the disaster and no one was held responsible. The Mikhail Rudnitsky left port at 00:30. The inner hull was divided into nine water-tight compartments. [92] Some analysts theorised the Russians may also have wanted to prevent foreign countries from accessing the debris which had been classified as state secrets. [15], The first official announcement of the accident was made by the Russians on Monday, 14 August. [citation needed] Using the specialized equipment, they recovered all but the bow, including the remains of 115 sailors, who were buried in Russia. [9][105], Putin accepted the resignation of Igor Sergeyev from his position as Minister of Defence on 28 March 2001 and made him his assistant on strategic stability. [10] Three crewmen's bodies were completely destroyed by the blast and fire and nothing of their remains could be identified or recovered. [55] They cried:[53]:107, The hostile, contentious meeting lasted for three[53] to six hours. Analysts theorise that the men may have rejected risking the escape hatch even if it were operable, and would have preferred to wait for a submarine rescue ship to attach itself to the hatch. [47]:22 Aryapov held a senior position in the sixth compartment. Simons, Greg (2012): Communicating Tragedy and Values Through the Mass Media During Crises: The Lessons of Submarine Accidents in Russia in Porfiriev, Boris & Simons, Greg (editors), Crises in Russia: Contemporary Management Policy and Practice from a Historical Perspective, Farnham, Ashgate, pp. It was named after the Russian city Kursk, around which the largest tank battle in military history, the Battle of Kursk, took place in 1943. In addition it was likely that some of the men were seriously injured and escape would have been very difficult for them. Share via Email. Water samples taken from inside the reactor's compartment confirm that there has been no radiation leak, a navy spokesman, Captain Igor Dygalo, said. [53]:108[57], The Russian state channel RTR was the only media granted access. [15], On Wednesday, 16 August, at 00:20, AS-34 twice attempted to attach to the ninth compartment escape hatch but was unsuccessful. [54] The President's response appeared callous and the government's actions looked incompetent. Like the exterior hull, these bulkheads were designed to withstand pressure up to depths of 1,000 metres (3,300 ft). [83] Giant 4 was held in position over the submarine by an eight-point mooring system from four twin-drum winches on the main deck. [53]:114 With the addition of other donations received from across the world, the families received about US$35,000 in payments. The government published a four-page summary in Rossiyskaya Gazeta that revealed "stunning breaches of discipline, shoddy, obsolete and poorly maintained equipment",[16][65] and "negligence, incompetence, and mismanagement". The explosion blew off both the inner and outer tube doors, ignited a fire, destroyed the bulkhead between the first and second compartments, damaged the control room in the second compartment, and incapacitated or killed the control room crew. [45], Q: Russians are suggesting that one of the possible reasons is a collision with a NATO or American submarine, they are asking to let them, well, have a look at a couple of United States submarines and the answer from the American side is no; so I ask, why not? [12][24], On Sunday 20 August, the Norwegians lowered a ROV to the submarine. [68][10] All 36 men in the command post located in the second compartment were immediately incapacitated by the blast wave and likely killed. [45], While the official inquiry was still under way, on 25 October 2000, Commander of the Northern Fleet Popov and his Chief of Staff Motsak were interviewed by the Spanish newspaper El Mundo. [8] Once officially informed, the British government, along with France, Germany, Israel, Italy, and Norway offered help,[7] and the United States offered the use of one of its two deep submergence rescue vehicles, but the Russian government refused all foreign assistance. Once the sub was raised and joined to the barge, it was carried back under the barge to the Russian Navy's Roslyakovo Shipyard in Murmansk. [49] The seismic waveforms of the second event, known by then to be from the explosion of several torpedo warheads, also generated a high-frequency bubble signature characteristic of an underwater explosion of approximately 3–7 tons of TNT. Britain's Blacknest seismic monitoring station, which studies seismic signals generated by underground nuclear explosions and earthquakes,[50] identified two distinct explosions. A consortium formed by the Dutch companies Mammoet and Smit International was awarded a contract by Russia to raise the vessel, excluding the bow. It was brought back aboard, repaired, and relaunched at 21:10. [3] On Tuesday Mikhail Rudnitsky lowered a diving bell twice but were unable to connect to the sub. The sub was relatively close to shore and in the middle of a large naval exercise. [14] Aboard Pyotr Velikiy, the target of the practice launch, the crew detected a hydro-acoustic signal characteristic of an underwater explosion and felt their hull shudder. [2][7] After considerable delay, the submarine was set to fire two dummy torpedoes at the Kirov-class battlecruiser Pyotr Velikiy. They reported the phenomenon to fleet headquarters but their report was ignored. [59], Russians and observers in the West were shocked by the incident and feared that the public sedation of a crew member's mother meant that the former Soviet Union was returning to Cold War-era methods of silencing dissent. They're lying. The ship was designed to carry huge loads on its deck, but Kursk would ride beneath the ship. The salvage divers mounted custom guidance rings around the holes in the sub and lowered guide cables to each through the holes in Giant 4. [2]:143–145 When the cartridge came in contact with the oily sea water, it triggered a chemical explosion and flash fire. Water continued to seep into the compartment, and by the time rescue divers opened the compartment, they found only a small air pocket containing just 7% oxygen. [30], The rescue ship Altay attempted to attach a Kolokol diving bell[31] to the sub but was unsuccessful. Nearby ships registered the explosion but did not know what to make of it. [30][103] Kolesnikov's abdomen was burned by acid, exposing the internal organs, and the flesh on his head and neck were removed by the chemical explosion. Salvage crews located a piece of the number four torpedo hatch on the seabed 50 metres (160 ft) behind the main wreckage. Most of the crew of 118 died instantly, but … The Kursk… [2]:143–145[61] It is unlikely that any rescue by either Russian or foreign specialists could have arrived and reached the sub in time to rescue any survivors. "[25], Senior officers in the Russian Navy offered a variety of explanations for the accident. We won't let you live, bastards! [20] Western media criticised the Russians' 32-hour response time; however, the standard for deploying a recovery vessel in 2000 was 72 hours. Regards to everybody, no need to despair. Ship`s deck house3. "[40][41], Additional plans were made to continue to remove the bodies, but the Russian Navy could not agree on a contract with a foreign company. [7] Captain-lieutenant Dmitri Kolesnikov, head of the turbine unit in the seventh department, and one of three surviving officers of that rank, apparently took charge. Only seven of the submarine's 24 torpedoes were accounted for. These shocks would have immediately incapacitated or killed the operators. [65] Popov and Motsak had championed the story that the accident had been caused by a collision with a NATO submarine. "They'd better sell their villas on the Mediterranean coast of France or Spain. When relatives asked why the government had waited so long before accepting foreign assistance, Putin said the media had lied. The team manufactured 26 giant cable reels to hold the more than 200 kilometres (120 mi) of cable to be used to raise the boat. Salvage teams cut into the compartments to drain water from the interior. [1] Working from a database of personal identification details, including the crew members' features, dental x-rays, birth marks, and tattoos, the doctors examined the bodies as they were brought to the laboratory. The submarine was lost some 90 miles off the Murmansk Pilot Station, coming to a rest on the ocean floor at a depth of 108 meters. This referred to statements that the boat's captain, Gennady Lyachin, had sent a message to headquarters immediately prior to the explosion, "We have a malfunctioning torpedo. Other reports said the sounds had been misinterpreted or were made up. [38] The Russian divers entered the wreck and opened a bulkhead hatch to compartment nine. [10] The explosion collapsed the first three compartments and all of the decks. [2]:152 The Russian Navy told reporters that a rescue was imminent. [30] However, video evidence seems to suggest otherwise, as it shows Norwegian divers tapping on the aft rescue hatch while the rescue part of the operation was still underway. … [5] Four days after Kursk sank, Russian Navy Commander-in-Chief and Fleet Admiral Vladimir Kuroyedov stated the accident had been caused by a serious collision. Work is going on in shifts through the night and will continue until we are sure there are no bodies left on the submarine.". He replaced him with Sergei Ivanov, who had previously been secretary of the Security Council of Russia. Crew aboard Mikhail Rudnitsky tried to contact Kursk and briefly thought they heard an acoustic SOS signal, but this was determined to be of biological origin. This has not been easy, given the proposed means of recovering the Kursk. The Kursk's commanders and most of the crew in the front compartments were killed as two blasts 135 seconds apart sent the mighty submarine to the … Then they might have to explain why all this property is registered in false names under front law-firms. But we did not receive concrete answers to concrete questions," she said. The Kursk submarine was a big, burly piece of Russian engineering. In May 2001 the Russian Federation entered into a contract with the Dutch consortium Mammoet-Smit for the recovery of the Kursk on the condition that it had to be completed … 139–174. He also said there was no evidence that the torpedo had been damaged when it was loaded onto Kursk. [12], At 11:31:48,[11] two minutes and 14 seconds after the first, a second event, measuring 4.2 on the Richter scale, or 250 times larger than the first,[10] was registered on seismographs across northern Europe[13] and was detected as far away as Alaska. [100], While waiting for the boat to be brought to shore, a team of military doctors set up a temporary forensic laboratory at the military hospital in Severomorsk. Their severely edited broadcast of the meeting showed only the president speaking, eliminating the many emotional and contentious encounters between the President and family members. It repeatedly lowered the rescue vessel 110 m (360 ft) to the submarine but it was unable to latch onto an escape hatch. [46] Fleet Admiral Vladimir Kuroyedov stated again on 25 October that he was 80% certain the accident was caused by a collision with a foreign submarine. In addition, any fire in the torpedo compartment would have triggered a powerful fire-extinguishing system that would have dumped "tons of water" on the fire. He shouted to the assembled families, "They're lying. [16]:37, The continued problems that the rescuers had in reaching potential survivors and ongoing conflicting information about the cause of the accident inflamed Russian public opinion. [15] At 09:00 Mikhail Rudnitsky arrived at the location. Kursk's crew had not fired a torpedo for three years, and that torpedo was a much simpler battery-powered type. I had the same level of communication both in Sochi and in Moscow, but from a PR point of view I could have demonstrated some special eagerness to return. The next task would be to remove the missiles. If a temperature rise was detected in the torpedo tube, the torpedo would have automatically been ejected into the sea. [82] They contracted with the Dutch marine salvage companies Smit International and Mammoet to raise Kursk from the sea floor. The sailors were in a compartment that was initially at surface atmosphere pressure, so they did not risk decompression sickness ('the bends') if they used the rescue hoods to ascend to the surface. [3] It consisted of 30 ships and three submarines. So frankly, there is no need for inspections, since ours are completely operational, there was no contact whatsoever with the Kursk. Letters found on the bodies of 12 of the submariners who were recovered last … She said, "I am sure that the commanders of the Northern Fleet knew that the torpedoes were not in order. [55] He scornfully derided their ownership of property abroad. Retired Russian navy Captain Vladimir Mityayev lost a son on Kursk. They cut holes through the barge to allow 26 hoisting cables to pass through. [12], On 21 August, after the Norwegian divers confirmed that no one was alive in the ninth compartment, the Chief of Staff of the Russian Northern Fleet, Mikhail Motsak, announced to the public that the Kursk was flooded and all of its crewmembers had died. If we head for the surface we won't survive the compression. [59][60] Four months later, Nadezhda Tylik said that her husband had lied about the injection to the public to "save my nerves", and that he "did not ask for help". [1], Salvage divers from Halliburton[84] first detached the bow from the rest of the vessel because it might have contained unexploded torpedo warheads and because it could break off and destabilise the lifting. [10][71] Ordinarily, the oxygen combines with kerosene fuel in the torpedo engine to propel the missile at higher speed and greater range than conventional torpedoes. Russian audiences were shocked when they later saw this footage, which showed a distraught wife and mother being forcibly sedated before she was removed from the meeting. An explosion in the bow section of the Russian nuclear submarine 'Kursk' on 12th of August, 2000, resulted in the tragic loss of the submarine and the lives of 118 crew.