On August 12, 2000 the Russian ballistic submarine Kursk sank with the loss of 118 fellow submariners. Tomorrow is an opportunity to show the fellowship of submariners by wearing your dolphins/submarine pin to work. Of course some of you will be wearing them out of duty.
A moment of silence for our submarine brothers on eternal patrol..................
***The Incident***
The Kursk sailed out to sea to perform an exercise of firing dummy torpedoes at the Pyotr Velikiy, a Kirov class battlecruiser. On August 12, 2000 at 11:28 local time (07:28 UTC), there was an explosion while preparing to fire the torpedoes. The only credible report to date is that this was due to the failure and explosion of one of the Kursk's hydrogen peroxide-fuelled torpedoes. It is believed that HTP, a form of highly concentrated hydrogen peroxide used as propellant for the torpedo, seeped through rust in the torpedo casing. Their knowledge of these volatile HTP torpedoes was one of the reasons the British offered a rescue attempt.
The chemical explosion detonated with the force of 100-250 kg of TNT and registered 2.2 on the Richter scale. The submarine sank to a depth of 108 metres (350 ft), about 135 km (85 miles) from Severomorsk, at
69°40′N 37°35′E / 69.667°N 37.583°E / 69.667; 37.583.
A second explosion 135 seconds after the initial event measured between 3.5 and 4.4 on the Richter scale, equivalent to 3-7 tons of TNT. One of those explosions blew large pieces of debris back through the submarine.
Though a rescue attempt was offered by British and Norwegian teams, all sailors and officers aboard the Kursk perished. Russia declined initial rescue offers. The Russian admiralty at first suggested that most of the crew had died within minutes of the explosion; however, their motivations for making the claim are considered by outside observers as political.
Captain Lieutenant Dmitriy Kolesnikov, one of the survivors of the first explosion, survived in Compartment 9 at the very stern of the boat after the blasts that destroyed the front of the submarine. Recovery workers found notes on his body. They showed that 23 sailors (out of 118 aboard) had waited in the dark with him.
There has been much debate over how long the sailors might have survived. Some, particularly on the Russian side, say that they would have died very quickly; water is known to leak into a stationary Oscar-II craft through the propeller shafts and at 100 m depth it would have been impossible to plug these. Others point out that many potassium superoxide chemical cartridges, used to absorb carbon dioxide and chemically release oxygen to enable survival, were found used when the craft was recovered, suggesting that they had survived for several days.
Ironically, these cartridges appear to have been the cause of death; a sailor appears to have accidentally brought a cartridge in contact with the sea water, causing a chemical reaction and a flash fire. The official investigation into the disaster showed that some men appeared to have survived the fire by plunging under the water (the fire marks on the walls indicate the water was at waist level in the lower area at this time). However the fire rapidly used up the remaining oxygen in the air, causing death by asphyxiation.
While the tragedy of the Kursk played out in the Far North, Russia's then President Vladimir Putin, though immediately informed of the tragedy, waited for five days before he broke a holiday at a presidential resort house in subtropical Sochi on the Black Sea before commenting publicly on the loss of the pride of the Northern Fleet. A year later he said: "I probably should have returned to Moscow, but nothing would have changed. 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.
Safe diving..
A moment of silence for our submarine brothers on eternal patrol..................
***The Incident***
The Kursk sailed out to sea to perform an exercise of firing dummy torpedoes at the Pyotr Velikiy, a Kirov class battlecruiser. On August 12, 2000 at 11:28 local time (07:28 UTC), there was an explosion while preparing to fire the torpedoes. The only credible report to date is that this was due to the failure and explosion of one of the Kursk's hydrogen peroxide-fuelled torpedoes. It is believed that HTP, a form of highly concentrated hydrogen peroxide used as propellant for the torpedo, seeped through rust in the torpedo casing. Their knowledge of these volatile HTP torpedoes was one of the reasons the British offered a rescue attempt.
The chemical explosion detonated with the force of 100-250 kg of TNT and registered 2.2 on the Richter scale. The submarine sank to a depth of 108 metres (350 ft), about 135 km (85 miles) from Severomorsk, at
A second explosion 135 seconds after the initial event measured between 3.5 and 4.4 on the Richter scale, equivalent to 3-7 tons of TNT. One of those explosions blew large pieces of debris back through the submarine.
Though a rescue attempt was offered by British and Norwegian teams, all sailors and officers aboard the Kursk perished. Russia declined initial rescue offers. The Russian admiralty at first suggested that most of the crew had died within minutes of the explosion; however, their motivations for making the claim are considered by outside observers as political.
Captain Lieutenant Dmitriy Kolesnikov, one of the survivors of the first explosion, survived in Compartment 9 at the very stern of the boat after the blasts that destroyed the front of the submarine. Recovery workers found notes on his body. They showed that 23 sailors (out of 118 aboard) had waited in the dark with him.
There has been much debate over how long the sailors might have survived. Some, particularly on the Russian side, say that they would have died very quickly; water is known to leak into a stationary Oscar-II craft through the propeller shafts and at 100 m depth it would have been impossible to plug these. Others point out that many potassium superoxide chemical cartridges, used to absorb carbon dioxide and chemically release oxygen to enable survival, were found used when the craft was recovered, suggesting that they had survived for several days.
Ironically, these cartridges appear to have been the cause of death; a sailor appears to have accidentally brought a cartridge in contact with the sea water, causing a chemical reaction and a flash fire. The official investigation into the disaster showed that some men appeared to have survived the fire by plunging under the water (the fire marks on the walls indicate the water was at waist level in the lower area at this time). However the fire rapidly used up the remaining oxygen in the air, causing death by asphyxiation.
While the tragedy of the Kursk played out in the Far North, Russia's then President Vladimir Putin, though immediately informed of the tragedy, waited for five days before he broke a holiday at a presidential resort house in subtropical Sochi on the Black Sea before commenting publicly on the loss of the pride of the Northern Fleet. A year later he said: "I probably should have returned to Moscow, but nothing would have changed. 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.
Safe diving..
