Kursk was an Oscar-class submarine, twice the length of a 747 jumbo jet, and one of the largest submarines in the Russian Navy. Naval exercise File:K-141 Kursk Russian submarine.jpg 3.4 Claim of collision with NATO submarine.Employing newly developed lifting technologies, they recovered all but the bow of the vessel, including the remains of 115 sailors, which were buried in Russia. The following year, a Dutch team was contracted by the Russians to raise the hull. All 118 sailors and officers-111 crew members, five officers from 7th SSGN Division Headquarters, and two design engineers-aboard the Kursk died. They survived more than six hours before an oxygen cartridge contacted the oily sea water, triggering an explosion and flash fire that consumed the remaining oxygen. It was later determined that 23 sailors in the sixth through ninth compartments survived the two explosions and took refuge in the ninth compartment. It collapsed the first three compartments and all the decks, and destroyed compartments four and five, killing everyone forward of the nuclear reactor compartment. This second explosion was equivalent to between 2 to 3 tonnes (2.0 to 3.0 long tons 2.2 to 3.3 short tons) of TNT. The fire resulting from this explosion in turn triggered the detonation of between five and seven torpedo warheads after the submarine had struck bottom. The initial explosion destroyed the torpedo room, severely damaged the control room, incapacitated or killed the control room crew, and caused the submarine to sink. Seven days after the submarine went down, Norwegian divers finally opened a hatch to the rescue tube in the ship's ninth compartment, hoping to locate survivors, but found it flooded.Īn investigation after most of the wreck was raised along with analysis of pieces of debris found that a crack in the casing of the practice torpedo leaked high-test peroxide that caused the kerosene fuel to explode. On the fifth day, the Russians accepted British and Norwegian offers of assistance. The Russian Navy offered a variety of reasons for the sub's sinking, including blaming the accident on a collision with a NATO or U.S. The government initially misled the public and media about the timing of the accident, stating that communication had been established and that a rescue effort was under way, and refused help from other governments. The navy's response was criticized as slow and inept. Over four days they used four different diving bells and submersibles to try to attach to the escape hatch without success. The Russian Navy did not recognize that the vessel had sunk for more than six hours and it took more than 16 hours for them to locate the sunken ship. A second, much larger, explosion took place two minutes and 15 seconds later, and was powerful enough to register on seismographs as far away as Alaska. Nearby ships registered the explosion but did not know what to make of it. The Oscar-class submarine (Russian: Project 949A "Antey") was preparing to load a dummy 65-76 "Kit" torpedo when a large explosion caused the ship to sink. The Kursk submarine disaster occurred during a major Russian naval exercise in the Barents Sea on Saturday, 12 August 2000. Wrecked hull of Kursk after it was raised a year later.
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