Accident of the Russian Nuclear Submarine Kursk

K-141 Kursk, an Oscar II class nuclear cruise submarine of Russian Navy, sank in Barents Sea on August 12, 2000. The submarine was one of the first vessels to be built after the fall of the Soviet Union, and was named after the Russian city of Kursk, where the largest tank battle, the Battle of Kursk, took place in 1943. Many theories had been proposed for the cause of the mishap, however, the generally accepted theory was that two explosions in the torpedo room sank the submarine. It is said that the explosions were almost equivalent to 3-7 tons of TNT.

A Brief Factfile

Name	K-141 Kursk
Commmissioned	1994
Class	Oscar II
Homeport	Vidyaevo, Russia
Displacement	16,400 tons (full load)
Propulsion	2 nuclear reactors OK-650b 2 steam turbines 2/7-bladed props
Speed	32 knots (59 km/h) submerged 16 knots (30 km/h) surfaced
Test Depths	300 to 1000 meters
Complement	44 officers, 68 enlisted
Armament	24 x SS-N-19/P-700 Granit 4 x 533 mm bow torpedo tubes 2 x 650 mm torpedo tubes

Kursk Accident

On August 12, 2000, Kursk was participating in a naval exercise, where it was to fire two dummy torpedoes at a Kirov - class battle cruiser Pyotr Velikiy, but during the exercise high test peroxide (HTP), a highly concentrated form of hydrogen peroxide that is used as a propellant for torpedoes, oozed through rusted torpedo casing and reacted with copper and brass in the tube, from which the torpedo was to be fired. This resulted in a chain reaction that led to the explosion. It was a usual practice to leave the watertight door open, that separated the torpedo room from the rest of the submarine, because when a torpedo was launched it released compressed air. And since the watertight door was open, the blast ripped through the first two of the nine compartments in the submarine, killing seven men. It is believed that Captain-lieutenant Dmitri Kolesnikov tried to order ‘emergency blow’, which causes a submarine to rise rapidly to the surface but, was overcome with smoke.

Few seconds after the first explosion, another explosion (much larger than the first) ripped through the submarine. This was due to the increasing temperature inside the submarine that led to the explosion of about half-a-dozen torpedo warheads. The explosion was equivalent to about 5 tons of TNT and measured 4.2 on the Richter scale. The nuclear reactors were shut down after the second explosion. The explosion had created a large hole in the hull of the submarine from which the water poured inside at the speed of 90,000 liters per second, killing all who were inside the compartment.

23 men working in the sixth compartment had survived the blast and they gathered in the ninth compartment of the submarine which contained the escape tunnel. The power soon ran out because the nuclear reactors had been shut down. It isn’t clear for how many days did those people survive, but Russians say they died quickly. Contrary to it, superoxide chemical cartridges, that are used to absorb carbon dioxide and release oxygen for survival, were found empty which suggests that people survived for few days.

The Navy ships in the exercise detected an explosion, but did not report, thinking it was a part of the exercise. It was only in the evening when there was no word from the Kursk that search operations were launched. However, the Kursk was traced the following morning. Bad weather played spoil sport and the Russians weren’t able to rescue people for the next two days. The US and British offered to help, but Russians accepted the help too late on 16th August, 4 days after the accident. The help reached the accident site on 20th August, when they declared that the ninth compartment was flooded and there was no chance of anyone’s survival.

The hull, except the bow of the submarine, was raised from the floor by the Dutch salvage companies in late 2001 and the bodies of the dead recovered. Russian President Vladimir Putin awarded the Order of Courage to the crew, whereas the submarine’s captain Gennady Lyachin was given the title, Hero of the Russian Federation.