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 torpedo room and control-room crew. The torpedo manufacturer challenged this hypothesis, insisting that its design would prevent the kind of event described. Two days later, British and Norwegian divers finally opened a hatch to the escape trunk in the boat's flooded ninth compartment, but found no survivors.Īn official investigation concluded that when the crew loaded a dummy 65–76 "Kit" torpedo, a faulty weld in its casing leaked high-test peroxide (HTP) inside the torpedo tube, initiating a catalytic explosion. President Vladimir Putin initially continued his vacation at a seaside resort in Sochi and authorised the Russian Navy to accept British and Norwegian assistance only after five days had passed. Officials misled and manipulated the public and news media, and refused help from other countries' ships nearby. Its response was criticised as slow and inept. Over four days, the Russian Navy repeatedly failed in its attempts to attach four different diving bells and submersibles to the escape hatch of the submarine. The submarine's emergency rescue buoy had been intentionally disabled during an earlier mission and it took more than 16 hours to locate the sunken boat. The crews of nearby ships felt the initial explosion and a second, much larger explosion, but the Russian Navy did not realise that an accident had occurred and did not initiate a search for the sub for over six hours. The nuclear-powered Project 949A Antey (Oscar II class) submarine K-141 Kursk sank in an accident on 12 August 2000 in the Barents Sea, during the first major Russian naval exercise in more than 10 years, and all 118 personnel on board were killed.
Loss of the boat, crew, headquarters personnel
Kursk (Northwestern Federal District) Show map of Northwestern Federal Districtġ1:29:34 a.m.
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