In August 2000, the Kursk participated in a training exercise in the Barents Sea involving 30 ships from Russia's Northern Fleet. The cruiser Peter The Great was the flagship. Around 150 kilometers of ocean northeast of Murmansk was cleared of traffic for the exercise. Two U.S. Memphis-class nuclear submarines observed the exercise.
The Kursk was a Russian Oscar-class nuclear submarine. Her keel was laid in 1992 in Severodvinsk and it took two years to build her. They said that vessels of this sort were unsinkable as they had double hulls.
ship propeller
154 meters
18.2 meters
- 98,000 horsepower
- Speed: 15 knots (33.3 kph) on surface; 33 knots (52 kph) underwater
- Cruising capacity: 120 days
- Working depth: 420 meters
- Maximum depth: 500 meters
Two nuclear reactors
Crew: 130
24 P-700 Granit antiship cruise missiles
24 Skhval torpedoes
Four 533 mm torpedo launchers
two 650 mm launchers
The watertight doors of the torpedo launchers were open at the time of the explosion. As a result, the first two of the nuclear submarine's nine compartments were ruptured. Seven people were killed and 36 injured. The crew did not manage to activate the alarm systems. The rescue buoys meant to be launched in the event of an accident also were not released.
As part of the training exercise, on August 12, the Kursk imitated the launch of a Granit cruise missile at a flotilla of surface ships.
According to the official account, at 11:28 local time, highly concentrated hydrogen peroxide used as torpedo fuel leaked into a torpedo compartment. That sparked a chain reaction with the copper and brass in the compartment, leading to an explosion.
The first explosion registered on seismometers at a magnitude of between 1.5 and 2.2.
The explosion destroyed the submarine's hull, which was meant to withstand pressure at a depth of 1,000 meters. Water began to rush into the second and fourth compartments at a rate of 90,000 liters per second. All the sailors in that area were killed. The compartments housing the nuclear reactors were not affected.
The second explosion registered on seismometers at a magnitude of between 3.5 and 4.4.
Twenty-three seamen survived the two blasts. They gathered in the ninth compartment, where the second emergency exit was located. At that point they could have escaped, one by one, from a depth of 100 meters. However, the crew declined to leave the vessel, deciding to wait for a rescue ship. Soon afterward, the ship’s reactors shut down along with emergency power supply. The temperature inside the submarine began to drop. Rescuers failed to make contact with the crew.
1
2
ship propeller
154 м
18.2 м
- 98,000 horsepower
- Speed: 15 knots (33.3 kph) on surface; 33 knots (52 kph) underwater
- Cruising capacity: 120 days
- Working depth: 420 meters
- Maximum depth: 500 meters
i
i
i
i
1
2
2
1
2
1
2
August 15, 2000
Naval command announces the beginning of rescue operations. More than 20 ships had arrived at the site of the sunken submarine. However, a storm hampers operations.

Little hope remained that the crew could be rescued. Russian media reported the theory that water had penetrated the sub.
108 meters
August 18, 2000
A rescue device was sent down to the sunken submarine for the first time. Strong underwater currents kept it from docking with the vessel. On August 20, the Norwegian ship Normand Pioneer and the British submersible LR5 joined the rescue operation.
August 21, 2000
At about 1 p.m. a team of divers managed to open internal and external compartments of one of the submarine's emergency exits. Russian news agency Interfax reported that rescuers had found a fragment of an alleged British submarine. The British authorities rejected the allegation.

Near the emergency exit, the divers found the first body of a crew member. At 5 p.m., Northern Fleet Vice Admiral Mikhail Motsak officially confirmed that the entire crew of the Kursk had perished. The rescue operation was called off, but the sunken vessel remained under observation by camera.
Most of the hull of the Kursk, with the exception of its foredeck, was raised from the sea bottom.The submarine's hull was transferred to the Navy's Roslyakov shipyard near the city of Murmansk, on October 8, 2001. The vessel was pulled out from the sea by Gigant-4 (Giant-4) barge after it had spent more than a year underwater.

The Kursk's damaged foredeck was cut by a robotic saw controlled by a special hydraulic pump.
115 of 118 bodies discovered in the submarine's debris were buried in Russia. Attempts to identify three bodies found in the torpedo compartment were unsuccessful.
The dead
0
Explosion
Rescue
Norway
Sweden
Finland
Russia
KURSK
The Tragedy of the Kursk

The Russian nuclear submarine Kursk was considered unsinkable. But on August 12, 2000, it sank in the Barents Sea after two explosions, leading to the death of all 118 seamen aboard. How did this happen, and how did the rescue operation unfold 15 years ago?
Source: mmspektrum.com, akademon.cz, wikipedie.cz, military.cz, ru.wikipedia.org