Date of Incident: 12 August 2000
Returned to Service: No
The Oscar II-class SSGN Kursk sank during a traning exercise in the Barents Sea after an torpedo accident resulted in two explosions. Because Kursk was scheduled to fire a high speed "super-cavitating" torpedo (which vented high pressure gas into the torpedo room, causing great discomfort to the torpedo crews) it had become normal practice to leave most, if not all, the watertight doors in the submarine open, to allow the gas to spread more evenly through the submarine.
The first explosion was approximately 100 Kg of TNT and was apparently caused by a leak of the liquid propellant from a torpedo. The liquid propellant in this particular torpedo is basically very pure Hydrogen Peroxide, which reacts violently with most metals. This reaction creates extreme heat, hydrogen gas (which is flammable), and oxygen gas. Any impurity in the storage tank, or any leak in the lines could result in an explosion and fire which can be impossible to quench, because the hydrogen peroxide fuel creates its own oxygen to continue burning. (A similar incident aboard the British submarine HMS Sidon in 1955 sank the submarine while at the dock, killing 13.)
The second explosion, about two minutes after the first, is approximately equivilent to 5,000 Kg of TNT (which is approximately the size of the warhead on a conventionally armed Russian torpedo). This is consistant with other fires in which military warheads have detonated shortly after being exposed to high temperature fires.
All 118 men aboard are killed . This total includes 111 officers and crew, 5 officers from 7th SSGN Division HQ, and 2 designers. At least 23 men from the after section of the submarine survived the initial accident. However, by the time rescuers were able to reach the submarine, the after sections had flooded. Furthermore, the rescue divers found the after escape hatch nearly inoperable, possibly due to damage from the initial explosions.
Information taken from various open-source public media, including CNN, MSNBC, BBC, and AFP.
Return to The 21st Century
Return to Peacetime Submarine Accidents
In one of the largest and most complex salvages ever attempted, the Russian Government and the Kursk Salvage Foundation contracted with the Dutch firm Mammoet to salvage the Kursk. Because of the damage to the bow and the risk that damaged parts might shift or even separate from the sunken submarine during salvage, the decision was made to cut the bow off prior to salvage (had the bow been left on, and part of it had fallen off, the shift in weight could have been disasterous).
The bow was successfully removed, and the remainder of the hull was lifted from the seabed on 08 October 2001. The submarine was towed to a drydock in Murmansk. Fifty-seven crew members remains were removed from the hull and an investigating team examined the submarine's wreckage, eventually releasing the report that confirmed the accident's cause. The remaining officers and crew from the Kursk were symbolically laid to rest in St. Petersburg.
The bow section, along with remaining live torpedoes, was blown up on the seafloor in early September 2002.