Kursk Down (13 page)

Other press reports were continuing. Russian officers were at NATO headquarters holding a conference on available assistance. The British began prepping their
LR-5
rescue sub for action. The Russian Navy maintained it could handle the rescue unaided. A report from Norwegian sources claimed the Russians had given notice of the accident to their foreign office on Saturday, August 12, rather than Sunday. The
Kursk
’s designer reportedly took full responsibility for the accident. “Something extraordinary, beyond the imagination of an engineer,” had happened.

Navy Chief Admiral Vladimir Kuroyedov was informed that oxygen reserves on board the
Kursk
would last until noon on Friday, August 18. A leak to Reuters News Service declared that oxygen on board the
Kursk
was running low. One story seemed to breed another. Fancy became repeated fact. And facts changed as they appeared in the next story.

Navy scuttlebutt channels were full of rumors as well. Some, sadly, proved to be true. Families of the crew members at the Northern Fleet’s sub bases near Murmansk somehow received unofficial word that there was no hope for survivors. As might be imagined, this news caused emotional turmoil. To contain the situation and control information flow, the bases were sealed. The already-monitored telephone lines were temporarily placed out of order.

As hours passed, the storm at the recovery site had grown more ferocious. Then, late on August 15 at about 2000 hours, there came a break.

Braving wet decks in wind-driven rain, Navy men deployed the DSRVs. During the next nine hours, four separate attempts were made to dock with the submarine’s rear escape hatch. All failed. The same problems experienced earlier still prevailed. The current was too strong, the angle of the sub to the sea floor was too great, visibility was poor, and damaged mating surfaces on the hatch prevented the rescuers from making a watertight connection. As the weather showed signs of worsening, meetings were called to regroup forces and plan the next steps.

Those in the know realized this well might be the final effort before requesting foreign assistance. If they failed to achieve entry into the sub during the next few hours, public pressure to do so would become unmanageable. Recriminations for not acting sooner would be more difficult to explain. Like it or not, the need to accept Western help, no matter how embarrassing that might be, was becoming imperative.

16 August 2000—0800 Hours—Barents Sea

The fourth day dawned with a prediction of more storms. While that was disappointing, spirits rose with the arrival of another DSRV. This was a welcome addition to the fleet because the reliable
AS-34
needed to be removed from the water and swung aboard the
Rudnitsky
for essential maintenance tasks. Repairs would enable the sub to be used for a longer period when placed back into service.

Crane lines were made fast to
AS-34
. As she was lifted from the sea she swung in the wind, violently slamming her hull into the ship. Men grabbed cables dangling from the boat and struggled to stabilize the DSRV before the minisub hit again. It was too late. The damage had been done.

A quick inspection revealed antennas required for sonar and electronic sensing had been broken. There were no replacements. Fixes were improvised and the submersible was able to return to limited service.

While rushed repairs were being made to
AS-34
, other plans were evaluated. One concept was to lay water-filled pontoons alongside the
Kursk
hull. These floats would be connected by web belts. Compressed air could then be piped into the cylinders, forcing the water out. The pontoons would rise and lift the giant boat to the surface. The procedure was ruled more a salvage operation than a crew-rescue program, so the idea was discarded.

Another concept called for connecting electrical power cables and an oxygen hose to the submarine. As there were no connectors on the
Kursk
’s hull suitable for such use, the necessary hardware would have to be fabricated and then attached by divers. The length of time required to accomplish this ruled out the project.

By this point, different types of Deep Sea Rescue Vehicles had made more than ten attempts to dock and connect with the rear escape hatch. All had failed. The DSRV crews were willing to continue. There was little hope, however, that they would be able to perform a successful rescue. Even so, these men were the most effective option the Russian Navy possessed.

Rumors sprang from failures. One held that the
Kursk
lay on the bottom with a 60-degree list and her bow down at an angle of 20 degrees. This position, tail high and leaning to one side, coupled with a swift current over the hull, suggested the need for help.

At 1500 hours, President Vladimir Putin, still on holiday in the Black Sea resort of Sochi, described the situation as “critical.”

Shortly afterward, Deputy Prime Minister Ilya Klebanov was quoted as saying there were no signs of life on the sub—this despite recent reports of hammering on the inside of the hull.

Four days had elapsed. It was time for a different approach. After due consultation, President Putin, acting in his capacity as supreme commander-in-chief, passed the order for Navy head Admiral Vladimir Kuroyedov to accept foreign assistance. Kuroyedov’s team acted immediately to arrange help from both Britain and Norway.

This presidential action was a political masterstroke. Being ordered to accept outside aid allowed the Navy to continue its effort while negotiations for help were under way. If Russia succeeded in entering the sub, national pride would be even greater. If they failed, they had still asked for assistance. The talks would overcome any future complaints about an unwillingness to look outside Russia for aid. Acting under orders also allowed the Navy to accept assistance without having to admit an inability to perform the needed tasks.

Russia formally requested that Britain lend the
LR-5
minisubmarine and crew. The British had readied the rescue vessel in case it was needed and approval to airlift the
LR-5
into Norway was instantly granted. At 1900 hours, a transport carrying the
LR-5
landed at the naval and port city of Trondheim.

At 1200 hours on August 16, the Northern Fleet chief of staff called the commander of the Norwegian Navy on their direct line to request assistance on behalf of Admiral Popov.

The Norwegians were asked to help in three different ways. First, alterations to the
LR-5
hatch were essential so a watertight seal could be made with the
Kursk
. According to reports, a Norwegian manufacturing facility in Kirkeness was selected for this project. Next, transportation for the British
LR-5
was needed from Norway’s Trondheim Navy Base to the rescue site. And finally, divers capable of working at depths exceeding 300 feet, along with their support vessel and necessary gear, were required.

The Russian Navy’s diving school had been closed by lack of funding but they still had capable divers. Several volunteered their skills for the rescue effort. What the Russians lacked was the specialized equipment required for working long periods underwater to open the
Kursk
hatches. The rescue gear used for saturation diving had been rented out to oil companies.

Saturation diving was perfected by the U.S. Navy during the late 1950s. Since that time the practice has spread from the military into civilian commercial and scientific applications. Offshore oil exploration and production industries, in particular, employ many saturation divers. This type of diving is the only method for a person to work underwater at depths as great as 2,000 feet without a lengthy decompression period.

To handle the Russian request for divers, six employees of Stolt Offshore, a Norwegian contractor to the oil and gas industry, were pulled from a job near Haltenbanken, Norway. The four Britons and two Norwegians were aboard Stolt-Comex’s diving ship,
Seaway Eagle
, based out of Aberdeen, Scotland. Eight hours after the Russian call for aid, the team was rushing to the accident site.

At 1200 hours on August 17, a Norwegian vessel, the
Normand Pioneer
, had loaded the British
LR-5
and departed from the port of Trondheim.

By this point, political storm flags were snapping in the wind. Public outcries caused the Russian government to form a special commission for overseeing rescue operations and investigating causes of the accident. Deputy Prime Minister Ilya Klebanov was named chairman of this group.

17 August 2000

Five days had passed since the accident and despite many tries, there had been no entry into the
Kursk
. All talk about tapping on the hull was done. The earlier stories now appeared to be just that—stories. Specialists, reviewing audiotapes of the tapping sounds, detected no Morse code. Some experts now believed the noises were caused by popping metal as the
Kursk
settled into the seafloor sediment.

Underwater surveys of the boat had been expanded and the extent of damage to the submarine was now better understood. It was difficult for experienced Navy officers to hold much hope. Admitting a lost cause would bring unwanted reactions and dangerous questions. So silence on the true state of affairs continued—the same silence that helped maintain a state of anxiety.

Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov, the number two man in Russian government, was quoted in
The St. Petersburg Times
as saying the situation was “close to catastrophic.” At almost the same instant, the Navy Press Center announced that those on board could survive until August 23, possibly August 25, if they were careful with air and water supplies.

Whether or not anyone lived inside the wreckage, foreign help was on the way. And at least some of the Russians resented the intrusion of foreigners into their work. This reaction caused yet another redoubling of Russian rescue efforts. If there was any possible way, Navy personnel were determined to gain entry into the
Kursk
before “help” reached the site.

A fourth DSRV arrived and was quickly readied. With added support, a renewed series of attempts to dock with the submarine began immediately. The previous problems remained and were cited as reasons for repeated failures.

At the same time this grueling undersea struggle was taking place, better news was found. Water samples taken near the wreck and at random locations in the area continued to show no traces of unusual radiation levels. As hoped, the nuclear piles had automatically shut down. This information was especially important to the Norwegians, who were invited to take their own samples. The Barents Sea, despite this and other dumped reactors, remains one of the least radioactively polluted bodies of water in the world.

To lend air support to the rescue flotilla, the heavy aircraft-carrying cruiser
Admiral Flota Sovetskogo Soyuza Kuznetsov
was brought within 15 miles of the site. This additional resource provided air cover that allowed for increasing helicopter patrols seeking foreign subs that might be lurking in the zone.

On the political front, Russian military delegates continued to meet with NATO officials. And a new voice was heard on the collision theory. Admiral Eduard Baltin, a senior commander of submarine operations in the old Soviet Pacific Fleet, came forward with a statement during an interview. He was quoted as saying, “I think the only realistic version is that the sub collided with a cargo vessel because it is in an area where there is a recommenced course for civil navigation.”

If the foreign sub story failed to hold, any collision would apparently do.

On this same day, Russian officials reported that George Tenet, director of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, arrived in Moscow for talks. Some part of those conversations most likely touched on the
Kursk
situation. While there was speculation as to the cause of Tenet’s visit, several newspapers reported that this meeting had been arranged before the
Kursk
disaster. The CIA and FSB, the Russian Federal Security Service, periodically discuss such issues as terrorism, drug trafficking, and organized crime.

At the same time, the Government
Kursk
Inquiry Commission, headed by Deputy Prime Minister Ilya Klebanov, was meeting at the Severomorsk headquarters of the Northern Fleet. Ranking officers convened for eight hours to decide whether or not to continue their rescue operation. The committee also considered possible explanations for the disaster. Klebanov leaned toward a collision as the primary cause. The group also announced further study of a plan to raise the
Kursk
and remove its two nuclear reactors.

Other theories, once quietly espoused, now began to leak to the news media. The
Kursk
might have struck a World War II mine. Or a sudden release of chlorine gas, a product of the batteries on board, could have knocked the crew unconscious. The list of possible causes grew longer. It would soon include terrorist action by Chechen rebel forces. Eventually the possibility of a UFO action, an act of God, or curse of the devil were considered. Any reason that cast no blame held an attraction.

18 August 2000

On the morning of August 18, six days after the accident, a single headline indicated control of the news media had slipped away. The Murmansk edition of the popular newspaper,
Komsomolskaya Pravda
, played it big: “18,000 Rubles for the Names of the Sailors of the
Kursk
.”

Readers were informed that due to repeated refusals by the Northern Fleet and the Navy to supply a list of the
Kursk
crew, the paper had acted. They paid a “high ranking Moscow naval officer” the sum of 18,000 rubles (about $645) for a list stamped “Top Secret” by Navy commanders.

The Russian media had been pressuring officials for a crew list. The response had been negative because, according to the Navy, relatives of those on board had been informed privately. There was no need for a public posting.