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RUSSIAN NUKE MISSILE ATTACK SUBMARINE K-141 KURSK SUNK 8-13-00 - 118 CREW
MOSCOW, Oct. 26, 2000 -- Trapped in the rear of a breached and sunken submarine on the Arctic seabed, the electricity failing, facing all-but-certain death with 22 companions, Lt. Capt. Dimitri Kolesnikov, the commander of the turbine room on the Russian submarine Kursk, scrawled a message 10 weeks ago to what was then an unknowing outside world. "13:15," he wrote, noting the military time. "All personnel from compartments six, seven and eight moved to the ninth. There are 23 of us here. We have made this decision as a result of the accident. None of us can get out." On Thursday, the world finally heard Captain Kolesnikov's message after Russian divers recovered his remains from the husk of the submarine, and the note was found stuffed in his pocket. The revelation that 23 of the Kursk's 118 crewmen survived the sinking, at least for a while, set off a sensation and demolished assurances by senior military officials that the Kursk's entire crew most likely had perished within minutes of the accident. And it instantly reignited a national debate over whether the military's attempt to rescue the sailors, widely denounced as botched, was fatally flawed as well. ...Adm. Vladimir Kuroyedov, the commander of the Russian Navy, said the captain's message began legibly, as if written in a lighted room. But by its end, he said, it was a nearly illegible scrawl written, the note indicated, "by feel." Admiral Motsak said the note also indicated that two or three crewmen tried to flee the submarine through a specially built escape hatch in the ninth compartment, where the survivors were gathered. Russian submarines are equipped with suits designed to protect sailors during such underwater escapes. "As we know, that attempt failed," he said, "maybe because it was filled with water." Norwegian divers who opened that escape hatch nine days after the disaster found that the air lock was filled with water. That led the navy to abandon all efforts to find anyone alive, and to turn its attention to recovering the dead. But the ninth compartment might have remained dry for weeks, even up until rescuers entered it.... More than simply a shared tragedy, the Kursk disaster psychologically staggered many here who seemed to feel that Russia's last bragging rights to technological excellence, to military competence, to first-tier global status went down with the biggest and most fearsome boat in its submarine arsenal. The accident quickly generated a public excoriation of the Kremlin, President Vladimir V. Putin and the military, followed by a backlash against the West. Military leaders insist with growing conviction that the Kursk was sunk by a collision with a Western submarine and not, as some experts speculate, by flaws in a new Russian torpedo propulsion system.... Today's bombshell seemed certain to reopen still-fresh wounds, starting with the question of whether the navy could have rescued those entombed in the sunken submarine in the hours after it sank. The Kursk was participating in a naval exercise in the Barents Sea, off Russia's northwest coast, when an explosion thudded in its bow about 11:27 a.m. on Aug. 12. Two minutes and 15 seconds later... a huge blast, registering a magnitude of 3.5, blew away the submarine's torpedo room and its command post, in the first and second compartments at the vessel's fore end.... [ ] Admiral Motsak said Captain Kolesnikov had written his message between 1:34 p.m. and 3:15 p.m. that day. That suggested that at a minimum, he and 22 other crewmen survived nearly four hours after the explosions.... What the note does not conclusively state apparently is how long those 23 survived, a fact crucial to any review of the navy's rescue efforts. [ ] By official accounts, the navy did not locate the Kursk, 354 feet below the Barents Sea surface, until nearly 16 hours after the accident, and did not lower the first rescue vessel until more than 15 hours after that. A day later, the United States and Britain publicly offered to help in the Kursk rescue effort, but two more days passed before Mr. Putin ordered naval officials to accept any aid that was extended. And three more days went by before British and Norwegian rescue vessels arrived at the wreck site. 
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