Igor Spassky - Kursk Submarine

Kursk Submarine

Spassky was the creator of the K-141 Kursk project, the last of the Oscar II class submarines built for the Russian navy. On August 12, 2000, torpedoes aboard the submarine accidentally exploded and the submarine sank. Most of the crew died during the explosion, but some remained alive for at least four hours afterwards, and possibly for days. Unfortunately, the rescuers were hampered by the slow and secretive military and government response. It was a week before they could get to the submarine site and then bad weather further slowed the recovery. By that time, the rest of the crew had long perished.

Spasskiy was a consultant in the rescue effort and some perceived that he was responsible for the ineffective actions of the military in the first days after the explosion. There were also accusations that a fault in the design of the submarine might have been responsible for difficulties in the rescue operation. Some journalists, like Elena Milashina from Novaya gazeta, were asking why most of the Russian nuclear submarine mishaps in the preceding years had happened with Spasskiy-designed submarines. In the open letter to Novaya Gazeta, the vice-president of Rubin, Alexander Zavalishin, and the General Designer of Submarines with Cruise Missiles (like Kursk), employee of Rubin, Igor Baranov, responded to the charges that no vessel could ever survive simultaneous explosions of torpedoes, as had the Kursk, when each torpedo was designed to disable or destroy warships. They also noted that more than three-quarters of Russian nuclear submarines are of the Spasskiy design, therefore, the percentages greatly reduced the argument of faulty design and did not indicate flaws in overall submarine design or integrity. Investigators agreed that the automatic system of shutting down the submarine's nuclear reactor, developed by Spasskiy's designers, operated perfectly and saved the Barents Sea from a nuclear disaster.

Raising the stricken submarine and transporting it to a salvage plant became another Herculean effort. More than five hundred proposals were submitted to recover the Kursk. Rubin bureau's own plans included separating the destroyed compartment of the submarine, lifting the intact section, and transporting it to the ship repair facility in Roslyakovo near Severomorsk. The project included equipment from Dutch firms Mammoet and Smit International. Within five months, the Russian government contracted Dutch firms to raise the Kursk in an extremely difficult, large-scale and rather emotionally strained operation coordinated by Igor Spasskiy. The transporting and docking were performed by another multinational project team.