Rescue Attempts
Initially the other ships in the exercise, all of which had detected an explosion, did not report it. Each only knew about its own part in the exercise, and assumed that the explosion was that of a depth charge, and part of the exercise. It was not until the evening that commanders stated that they became concerned that they had heard nothing from Kursk. Later in the evening, and after repeated attempts to contact Kursk had failed, a search and rescue operation was launched. The rescue ship Rudnitsky carrying two submersible rescue vessels, AS-32 and the Priz (AS-34) reached the disaster area at around 8:40 AM the following morning.
The submarine was found in an upright position, with its nose plowed about 2 meters deep into the clay seabed, at a depth of 108 meters. The periscope was raised, indicating that the accident occurred at a low depth. The bow and the sailbridge showed signs of damage, the conning tower windows were smashed and two missile tube lids were torn off. Fragments of both the outer and inner hulls were found nearby, including a fragment of Kursk's nose weighing 5 metric tons, indicating a massive explosion in the forward torpedo room.
Priz reached Kursk's ninth compartment the day after the accident, but failed to dock with it. Bad weather prevented further attempts on Tuesday and Wednesday. A further attempt on Thursday again made contact but failed to create a vacuum seal required to dock.
The United States offered the use of one of its two Deep Submergence Rescue Vehicles, as did the British government, but all offers were refused by the Russian government. Four days after the accident on 16 August 2000, the Russian government accepted the British and Norwegian governments' assistance and a rescue ship was dispatched from Norway on 17 August and reached the site on 19 August. British and Norwegian deep-sea divers reached the ninth compartment escape hatch on Sunday, 20 August. They were able to determine that the compartment was flooded, and all hope of finding survivors was lost.
Read more about this topic: Russian Submarine Kursk Explosion
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