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The ''Kursk'' submarine disaster that caused the sinking of the (Russian: Project 949A Антей) ''Kursk'' killed all 118 crew members, officers from 7th SSGN Division Headquarters, and two design engineers, on board. The disaster took place during a major Russian naval exercise in the Barents Sea on Saturday, 12 August 2000, but nearby ships that registered the initial explosion did not know what to make of it. A second, much larger, explosion took place two minutes and 15 seconds later, and was powerful enough to register on seismographs as far away as Alaska. The Russian Navy did not recognise that the vessel had sunk for more than six hours and because the emergency rescue buoy had been intentionally disabled, it took more than 16 hours for them to locate the sunken ship. Over four days they used four different diving bells and submersibles to try to attach to the escape hatch without success. The navy's response was criticized as slow and inept. The government initially misled and manipulated the public and media about the timing of the accident, stating that communication had been established and that a rescue effort was under way, and refused help from other governments. The Russian Navy offered a variety of reasons for the sub's sinking, including blaming the accident on a collision with a NATO vessel. On the fifth day, the Russians accepted British and Norwegian offers of assistance. Seven days after the submarine went down, Norwegian divers finally opened a hatch to the rescue tube in the ship's ninth compartment, hoping to locate survivors, but found it flooded. An official investigation after most of the wreck was raised along with analysis of pieces of debris concluded that the crew of the ''Kursk'' was preparing to load a dummy 65–76 "Kit" torpedo when a faulty weld in the casing of the practice torpedo caused high-test peroxide (HTP) to leak, which caused the highly volatile kerosene fuel to explode. The initial explosion destroyed the torpedo room, severely damaged the control room, incapacitated or killed the control room crew, and caused the submarine to sink. The fire resulting from this explosion in turn triggered the detonation of between five and seven torpedo warheads after the submarine had struck bottom. This second explosion was equivalent to between of TNT. It collapsed the first three compartments and all the decks, and destroyed compartments four and five, killing everyone forward of the nuclear reactor compartment. An alternative explanation offered by critics suggested that the crew was not familiar with nor trained on firing HTP torpedoes and had unknowingly followed preparation and firing instructions intended for a very different type of torpedo. Combined with poor oversight and incomplete inspections, the sailors initiated a set of events that led to the explosion. Following salvage operations, analysts concluded that 23 sailors in the sixth through ninth compartments had survived the two explosions. They took refuge in the ninth compartment and survived more than six hours before an oxygen cartridge contacted the oily sea water, triggering an explosion and flash fire that consumed the remaining oxygen. All 118 personnel—111 crew members, five officers from 7th SSGN Division Headquarters, and two design engineers—aboard the ''Kursk'' died. The investigation concluded the Russian navy were completely unprepared to respond to the disaster.〔 The following year, a Dutch team was contracted by the Russians to raise the hull. Employing newly developed lifting technologies, they recovered all but the bow of the vessel, including the remains of 115 sailors, who were buried in Russia.〔 More than two years after the sinking, the Russian government completed a 133 volume, top-secret investigation of the disaster. The government released a four-page summary to the public that was published in ''Rossiyskaya Gazeta''. It revealed "stunning breaches of discipline, shoddy, obsolete and poorly maintained equipment," and "negligence, incompetence and mismanagement." The report said the rescue operation was unjustifiably delayed. ==Naval exercise== On the morning of 12 August 2000, ''Kursk'' was participating in the "Summer-X" exercise, the first large-scale naval exercise planned by the Russian Navy in more than a decade, and also its first since the end of the Soviet Union.〔 It included 30 ships and three submarines. The ship had recently won a citation for its excellent performance and been recognised as having the best submarine crew in the Northern Fleet. Although it was an exercise, the ''Kursk'' loaded a full complement of combat weapons. It was one of the few ships authorized to carry a combat load at all times. This included 18 SS-N-16 "Stallion" anti-ship missiles and 22 SS-N-19/P-700 Granit "Shipwreck" cruise missiles that were designed to defeat the best Western naval air defences.〔 The ''Kursk'' was reputedly unsinkable. The submarine had a double hull with a gap separating them, nine water-tight compartments, and was as long as two jumbo jets.〔 It had a mythical standing and it was claimed to be able to withstand a direct hit from a torpedo.〔 At 08:51 local time, the ''Kursk'' requested permission to conduct a torpedo training launch and received the response "Dobro" ("Good").〔〔 After considerable delay, the submarine was set to fire two dummy torpedoes at the ''Pyotr Velikiy'', the Northern Fleet's flagship. At 11:29 local time,〔 a practice Type 65 "Kit" torpedo, (Russian: ''tolstushka'', or "fat girl", because of its size),〔 without a warhead,〔 was loaded into ''Kursk''s number 4 torpedo tube on the starboard side. It was long and weighed .〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Kursk submarine disaster」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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