saved from http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/horizon/kursk_transcript.shtml
NARRATOR ]BERNARD HILL): One
year ago the Russian submarine the Kursk sank in a terrible disaster. 118 men
died. It was a tragedy that shocked the world.
OLGA KOLESNIKOV: It was a catastrophe. Far more than just 118 men died in this
disaster. The hopes of their wives and children died with them.
NARRATOR: The Kursk now lies at the bottom of the sea, the bodies of her crew
still entombed inside her. To many this tragedy remains incomprehensible, for
the Kursk had been built to be unsinkable.
ADMIRAL VALERY ALEKSIN (Russian Navy, retired): When I first heard about this it
was a mystery to me 'cos it was supposed to be practically impossible to destroy
this submarine.
COMMANDER VIKTOR ROZHKOV (Captain of the Kursk 1991-1997): I couldn't get my
head round the idea that the Kursk could sink. It couldn't, that just couldn't
happen.
NARRATOR: For a whole year the mystery of what sank the Kursk has been veiled in
confusion and secrecy. For months the Russians controversially claimed that
their submarine must have been sunk by a foreign power, but a string of new
scientific discoveries have emerged which suggest that the Russians were wrong
and they offer a very different reason why this unsinkable vessel was destroyed.
CAPTION: Severomensk Naval Base, Barents Sea, 9th August 2000
NARRATOR: Last summer the Russian northern fleet departed for the Barents Sea to
engage in a series of war games. Around 30 warships prepared to set sail. These
exercises would give them a chance to test their most modern weaponry and
equipment.
ADMIRAL VALENTIN BETS (Russian Navy, retired): All the crews and sailors were
very excited about these naval exercises. After all, they don't happen very
often.
NARRATOR: At the heart of these exercises was an extraordinary submarine, the
vessel said to be almost indestructible, the Kursk. The Kursk was an attack
submarine, the pride of the fleet, one of Russia's most secret weapons. She
bristled with missiles and torpedoes and she could survive for months underwater
without being detected.
VIKTOR ROZHKOV: Wherever the Kursk went we were feared. We were feared. The
Kursk was feared.
NORMAN POLMAR (U.S. Naval analyst): This submarine is one of the most potent
anti-ship weapons ever developed. I would say that among the weapons in the
world today that threaten a large warship the Kursk is very close to the top of
the list.
NARRATOR: The Kursk was not just powerful. She was also built to be
invulnerable. She was as tall as a six-storey building and 150 metres long, more
than the length of two Jumbo jets. Her size alone made her hard to destroy, but
to make her unsinkable she had been given a double hull. She had an outer hull
made of solid steel, but inside this was another steel hull over 5 centimetres
thick containing the crew. Western submarines do not have this double
protection. Within this cocoon she was also divided into nine separate
watertight compartments. The Kursk was built to take a direct hit and yet still
survive.
VIKTOR ROZHKOV: You can't take the Kursk out even with a torpedo. Yes, there may
be some damage, but she'll always be always to come to the surface.
NARRATOR: On August 10th 2000 the Kursk joined the rest of the fleet in the
Barents Sea and the exercises began. The northern fleet spent the first day test
firing its weapons and the Kursk successfully launched the Russian Navy's most
advanced cruise missile from underwater. Everything was going well. The next day
disaster struck.
CAPTION: 12th August 2000
NARRATOR: On that crucial day at around nine in the morning the Kursk made what
would be its last radio contact when it received the go-ahead to carry out a
mock attack on the northern fleet.
VALERY ALEKSIN: The Commander would have given the order to rise to periscope
depth to carry out reconnaissance of the area to locate and identify the rest of
the fleet.
NARRATOR: The northern fleet waited for the Kursk to begin her mock attack. They
waited all day, but they were never to hear from the Kursk again. She had
already sunk to the bottom of the sea. When news of the disappearance of the
Kursk became public there was every hope her crew were still alive, trapped
inside her. Many believed that if the Russian Navy could only reach the sailors
before they ran out of air they would be saved. For nine days, while the
relatives held vigil, the Navy repeatedly tried to reach them and the world
waited.
VIKTOR ROZHKOV: I couldn't sleep or eat. It was difficult for me to do my job. I
was waiting for each new television report, every radio report to find out what
was happening.
NARRATOR: Meanwhile, 100 metres underwater at the bottom of the Barents Sea
divers had found the Kursk and were trying to open the submarine's hatches.
There were rumours they heard tapping from the crew trapped inside, but as each
day passed hope faded. No one knew how long the oxygen supplies inside the Kursk
could last or whether anyone could survive the near freezing temperatures.
Eventually a team of Norwegian divers managed to open the submarine. They found
the entire vessel flooded. All 118 men on board were dead. At this stage no one
had any idea what had caused the disaster. As the tragedy reverberated around
the world the Russians began the grim task of trying to raise the bodies of the
dead. In the end they managed to bring only twelve men to the surface. One of
them was Lieutenant Dimitri Kolesnikov. Dimitri's story was to become the most
potent symbol of the tragedy of the Kursk. His body was discovered at the rear
of the submarine in the ninth compartment and with him they found a letter he
had written in the hours following the disaster. It was carefully wrapped in
plastic to keep it dry and it gave the world the only insight into what it had
been like to die on the Kursk. Dimitri had written the letter to his new bride.
Just four months earlier Dimitri had married Olga and a few weeks before the
Kursk's final voyage Olga had visited her husband on the submarine.
OLGA KOLESNIKOV: It was Dimitri's sixth year on the Kursk and he was really
proud of that. He said I shouldn't worry. There was no reason for me to worry
because it's such a modern submarine, it's so reliable, so new and while he was
on board the Kursk nothing bad could happen to him.
DIMITRI KOLESNIKOV: This is how I usually spend my time in an emergency.
OLGA KOLESNIKOV: In an emergency?
DIMITRI: I lie here like this and have a little sleep and then the alarm goes
and bang, I keep hitting my head on that bit, but it's never boring. There's
always something going on.
OLGA: Go on Dimitri, please take me to sea with you.
DIMITRI: I can't. Having women on board a boat is bad luck.
OLGA: But I'll sing and dance and smile at everyone.
DIMITRI: If you're going to smile at everyone then it's totally out of the
question for you to come along.
NARRATOR: The letter they found on Dimitri's body showed that for some of the
crew death was not instant. 23 of them survived for several hours in an air
pocket at the rear of the submarine.
OLGA KOLESNIKOV: Olga, I love you. Please don't be too upset. It's 13.15. All
the crew from the sixth and seventh compartments have moved to the ninth. There
are 23 of us here. We took this decision because of what has happened.
NARRATOR: Dimitri's letter conjured up a horrifying scene. Survivors shivering
in near freezing temperatures hoping for rescue as all the while they used up
their precious oxygen. They cannot have lasted long. Dimitri's final entry was
just four hours after the Kursk sank.
OLGA KOLESNIKOV: None of us can escape to the surface. It's too dark to write in
here. I'll try and write by touch alone. It seems as though we've got little
chance, no more than 10 or 20%. I hope at least that someone will read this.
Don't despair. Kolesnikov, 15.45.
NARRATOR: The death of all 118 submariners was a national tragedy. It became all
the more urgent for the Russian authorities to solve the mystery of what had
sunk the unsinkable Kursk. Meanwhile, divers studying the vessel had discovered
something shocking.
NORMAN POLMAR: The front of the bow section had been ripped open. The entire
hull was distorted. The forces that inflicted this damage were tremendous.
NARRATOR: The entire front section of the supposedly indestructible submarine
had been completely devastated. It soon became clear that this destruction must
have happened when something, or someone, had set off the entire arsenal of
torpedo warheads on board the submarine. To create this level of devastation the
warheads must have suddenly gone off, all at once. It was inexplicable. Warheads
do not explode spontaneously. The question of what, or who, had set off the
warheads was to become the central mystery of the sinking of the Kursk. The
Russians immediately began to consider everything that could possibly have set
off the warheads, however far-fetched. Sabotage, terrorism and even a UFO were
all briefly considered. The suggestion a World War Two mine had sunk the Kursk
was dismissed as very unlikely. It would hardly have damaged her. Another theory
that a missile fired from a Russian warship had accidentally hit the submarine
was also ruled out. These missiles cannot hit targets underwater, but within
Russia one other explanation for the tragedy began to gain credibility that
seemed to explain both what could have caused
the warheads to explode and crucially who was responsible.
VALENTIN BETS: I remember exactly where I was when I first heard the news of the
Kursk disaster. I was gardening in the country and as soon as I heard it
immediately I had only one thought. This could only have been caused by a
collision with a foreign submarine.
NARRATOR: It is now accepted that two American submarines were indeed spying on
the Russians in the Barents Sea at the time of the disaster. Even though the
Cold War is long over, both sides still monitor each other's weaponry and
tactics in case of future hostilities.
NORMAN POLMAR: We know that there were two US submarines in the Barents Sea.
They were certainly in the area monitoring radar transmissions, communications,
underwater transmissions, underwater noises.
NARRATOR: One of the tasks of the American submarines was to track the movements
of the Kursk and the Russians believed that this would turn out to be the key to
the tragedy. The Russians believed that it all began when one of the American
submarines monitoring the Kursk lost its way. Submarines cannot see each other
underwater. They have to use sonar to listen for the sound of each other's
engines and propellers, but sound can be hard to pick up underwater. The
Russians believed that the American spy submarine had lost track of the Kursk
and in the confusion had ended up heading straight towards her.
VALERY ALEKSIN: This immediately started a huge fire in the first compartment.
NARRATOR: The Russians believed that this fire rapidly became so hot that it set
off the warheads housed in the front of the Kursk.
VALENTIN BETS: Then the torpedoes on the shelves started to catch fire which
caused a large explosion.
VALERY ALEKSIN: This obliterated the front compartment and destroyed the
submarine and most of her crew.
NARRATOR: This Russian scenario is credible. One of the best kept secrets of the
submariner's world is that collisions between submarines have happened many
times before.
VALERY ALEKSIN: A total of 25 collisions have been recorded since 1967 and many
of these, eleven of them, occurred near the naval bases in the Barents Sea,
which is where the Kursk disaster happened.
NARRATOR: As soon as the Russians made their allegation of a collision the
Americans denied it. They said no American submarine could have survived such a
collision without suffering enormous damage and yet no damaged American
submarine had surfaced anywhere in the world, but then the Russians produced
evidence that seemed to show an American submarine had indeed been damaged and
sought refuge in the nearest friendly port for repairs. The Russians published a
photograph taken by a military satellite of a naval base in Norway dated just
six days after the Kursk sank. It showed two warships docked in port, but it
also showed another vessel that was longer and slimmer than the warship. Russian
analysts said it had the outline of a nuclear powered submarine exactly the same
type as those known to have been spying on the Kursk. Nuclear submarines usually
operate in extreme secrecy and spend months underwater. For one to be seen in
port is very unusual and this type of submarine the Russians said could only
have come from one country.
VALENTIN BETS: The Norwegians do not have nuclear submarines themselves so this
must be an American submarine. Why would it be in a Norwegian port? It might
have come to replenish its supplies, but we can rule that out because nuclear
submarines are totally self-sufficient. While at sea they don't have to pull
into port for resupplying, so why, in this case then, did it come to this port?
It must have been to repair the damage sustained in the collision.
NARRATOR: At first the satellite photograph appeared to be strong evidence for a
collision, but the Americans disagreed.
NORMAN POLMAR: These photos are certainly not conclusive evidence that a US
submarine was in any way involved in the Kursk disaster. These photos are not
even clear enough to determine if it is a US submarine. They do not reveal any
damage, any direct involvement. Let's assume it is an American submarine, it is
one of the submarines that was in the Barents, which are two major assumptions.
It could be there to unload Norwegian intelligence officers who were on board
for the operation, or could it be to unload tapes, data, that they want flown
back to Washington because in view of the Kursk's loss we're now anxious to
review this data. But this photograph indicating evidence of a collision?
Absolutely not, absolutely not.
CAPTION: October 2000
NARRATOR: The Russians were determined to prove the collision theory and three
months later they believed they'd found definitive evidence. The Russian Navy's
most senior Admirals hastily gathered to look at some new video footage. It had
been taken by divers and was of an area on the right-hand side of the Kursk just
behind the devastated bow. It showed, they claimed, evidence of a collision.
RUSSIAN ADMIRAL: You can see there was an impact there, a sliding blow, a
scrape. That's the place. We specially took a lot of footage of this, but that's
not a crack, that's where the hull was slit open.
VALERY ALEKSIN: It's evidence of a very large metal object coming from the other
direction and inevitably this cannot be anything except evidence of a collision
with a foreign submarine.
NARRATOR: The Russians believed that following the collision the American spy
submarine had sliced open the side of the Kursk with its keel leaving behind the
telltale damage. Once again the Americans denied it. The dents and scrapes they
said had been caused simply by the explosion of the warheads.
NORMAN POLMAR: Major damage of this kind is exactly what you would expect for a
submarine that's had a horrific explosion that just ripped the bows apart,
disfigured the entire submarine, but to imply that this down here, this
particular bit of damage, is in any way evidence, evidence that the submarine
was in a collision is just ridiculous. Absolutely ridiculous.
NARRATOR: For months claim and counter-claim continued, but by now Russian
suspicions were widely accepted. Russian government authorities were claiming
the Kursk had been sunk in a collision with an American submarine. Yet far away
from Russia a group of scientists had discovered some crucial information. It
was to cast doubt on the entire collision theory.
CAPTION: Blacknest, Berkshire, UK
NARRATOR: Hidden in the English countryside is an unusual institution, the
British government's seismic monitoring station, Blacknest. Here scientists have
equipment which can detect underground nuclear tests from anywhere in the world.
Their seismometers will register any large explosion, but they had picked up the
seismic signal of the explosion which sank the Kursk.
DR PETER MARSHALL (Blacknest Seismic Research Centre): When we first started to
analyse the seismic data from the Barents Sea the first thing we noticed was
this very large seismic event here. It's very large amplitude, in fact it's
equivalent to an earthquake with a magnitude of about 4 on the Richter scale.
NARRATOR: 4 on the Richter scale is equivalent to a substantial earthquake. This
large seismic event was the explosion of the mass of torpedo warheads in the
front compartment, but then the scientists noticed something else, another event
which had been captured by their seismometers.
PETER MARSHALL: What was really quite extraordinary was that 2 minutes 15
seconds before the large event arrived there was indeed another much smaller
event from the same area, an event which is actually about one hundredth the
size of the main event.
NARRATOR: 2Ľ minutes before the large explosion something much smaller had
happened to the Kursk, something so small it barely registered on the
seismometers. This was the key to the mystery, the fingerprint of what had
caused the torpedo warheads to explode. Discover what it was and you would know
what had sunk the Kursk. Some Russians, of course, believed it was the signal of
a collision.
VALERY ALEKSIN: The first signal that was picked up by seismic stations must be
the result of a collision between two submarines.
NARRATOR: But when the scientists at Blacknest began to analyse the small signal
to try to find out what it was they discovered something quite different. Every
seismic event has its own unique signature. An earthquake produces one kind of
signal, a volcano produces another and an event like a collision yet another.
PETER MARSHALL: We're able to analyse the nature of the seismic disturbance,
whether it's from an earthquake, a volcano, an underground explosion, whether
it's nuclear or whether it's a quarry blast or even a seismic disturbance
created by a vehicle moving down the road close to the seismometer. We can take
this data and analyse it in an attempt to identify the nature, the origin of
that seismic signal.
NARRATOR: Marshall's team decided to enlarge the mysterious first small signal
and compare it with the large signal to look for differences. If the first
signal was the fingerprint of a collision it should look completely different to
the large signal which was from the explosion of the warheads. What they
discovered stunned them.
DR DAVID BOWERS (Blacknest Seismic Research Centre): Now two seismic signals are
almost never the same shape. This almost never happens, so I was expecting to
see big differences. Now, when I compared them I was astonished to see this. The
two signals almost perfectly matched. They're very similar. In other words, the
first signal had also been caused by an underwater explosion.
NARRATOR: It seems the Russians were wrong. The small signal had been caused not
by a collision but an explosion. There was no evidence of a collision. The hunt
to discover what sank the Kursk would have to start from scratch. Scientists
considered everything capable of causing a blast smaller enough to create a
signal of exactly this size, but whatever they thought of would have caused too
big an explosion. They ruled out the nuclear reactors which powered the Kursk's
engines. They ruled out the cruise missiles she had been carrying. Even the
explosion of a single torpedo warhead was too large.
NORMAN POLMAR: That raises the question of what else was there in the forward
section of the submarine that could have exploded?
NARRATOR: Some scientists now believe they've found the answer. They focussed on
something that was dismissed by the Russians and ignored by the Americans, yet
it is capable of causing an explosion of exactly the right size. It is something
that cannot itself explode, something that cannot even catch fire, that seems
utterly unconnected with the disaster, but it was in the front compartment and
may well have caused the whole tragedy. The culprit may well be a colourless,
odourless liquid with almost the same chemical make-up as water, a liquid called
HTP, or hydrogen peroxide. When this chemical breaks down it releases oxygen and
so is sometimes used to supply oxygen to torpedo engines. A torpedo is driven
through the water by a propeller powered by a small engine. These engines burn
fuel which is stored in a tank, but to do this they need oxygen and because
there is no available oxygen underwater they all have to carry their own supply.
The oxygen supply normally used by the Russians, unlike almost all other
countries, is a small tank of HTP. To the Russians the idea of something as
apparently innocuous as HTP causing the Kursk disaster seemed nonsensical. HTP
cannot explode spontaneously. It isn't even flammable.
DR BARRIE MELLOR (Propellant chemist): For example, if we take a sample of
liquid HTP and we play a high temperature flame across it nothing happens. It
simply is not possible to set light to liquid HTP.
NARRATOR: All that happens to hot HTP is that it evaporates. The Russians had
long believed it was impossible for a chemical as apparently harmless as this to
have caused any kind of disaster.
VALERY ALEKSIN: These torpedoes had been used for 25 years. They've been fired
in training thousands of times and in all that time there'd been no emergencies
and no explosions.
NARRATOR: But some scientists now think the Russian confidence in their HTP
power torpedoes was misplaced and they believe this because of a little known
event that happened long ago. On June 16th 1955 the British submarine HMS Sidon
was moored up in Portland harbour on the south coast of Britain. She had taken
on board an experimental torpedo. it was code-named the Fancy and was powered by
HTP. After the torpedo had been loaded, but before the submarine left harbour,
disaster struck. Inside the Sidon the casing of the Fancy torpedo exploded.
MAURICE STRADLING (Torpedo designer): The effects were absolutely devastating.
The front half of the torpedo shot out through the closed front door of the
torpedo tube allowing the sea to flow in.
NARRATOR: Although the torpedo warhead itself never exploded, the submarine
sank. Most of the crew were rescued, but 13 men died. An inquiry into the
disaster was called to try to discover what had gone wrong. When they examined
the wreck of the submarine the investigators noticed one key thing about the
Fancy. Inside the torpedo a stainless steel pipe containing HTP had burst and
the enquiry concluded that this was what had caused the accident, that somehow
the normally safe HTP must have been responsible for the explosion, but they
could not work out precisely how. The report was published without solving the
mystery.
MAURICE STRADLING: On the face of it it's very difficult to imagine HTP being
responsible for the side-on explosion. It's very difficult to see why it should
be any more dangerous than a bottle of compressed air.
NARRATOR: Despite not solving the mystery, the Royal Navy never used HTP in its
torpedoes again. 45 years later the Kursk disaster prompted torpedo designer
Maurice Stradling to find out exactly how HTP could cause an explosion. He began
by looking again at the Fancy.
MAURICE STRADLING: This is a Fancy torpedo and it's identical in every respect
with the torpedo that failed on HMS Sidon 45 years ago, except that this torpedo
has had sections of its hull removed so that you can see what's inside. What you
can see immediately is that this torpedo is simply a closed metal tube with
metal components inside it.
NARRATOR: The sealed tube containing metal components doesn't sound dangerous,
yet there is something about HTP in these conditions which can lead to an
explosion. Because when HTP comes into contact with certain metals it may not
explode, it may not catch fire, but it does react.
BARRIE MELLOR: Hydrogen peroxide is a very simple chemical. it's composed of
hydrogen and oxygen, just as is water, so you might think it was quite harmless.
In reality when hydrogen peroxide comes into contact with some metals it breaks
down producing oxygen and water and this reaction can be really quite violent.
NARRATOR: When certain metals, like copper and brass, come into contact with HTP
they sever the atomic links holding the chemical together. This breaks the
liquid down into oxygen and steam which is not in itself dangerous, but in doing
this something extraordinary happens. When it becomes hot gas HTP expands in
volume an astonishing 5,000 times and this is what may have caused the tragedy
of the Sidon. Stradling concluded that inside the Fancy when the stainless steel
pipe containing HTP had burst it sprayed the liquid around the inside of the
torpedo casing and then the one dangerous thing that could happen happened. The
HTP splashed over reactive metals in the case of the Fancy components made
from copper and brass.
MAURICE STRADLING: The HTP reacted on bare metal inside the torpedo and gas was
created that pressurised the hole internally creating a virtual time bomb.
NARRATOR: What happened next to the Fancy can clearly be demonstrated in the
laboratory with a test-tube.
BARRIE MELLOR: This is an experiment in which we're going to try to replicate
what happened to the torpedo on board HMS Sidon. The glass tube reprezents the
sealed hull of the torpedo. Inside we have some metal fragments and that
reprezents all of the metal components and fittings inside the torpedo. Now if
you can imagine that the holding tank containing the HTP springs a leak. The HTP
would then be showered within the case of the torpedo and react with the metal
surface very violently.
NARRATOR: As the HTP turned into gas it rapidly expanded and inside the torpedo
casing the pressure from this volume of gas became overwhelming. The results
were lethal. Just the torpedo casing exploded, not the warhead itself, yet this
small explosion was enough to kill 13 men and sink the Sidon, but what had made
the HTP leak out of its pipe in the first place? This was a puzzle that 45 years
ago the enquiry did solve. They believed that the HTP pipe burst because someone
had accidentally started the torpedo engine while it was still inside the
submarine. Torpedo engines are not meant to start out of water. The enquiry
believed the engine over-pressurised the fuel system rupturing a pipe containing
HTP. Using this knowledge from the Sidon tragedy, it is now possible to explain
how, 45 years later, HTP could have destroyed the Kursk.
CAPTION: 12th August 2000
NARRATOR: On the morning of the tragedy we know the Kursk was preparing to test
fire a torpedo. This torpedo would have been in the Kursk's front compartment.
Maurice Stradling believes the disaster began when someone made the simple error
of starting the torpedo engine too soon, while it was still inside the
submarine.
MAURICE STRADLING: If the torpedo was accidentally started then because the
propellers were not in the water there would be nothing to control the speed of
the engine. The engine would have over-revved and the HTP pipe would have burst
allowing HTP to spray into the inside of the torpedo hull and the whole ghastly
chain of events would be in place.
NARRATOR: According to this theory the HTP would have immediately reacted with
metals inside the torpedo casing.
BARRIE MELLOW: An unstoppable reaction occurred producing oxygen gas and water
vapour. The gases would have built up to a very, very high pressure and
eventually when the casing of the torpedo did fail, it failed in a very
catastrophic manner.
NARRATOR: This small explosion, not of the torpedo warhead but of the torpedo's
casing, would have created the first tiny seismic signal detected by scientists
hundreds of kilometres away, but back on the Kursk the volatile mixture of
torpedo fuel and oxygen would have burst out of the torpedo casing in a
fireball.
NORMAN POLMAR: In two minutes people are fighting a fire trying to determine
what's going to happen, what they can do to put it out.
NARRATOR: For 2Ľ minutes the scientists' instruments recorded nothing. This
would have been the last chance to save the Kursk. During this time if only the
sailors could have controlled the fire the submarine would have been saved.
Instead it must have raged on engulfing the real threat to the Kursk, the stacks
of stored torpedoes in the front compartment.
MAURICE STRADLING: The fire would have been centred on the warheads, on the
other torpedoes in the storage racks, so it wouldn't take long for those
warheads to detonate as a result of the heat that surrounded them.
NARRATOR: After 2Ľ minutes the heat would have grown so intense it was enough to
detonate the racks of torpedo warheads in one massive and fatal explosion. This
was the second huge seismic signal that was detected.
NORMAN POLMAR: The detonation is so catastrophic it tears open the submarine
admitting tons of water. This destroys all life in the forward portion of the
submarine within a matter of a second or two.
NARRATOR: Further back in the Kursk Dimitri Kolesnikov would have known the
front of the submarine had suffered a colossal explosion. He and 23 other
survivors gathered together in the rear compartment.
VIKTOR ROZHKOV: There was no source of electricity, there was no power. There
may have been some small emergency lights which were on, which are not very
bright, but that's it.
NARRATOR: In the back of the Kursk Dimitri wrote his last words to his wife.
OLGA KOLESNIKOV: It's too terrifying to even think about because death should be
instantaneous. That's the only acceptable way to die and yet I know that Dimitri
managed to stay alive for quite a while.
NORMAN POLMAR: And then over the next few hours, possibly a day, the cold, the
hypothermia, the build up of pressure, their own carbon dioxide is slowly
killing them. A horrible way to die.
NARRATOR: Only if the remains of the Kursk's front compartment is raised from
the sea floor and the wreckage examined for evidence will we know for sure if it
was the HTP inside a torpedo which caused the disaster, but at the moment it
seems doubtful this will ever happen, for although the Russians are trying to
raise the submarine, they plan to leave the front of the Kursk on the seabed.
NORMAN POLMAR: The irony is that the bow section of the submarine, the torpedo
room, where there may be some evidence left despite the devastation as to what
caused the disaster, under the salvage plan is going to be left on the ocean
floor. It's, it's the one area that could give us the answer to what happened
and that part is not planned for salvage.
NARRATOR: The Russians have recently begun to abandon their claim that it was a
collision with an American submarine which sank the Kursk. They have now started
to suggest that a torpedo explosion might indeed have somehow caused the
tragedy, but unless it is finally proven whether it was the HTP that was
responsible, then the Russian torpedoes will never be given the safety
modifications to ensure tragedies like the Kursk do not happen again.
OLGA KOLESNIKOV: The truth about this must be told for the sake of all those
Russian sailors who have yet to go to sea because only when we face up to what
really went on will we be able to stop disasters like this one from ever
happening again.
END