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Capsule to sunken sub failed to dock |
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August 16, 2000
MOSCOW (AP) — Russian crews lowered a bell-shaped rescue capsule early Wednesday to a nuclear submarine lying on the Arctic Sea floor, but strong currents blocked initial attempts at docking. Oxygen for the vessel's 116 crewmen was expected to last just two more days, Russia's navy chief said.It was the first word that the escape apparatus had reached the vicinity of the sunken submarine — which U.S. officials said might have gone down following an explosion — since repeated efforts that began Tuesday were foiled by storms on the Barents Sea. Navy chief, Adm. Vladimir Kuroyedov, said the situation was ``extremely grave'' with oxygen inside the craft expected to run out Friday. Navy officials said water appeared to be leaking into the vessel. ITAR-Tass news agency reported that by dawn Wednesday the unmanned capsule, buffeted by the powerful underwater currents, had so far failed to link up with the sub, which was lying 354 feet below the surface. It said the device was still near the vessel and trying to dock. Kuroyedov described what appeared to be extensive damage. He said the submarine's periscope was up but its navigation room was damaged, the railing was dented and the protective cover of two missile tubes on the vessel's right side was missing. Two U.S. government officials said Tuesday in Washington that a Navy submarine in the area detected the sound of an explosion and it was the ``working assumption'' that the noise was related to the sinking of the Kursk. The officials, who spoke to The Associated Press on condition they not be named, said the sound was not a missile being fired. Kuroyedov said earlier Tuesday that there appeared to have been an explosion in the torpedo compartment in the nose of the submarine, sending it crashing to the sea bottom. He said earlier that the Kursk had likely collided with something and it wasn't clear why he had changed his assessment.
The status of the crew wasn't clear. Kuroyedov said the sailors were sending out signals, apparently referring to the sounds that officials have described as possible pounding on the submarine's hull. But other Navy officials said there had been no communication since it went down over the weekend during a military exercise. The Russian Navy said visibility near the Kursk submarine was only 6 to 15 feet and there were strong currents, the ITAR-Tass news agency reported. The rescue operation faced severe difficulties. The bell-shaped capsule must latch on to a cargo hatch on the submarine, a precision maneuver made even more challenging because the Kursk was reportedly leaning at a sharp angle. Even if the capsule successfully docks with the sub and sailors can enter it, the capsule can hold only 20 people at a time and officials say bringing it to the surface could take up to seven hours. The slow rise is necessary to prevent decompression sickness — the potentially crippling or fatal condition known as ``the bends.'' It would be a laborious and nerve-fraying process under the best of circumstances, and weather forecasts indicated conditions in the disaster area would be rough for several days. Russia refused offers from the United States and Britain to send trained rescue personnel and equipment even though the Russian navy lacks sophisticated rescue gear. Navy spokesman Capt. Igor Dygalo said coordinating the rescue with other countries would take too much time and ``we cannot afford to waste it.''
However, a group of Russian military officers went to NATO headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, on Tuesday night to see what kind of assistance the alliance could offer, NATO said in a statement. The U.S. officials said Tuesday that the sound of the explosion was detected Saturday. The Russian government has said the accident that brought down the Kursk happened Sunday during military exercises. The discrepancy could not be explained. Pentagon spokesman Rear Adm. Craig Quigley declined to say what, if anything, U.S. vessels may have heard from their position ``a couple of hundred'' miles away from the place the sub went down. An explosion inside the submarine's torpedo chamber, which contains warheads, would probably have caused extensive casualties, analysts said. Navy officials said casualties could not be ``ruled out,'' Interfax reported. While immediate concerns focused on the crew, there was also worry over whether the accident would result in a leak of radioactive material. The prospects of such a leak were difficult to assess because it is not known what befell the Kursk, one of the Russian navy's most modern ships. Russian officials said the Kursk's two nuclear reactors had been switched off and it was not carrying nuclear weapons. Several compartments inside the submarine were flooded, officials said. Submarines are divided into compartments that can be sealed in case of flooding. ``Something extraordinary beyond the imagination of an engineer'' had happened, the chief designer of the submarine, Igor Baranov told the ITAR-Tass news agency. Russian and Western submarines sometimes play cat-and-mouse games in the area and have scraped each other in the past. The U.S. Navy said Monday it had a monitoring ship in the area, but Quigley said there was no evidence that any U.S. vessel was involved in the accident. Russian nuclear submarines have been involved in a string of accidents in recent decades. The navy, like the rest of the Russian military, is desperately short of money and performs almost no maintenance on its ships. |
