Russian Sub - "Kursk"
 

I know I shouldn't be posting this here, as it's a non-aviation topic, but please spare a thought for the 100+ crew of the "Kursk" who are stranded 102 metres below the sea and are unlikely to be rescued.

The commander of the Russian Navy has said the chances of them being sucessfully rescued are "highly unlikely" I understand they could have less then 48 hours air supply left even though a rescue sub is feeding them air.

So while we bitch and moan about everything, remember, there are always people worse off then you.

God help them.

This has to be one of the worst ways to go...

I hope rescue attempts will be successful.

Not at all a pleasant situation to be in.

And the usual drivel from the press. I think it was BBC that said this morning that they could survive for six months!! I didn't belive that, but I did think that it would be more than 48 hours. Let's hope that they find a way to save them. MAY GOD HELP THEM.

A far more horrible way to go than befell those on the AF Concorde. There should be a truly international rescue attempt in the next few hours from all those with the requisite technology.
Is it possible to penetrate the hull with an armoured oxygen hose from a remotely-controlled deep submersible to give the Russians some time?

Agree with the sentiments guys. I hope there is a succesful outcome. God help the poor souls aboard.

Have to move this to another Forum though.....the original will stay here as a pointer.

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PPRuNe Radar
ATC Forum Moderator
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Yes BEagle there should be a truly international rescue attempt over the next few hours.....but I doubt there will be.

As usual politics and national security are far more important than human lives. The Russians are not asking the West for help (despite their far superior rescue technology) because they don't want anyone to see what they've got down there.

And there is an American ship right in the area that could possibly help. I just hope they've all got cyanide pills. Is that too grim a thought?

Sorry about posting this on R+N PPRuNe Radar, didn't know where else to put it.

I agree with BEagle, there should be an international rescue effort to rescue these sailors, but I also agree that there probably won't be, due to the political points mentioned.
Also agree with Avman about the media. I should have known better in quoting the 48 hour air limit, that was form Paul Beaver!!! You know Sky's favourite "expert" remember his drivel after the Concorde crash?

Anyway, somebody, somehow, save those men....

As fate would have it I was having lunch with a 'pilot' of a British rescue sub as the news came in. He said there would be no difficulty effecting a rescue from the sub, but doubted that the Russians would ask for help. Lets hope reason prevails.

Silli

Thoughts are with the poor sods in Russian Navy; no pay for six months and then something like this happens. Thank god I failed my service medical.
Agree with everyone about bloody Politicians ego's (here and abroad).
Why don't we all stump up for a truly 'International Rescue' service (like in Thunderbirds)
The guys can go and rescue people, and the MPs/Senators/Eurocrats etc can do ****** all and take the credit!!!

[This message has been edited by swashplate (edited 15 August 2000).]

Additional:

How do the Russian Service chiefs know there was a collision - can the subs send radio underwater? Or is it 'cover your **** ' time at the ministry.
I'm speculating, but I wouldn't be surprised if this crisis has more to do with a cash-strapped Russian Navy trying to operate 21st Century equipment with 18th century funding & logistics. Life is not so different anywhere in the world!!!
Hope they get them out, but I am not optimistic.

I very much doubt there was a collision - if so where is the sub they hit???

I think the collision story is Russian government disinformation in an attempt to save red faces.

The main reason they are not asking for help is national security but I'm sure that national pride is another factor.

I wonder if they are up to something with that sub - apparently half the men on board are officers....surely that is not routine?

Whatever the reasons if they let the crew die when they could so easily ask for assistance it will be an absolute disgrace.

Hideous business - shame that it was relegated to this forum - I hadn't even noticed it existed before. This story is certainly news, and probably a lot of it is rumour too. Subs have a lot in common with planes too.

I throroughly recommend a book called by "Blind Man's Bluff" - by 3 different authors - currently in print. It describes much of WW2 and Cold War sub operations, from both sides points of view - gripping stuff.

JJM

There is an interesting article on what they are going through on the Los Angeles Times website. I'm afraid they're already dead and the Russians just don't want to say it yet. At least they would have probably died in their sleep. http://www.latimes.com/news/asection...000076602.html

I'm with you JJM, it's a shame it wasn't kept in R+N, I would say it's of interest to a lot of people. There are indeed similarities betweeen aircraft and subs, both being long steel tubes, both have to deal with pressure factors on their hulls and both can climb and descend and of course both need well able and highly skilled crew. But I suppose the moderators would argue that if they let this non-aviation topic on Rumours and News tne that would open the floodgates for all kinds of non-aviation news, so I guess that's fair enough.

Wedge is right, if these men perish because the Russians won't accept outside help, then it is an absoulute disgrace and a crime as such. and please don't anybody start warbling on about national security and "these things happen, that's the Military" these are human beings and deserve the same rights as you and I. The British have their rescue Sub the LR5 standing by at Glsagow airport right now, it's state of the art and I would be very confident of it doing the job. It would attach itself to the escape hatches and ferry the men to the surface. I understand that the communication with the sub consists of the men banging on the hull with hammers, so they don't even know whats going on at the surface, frightening.
I also raised an eyebrow ehen I heard that out of the 100+ crew there were 48 officers.

Come on Russia, save your men.


[This message has been edited by OneWorld22 (edited 15 August 2000).]

"Dolce et decorum est pro partria mortis"

To give ones life for ones country,nobody thinks it will happen to them.

thinking of them,

N Genfire (military forum)

I'm 100% with all the thoughts appearing here, all the more gruesome in that we have to, figuratively speaking, sit here and watch it happen.

The oxygen hose through the hull's not really an option. Sub Hulls are spectacularly strong when intact. Start putting the required energy into creating a whole and you could cause a catastrophic failure.

They have escape systems on board, but one would guess that if they could use them, then they would have done so by now.

It might not have taken much to drag this thing to the bottom, and remember that the 'massive damage' reportedly in the nose/bow area could have been the result of of impact with the bottom.

On the manning question, the specialised nature of these vessels mean they are usually SNCO/Officer heavy, but I can't talk numbers.

I have no insight into what caused it, but I think I have a fair grasp of the enormity of the task of getting them out. To do that you need a hole. If you have a hole, then there's an entire ocean's worth of water wanting to go in.

Like the rest of you, I've got everything crossed for them.

Manning tends to be top heavy because the sailors are conscripts who are trained to a very basic level. Hence the need for Officers / SNCOs who tend to do more jobs than would be the norm on a western boat.

One report from the media suggests that the Russians have refused offers of help from the West so far.

Thoughts to the crew and any submariners - I couldn't do it!

This morning a large Antonov (124, I guess)
sits at Prestwick full of submarine rescue kit (a submersible capable of such a rescue,
according to Radio 5), awaiting a formal request from the Russians to NATO to assist.

Apparently, upon receipt of such request it
will depart for Trondheim asap.

Let's hope these poor souls will be given a
chance.

Doesn't sound good this morning, does it? God help them.
There are all sorts of things which smell about this.
1.If this was a major Fleet exercise, the underwater area would have been like Picadilly Circus in the rush hour, filled with all sorts of boats sniffing around. Collision quite possible - and probably the loss/damage to the other boat being easy to surpress in the short term. Don't discount the collision theory but the US seems to believe a collision with the bottom - equally possible.
2. Why has the reactor been shut down? If it was still operating, they would have plenty of air etc 'cos they could run the electrolysers, CO2 scrubbers etc. Was the damage such that they either lost the reactor or had to shut it down?
3. Why haven't they tried to escape? A rush escape at their depth (flood up the escape compartment to equalise pressure, open the escape hatch to sea, take a deep breath and breath out all the way to the surface) would be an act of desperation but it has been trialled to 300' and would be better than definitely dying. A tower escape (put the suit on, into the escape tower, flood up the tower to equalise, breathing sub's air throughout, open the hatch and breath normally in the inflated suit to the surface) should be perfectly feasible at their depth.
Perhaps the damage was such that the reactor was put out of action and the escape hatches distorted so much that they couldn't be opened - in which case ikt won't make any difference whose rescue vehicle gets there, it will still take too much time.
Whatever - anybody who has ever served in submarines will shudder at the ultimate nightmare come true.

Stump the dummy time...

Why is this sub only being flown as far as Trondheim? Why not all the way to Murmansk, which I believe is the port closest to the sub? Two days are being used up with the sea voyage to the site?

I am sure there is a very good explanation?

JJM

The news starting to come out of a massive exposion rather leads one to fear the worst occurred almost immediately.

After the rescue/recovery of the crew, the question of radiation containment must be high on the agenda, if not for the rescuers/salvage folks.

Awful,awful.

Well, 2 explosions would do it, alright. Nobody's submarines these days can survive the flooding of even one compartment without sinking and from what the Russians are saying, the hull was breached from right foward back to the conning tower. For us, that would mean 2 compartments, including the torpedo compartment which contains the forward escape tower.
I'm afraid it also means that most of the crew would have been killed immediately since I imagine (I hope) all the accommodation areas are forward of the reactor compartment and the only people who would have been aft of the reactor compartment at the time of the accident would have been a small watch of engineers. If it's only a small number of people aft, then there should be enough air for some considerable time.
So far as radiation is concerned, it would seem that the reactor compartment hasn't been breached so far and, so long as that remains the case, any radiation is contained. After all, nobody has yet figured out an acceptable way to decommission nuclear submarines. Every one that has ever been built and is no longer active is alongside somehere (or up a creek) with its reactor permanently shut down and someone keeping some sort of an eye on it. When there is eventually a breach on the Kursk (rust or the collapse of an already weakened reactor compartment bulkhead), I'm no expert but I believe the environmental damage should be relatively small and confined to the local area. Certainly no explosions and fissile material scattered for miles. Sadly, there are already other nuclear boats, both US and Russian, which have gone down without causing environmental disasters.
Dreadful.

Jurassic,

They cannot put the rescue sub on any boat. They need a suitable A-frame with which to launch and recover it. This means fitting their own A-frame to an appropriately sized/configured vessel.
The rescue team exercise with other navies, including the Norwegeans and have identified a number of 'certified' boats around the world suitable for the task.

These guys are real professionals and have been on stand-by since the incident occurred. They are off to risk their lives for what is likely to be a fruitless exercise, in the service of a government who are cynically manipulating the situation for their own ends.

What ever is found in the murky depths, I hope we see them safe-home, for a true hero's welcome.

Silli



[This message has been edited by Silliname (edited 21 August 2000).]

Thanks for that info Silliname. As I write the sub is on its way down apparently, preceded by Troll divers.

Fingers crossed, but it really sounds like it was all quickly except for a few poor blokes who may have been at teh very back and got a w/tight hatch closed to make things string out as bit.

JJM

Looks like all the poor souls on board are now dead, it's tragic and heartbreaking and I can't for one moment think what it must have been like for those men. I'ts too scary to think about.

Their poor families must be going through hell, it's impossible to imagine what it must be like for them, not having a clue what's happening and not understanding why something wasn't done sooner.
I don't like lambasting a nation or it's Government but the Russians have some serious questions to answer about this whole thing.

Well done to the Norwegians and the British for doing everything they could to help them.

R.I.P.

Did you see that bloke sedating the angry mother?
JEEEEEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSUUUUUUUSSSSSS!!!!!!!

Someone should tell 'em there ain't no Communism anymore. Maybe they knoe the system collapsed, but they're waiting for the paperwork to come through!

Thoughts are with 'em all. Good to see R.N. camaraderie.