Moscow, August 12 - RIA Novosti. - This day marks five years since the disaster of the Kursk, a major Russian nuclear-powered submarine, in the Barents Sea, which killed the whole crew of 118. Below is the day-by-day record of that tragedy.
AUGUST 12, 2000: The K-141 Kursk, part of a Northern Fleet exercise in the Barents Sea, fails to respond to radio calls. In the night, an explosion is detected where the submarine was thought to operate.
AUGUST 13, 2000: The Kursk is found on the sea bottom, 350 feet underwater.
AUGUST 14, 2000: A Navy spokesman says there is radio contact with the submarine. According to other Navy officials, the crewmen are safe and get fuel and oxygen through a Bell rescue unit. Having received an on-scene surveillance report from submersible video cameras, the Navy says the Kursk ran into the bottom at an angle of about 40 degrees, and the fore end, where the floating rescue chamber should be stored, went into pieces. Navy Commander Admiral Vladimir Kuroyedov says there is little hope to save the crew.
AUGUST 15, 2000: The Navy Headquarters officially declares the beginning of a rescue operation. The rescue is hampered by a sea storm. A Northern Fleet official tells reporters that knocks are heard from inside the submarine, indicating that there are alive people onboard.
AUGUST 16, 2000: A rescue submarine Priz repeatedly fails to get into the Kursk. Navy Commander officially calls the West for help and says Russia will accept any assistance.
AUGUST 19, 2000: The second, international, leg of the rescue operation begins late in the day as the Norwegian ship Normand Pioneer delivers the British LR5 rescue mini-sub to the scene.
AUGUST 20, 2000: Minutes after midnight, the Norwegian rescue boat Seaway Eagle brings a deep diving team to the Kursk. After final negotiations, the Northern Fleet rescue force begins a practical Russian-Norwegian-British concerted rescue effort.
SEVERAL HOURS LATER: The Norwegians survey the hull of the submarine for cracks and are looking for air bubbles where people could survive. They de-block the emergency hatch but access to the boat is still hampered. The Norwegian team hastily creates makeshift entry accessories.
AUGUST 21, 2000: In the morning, Norwegian divers enter the 9th rear compartment through an emergency hatch and find it filled with water. A remote-controlled video camera shows a dead body in the compartment thought to be the only one where air bubbles could save lives. Northern Fleet Chief of Staff Vice Admiral Mikhail Motsak officially confirms the deaths of all crewmen.
AUGUST 22, 2000: Russian President Vladimir Putin arrives in Severomorsk, the main base of the Northern Fleet, to meet victims' relatives and friends. He fails to explain what happened to the submarine and why the crew was not saved.
Ilya Klebanov, the then deputy prime minister and head of the government commission investigating into the Kursk disaster, says:
"As far back as late August 14, we were all but certain that there were no living people onboard... But we could not state [officially] that all of them were dead. There was still hope, albeit more in theory, for an air bubble in the 9th compartment."
Klebanov also says the real rescue began on August 13, 6:30 PM Moscow time. The official theory of what caused the crash remains a collision with a large underwater object. Military experts point the finger at a British submarine, amid widespread rumors of a U.S. submarine having been somewhere around when the Kursk collapsed.
DAYS LATER: The New York Times reports two U.S. Navy submarines, one of them Los Angeles-class nuclear-powered attack submarine USS Memphis later to be found in the Norwegian seaport of Bergen, cruised near Kursk's operational area at the time of its last exercise. A source tells the Times the Kursk was downed by the explosion of an unfired torpedo. Russians still suspect Kursk's collision with a foreign submarine the highest probability - a theory U.S. and U.K. officials dismiss and say there were no U.S. and Royal Navy ships when and where the Kursk hit the bottom.
SEPTEMBER 6, 2000: The U.S. shares all information on the Kursk disaster with Russia, including the time of what is thought to be an onboard explosion within a second.
SEPTEMBER 19, 2000: Vladimir Putin takes decision to start the salvage operation on the Kursk.
OCTOBER 2, 2000: Rubin, a St. Petersburg-based design bureau appointed as the head contractor of the salvage, signs a contract with the Norwegian office of Halliburton AS, a major international oil service firm.
OCTOBER 25, 2000: The salvage team begins operation to lift the bodies of the crewmen.
OCTOBER 26, 2000: The divers enter the submarine and examine the bodies. Some people in the 6th, 7th, 8th, and 9th (fore to aft) compartments are said to have been alive after the explosion. The team finds a farewell message on Dmitry Kolesnikov, the 9th compartment crew leader: "1:15 PM. All men from the 6th, 7th, and 8th compartments are now in the 9th, all in all 23 people. We took this decision after an emergency. There is no way out for us." The rest of the text is said to be too personal and therefore cannot be published. Vice Adm. Motsak of the Northern Fleet later tells reporters two to three men tried to escape through an emergency hatch but failed because the compartment was full of water.
LATER THAT MONTH: All salvage operations in the aft compartment are suspended.
NOVEMBER 2, 2000: The salvage team attempts to enter the 3rd compartment but fails: The video cameras show what is reported to be "considerable damage, debris of equipment, mechanisms, and instruments."
NOVEMBER 7, 2000: Salvage in the 4th compartment is suspended due to entry-prohibitive damage inside. The salvage operation is terminated. All Kursk hatches are sealed.
MAY 18, 2001: Russia signs a salvage contract with the Netherlands-based Mammoet Transport BV.
JULY 16, 2001: The first leg of a three-month lift-up operation begins; the 1st compartment is to be separated and special lift-up holes are to be made in the hull.
OCTOBER 7, 2001, EVENING: The lift-up begins. The Kursk remains are lifted on 26 hold-downs operated from the Gigant-4, a surface barge, at a rate of around 10 meters per hour. As the hull is lifted 58 meters (190 feet) from the bottom, the sub is towed by the Gigant-4 to the base.
OCTOBER 10, 2001: The barge with the Kursk hull underneath arrives at the Roslyakovo naval repairs base on the Arctic Kola Peninsula.
OCTOBER 27, 2001: Russian Prosecutor General Vladimir Ustinov says the whole submarine was on fire, with 8,000 degrees Celcius in the epicenter, after which the submarine was filled with water "within six to seven hours, maximum eight," according to Ustinov. He says the damage was unbelievable, all bulkheads were "cut off as a knife cuts butter." However, the nuclear reactor in the 6th compartment was left intact, as were 22 SSN-19 cruise missiles the submarine was armed with. 115 of 118 crew members' bodies, including that of Captain First Class Gennady Lyachin, the commanding officer, are found and identified.
JUNE 19, 2002: Klebanov as head of the investigative government commission tells reporters the "explosion of a torpedo" remains the only viable theory, amid media reports that the fire was caused by failed tests of the new silent and fast torpedo, Shkval.
JULY 26, 2002: In an official end-of-story statement, General Prosecutor Ustinov says the submarine sank "because of an explosion... in the training torpedo storage... with subsequent explosions of torpedo charges in the 1st compartment of the submarine."
