Kursk and ARA San Juan, other underwater tragedies before Titan

An agonizing race to find him titanic submarinewho disappeared on June 18, 700 kilometers from Newfoundland on a tourist expedition to remains of the titanicreturned to the present with two more notorious cases of tragedies under the ocean.

It is in the collective memory Kursk submarine. It was August 12, 2000. During that summer month, the Russian army decided to organize a series of naval exercises, the most important in a decade and a major show of force after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

The submarine was on maneuvers in the Barents Sea and everything went smoothly. And that is that K-141 Kursk had all the guarantees on paper. One of those great unsinkable weapons of war. It belonged to the Oscar class, was 154 meters long, nine meters deep, had a double hull and there were 118 sailors on board. It was one of the jewels in the crown of Vladimir Putin’s army, which had just come to power.

After a day of successful maneuvers, the second day of work arrived. The captain ordered two torpedoes to be fired and that’s when the tragedy began. The hydrogen peroxide leak caused two detonations. At that moment, they lose track. The first explosion hit the bridge. This would cause the ship to sink, uncontrolled. A second explosion, two minutes later, shattered the submarine’s hull. It was of such magnitude that it was recorded on seismographs in the USA and in Alaska.

It took Moscow hours to assume that its invincible weapon of war had collapsed. They were not aware of their disappearance in the first hours of the disaster because the emergency system was not activated. Yes of course, it was quickly assumed that there were no survivors.

When the rescue began, it took 16 hours to locate the ship. All the opinions of international experts pointed to the fact that Russia, with a completely hermetic attitude, he was not doing his best to save his army. Putin’s government has been accused of delaying even rescue efforts. The controversy went around the world. Even a team of divers from a Norwegian company specializing in this issue was authorized to go down to Kursk only a week after the explosions. In the previous days, the Russian Navy tried unsuccessfully to join the Kursk hatch using underwater devices.

The discovery at the bottom of the sea was devastating. All 118 sailors died. Kursk was flooded, but what has been revealed is that not all of the army died from the explosions. A note found in the pocket of one of the high command explains that the survivors moved to other compartments of the ship after the detonations. They were looking for a way to survive. They have no oxygen left. “There are 23 people here,” recounted Lieutenant Kolesnikov in the handwritten message he left on the ship. “None of us can reach the surface,” he continued in that story.

In another note, the same lieutenant recounted how the hours continued to pass and time was running out. “There seems to be no chance.” And he added an important detail: there was another group of soldiers who were not with his group. They moved to other sections of the Kursk, which was trying to get out of the submarine by its own forces.

Russia conducted its own investigation shrouded in silence. The study concluded that this group of soldiers, who were trying to find oxygen and exit the device, performed the maneuver that caused the fire. that’s how it was what little breathing air they had left was wasted.

For the rest of the world, the conclusions were different: Putin did not lift a finger to save his own army and he even refused help from other governments. It was concluded that Russia did not have the means to carry out these maneuvers, that it lied when it was convinced that it had made contact with a submarine, that its naval power was not as deep as everyone thought, that deep in the Barents Sea, hundreds of sailors were working is in unnecessary practices and that these soldiers had no training. Only the official Russian report explains that the ammunition that caused the disaster was faulty and that when the military tried to load the torpedo on August 12, 2000, a hydrogen peroxide leak caused the charge to explode.

Experts concluded that the 23 sailors who survived the explosions survived for more than six hours between compartments 6 and 9 of the Kursk. The press and relatives of the victims have been calling for Putin’s resignation for months.

ARA San Juan, the submarine that disappeared for a year

Closer in time is the case of ARA San Juan. A nuclear submarine of the Argentine Navy sank in 2017 in the South Atlantic with 44 crew members inside. A tragedy that ended even at the War Council.

ARA San Juan went missing on November 15th at 7:19 am. That was the last time he communicated with his naval base. The ship was traveling from Ushuaia to Mar de la Plata when it lost track. The submarine reported a fire in one of the compartments and the recording systems reported a possible explosion. The crew was searched for two weeks with the help of more than a dozen countries, but not a single trace of the submarine’s whereabouts was found. Only after a year, on November 18, 2018, the device was found. Ocean Infinity, a private company, completed the mission. The remains of the ship were at the height of San Jorge Bay, very close to the point where it disappeared. The company worked on the seabed for more than two months before finding the wrecked submarine. The Argentine authorities have admitted this They were not afraid to tackle the rescue.

The official cause of what happened to the nuclear submarine was an implosion, but the case raised a huge dust-up for years. The relatives grew desperate during more than 12 months of searching, while President Mauricio Macri assured them he would never abandon them. The families themselves provided the first clue and context: the victims of the ARA San Juan told them on several occasions that the submarine it needed repair to continue sailing.

Six senior naval commanders were prosecuted, and the case even reached the War Council, which three years later concluded with minimum sentences for the leadership of the Argentine Navy. They were blamed for not properly informing the defense of what happened to ARA San Juan.

The investigation established that the ship sank after an implosion caused by the supply of water to the snorkeling which caused a fire in the batteries. Specifically, one of the malfunctions reported by the soldiers from the crew who died inside ARA San Juan.