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Kursk families demand new probe amid reports of negligence, rule-breaking
AFP
August 29, 2002

The families of seamen who died in the Kursk sub disaster called for a new investigation Thursday into the tragedy after Russian media reported numerous cases of negligence and disregard for safety regulations in the sinking that took 118 seamen's lives.

A four-page report leaked to the government's official Rossiyskaya Gazeta daily concluded that several serious breaches of regulations meant that all efforts to rescue the crew of the nuclear submarine were doomed.

An inquiry into the disaster whose final report was published last month said that an explosion in one of the submarine's torpedo tubes set off by volatile fuel caused the worst peace-time accident in the country's military history.

Russia's Prosecutor General Vladimir Ustinov said that no one could be held responsible for the accident. He did not specify what caused the initial blast. However an opinion poll published Thursday showed that 66 percent of Russians believed the government had covered up its findings while only 24 percent had pronounced themselves satisfied with Ustinov's conclusions.

"The investigators are not telling us the whole story. We are not ready to accept the official report and will be demanding that they open a new criminal inquiry," Valentina Staroseltseva, mother of one of the lost seamen, told AFP at the Northern Fleet's base of Vedyayevo.

"The newspaper report proves that my son died because of someone else's negligence," she said.

The Rossiyskaya Gazeta findings noted that a marker buoy that should have risen to the surface to mark the stricken submarine's location was not released.

The buoy had been incorrectly attached, and the key used to release it was not in place.

The alert was sounded nine hours late because of an error of judgement by Admiral Vyacheslav Popov, the head of Russia's Northern Fleet who was in overall command of the naval exercises in which the Kursk was taking part, the paper said.

During that time, five submarines, around 20 surface vessels, two planes and 11 helicopters which could have been mobilized remained inactive within the area of the disaster.

Alarm signals which senior officers interpreted for several days as coming from the vessel on the seabed, giving rise to hopes that some of the men were still alive, proved in fact to come from a surface vessel outside the area of maneuvers.

Popov was later dismissed from his post.

The mini-subs sent below to attempt to open the Kursk's safety hatch failed on several occasions to clamp onto the hatch because of their poor technical condition and the lack of professionalism of their crew and the officials directing the operation.

Repairs on the mini-subs were impossible when a breakdown occurred because no tools were in place, in violation of the regulations.

The torpedo which exploded was found to have contained several outdated components. It had never previously been used on the Kursk. The crew had not been given the relevant training to handle it.

The document authorizing the crew's access to this sort of torpedo was signed by officials who were not qualified to do so.

The submarine's logs had not been kept properly. Several obligatory indications regarding the Kursk's activities during the exercises had not been written down, the Rossiyskaya Gazeta added.

Meanwhile some in the Northern Fleet said they still suspected that the Kursk sank after being hit by a US spying vessel -- one of the preliminary versions of events presented by Moscow.

"Many in the fleet think that the Kursk sank after a collision with a US submarine," said Igor Trofimov, a Northern Fleet officer.

"The Kremlin knows this, but decided to cover it up because it does not want to ruin relations with the United States."

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