In summer 2001
an international team assembles in Russia's Barents Sea
to attempt the most difficult operation
in the history of ocean salvage.
The mission
to raise a Russian nuclear submarine the Kursk
victim of a violent disaster.
An explosion that plunged the submarine one and a half football
fields long to the bottom of the sea.
How this could have happened is a mystery that only raising
the sub may solve.
Nothing like it has ever been attempted.
To succeed
salvagers must summon a network of ships, divers
and the heaviest lifting equipment in the world
in their quest to raise the Kursk
The Barents Sea, far in the Russian north
is one of the harshest oceans on the planet.
The Barents is hospitable for only a few short months each summer.
By September
it is a frothing fury.
On September 26th
when Ocean Salvagers aboard massive barge arrived
to lift the sunken submarine Kursk
They feared they are too late.
A twisting road has led to this dramatic day.
For those who will attempt to raise the Kursk
it is now a battle against nature and time.
The Kursk's story begins a year earlier.
August 10th, 2000.
Dawn, the Barents Sea above the Arctic Circle.
In a restricted harbor
the nuclear submarine Kursk
prepares for the largest war game in her six years of service.
This place once symbolized terror to Western navies.
It was home to the Soviet Union's fleet of 120 nuclear submarines.
Now only 40 remain.
The Kursk is among the newest and fastest.
Two nuclear reactors gives her submerged speed at 28 knots.
The Kursk carries a crew of 118 men.
They are young and sharp
the finest crew in the fleet.
In an era of decline in the Russian military
these men are proud.
The Kursk symbolizes the future.
The Kursk is an Oscar II class submarine
the largest attack sub ever built.
Oh, it's huge. It's over 500 feet long
about 555 long.
The Washington Monument by comparison is 555 feet high.
It's taller than the Statue of Liberty is high.
At 24,000 tons
the Kursk is over three times the size of her U.S. counterparts.
Double hulled
she is built to withstand a direct hit from an enemy torpedo.
Her designers consider her virtually indestructible.
On August 10th, 2000
the Kursk takes part in the largest Russian naval exercise in a decade.
The entire Russian northern fleet is out in force
testing equipment and weapons in a way not seen since the height of
The Cold War.
American and British spy subs are in the area
with orders to learn about this unusual show of force.
The Kursk's role in the war game
is to hunt down the missile cruiser navy flagship, Peter the Great.
She fires an unarmed missile a supersonic
weapon codenamed Shipwreck
The Kursk was built to attack the United States Navy.
The Oscar Class submarines were designed to sink U.S. carriers.
They're designed to trail U.S. battle carrier groups
in the event of war, fire their missiles and kill the carrier
before the carrier can kill some of their ships.
One month before this mission
Captain Lieutenant Dimitri Kolesnikov brings his new bride Olga aboard
to show her the Kursk
For Olga
the state of the art sub is a comparing rival
for her husband's affections.
I was insanely jealous of that lady
because I knew he loved her.
At times I couldn't even tell
which of us he loved more me or her.
Dima told me many times
that he would come to no harm for as long as he served on the Kursk
That's why when he left port I wasn't worried.
I knew that woman would protect him and take good care of him.
She wouldn't let anything happen to him.
August 12th, 2000.
The Kursk is scheduled to fire a practice torpedo.
The fleet waits.
The shot is never fired.
At 11:29 a.m.
the Kursk explodes and plunges over 300 feet down.
The missile carrier, Peter the Great scours the area with sonar
in a desperate race
to rescue anyone who may have survived.
Finally, after a day and a half
the Kursk is discovered.
A buoy marks the location of the stricken submarine.
If there are men alive on the Kursk
the near- freezing temperature and limited oxygen
offer only a few precious days' survival.
Still, Russia declines all offers for help.
August 20th. Eight days since the Kursk sank
The Russian Rescue Operation has failed.
Norwegian divers are finally permitted to the disaster site.
A diver hammers on the hull.
There is no response.
A robotic vehicle opens the rear escape hatch.
Only a final burst of air
118 men are dead.
Those who survived the explosion must have died a horrible, slow death.
It's like Dante's Inferno, I mean it's like going to hell.
I mean those poor guys are stuck in a sunken ship
with limited air supply waiting to die.
The divers also discover that the submarine's bow is severely damaged.
The mystery behind what sank the Kursk
lies somewhere in this twisted forward section of the submarine.
Families of those lost on the Kursk seek answers.
None more so than one mother Nadezhda Tylik
So, then I screamed at them to tear off their own epaulets.
Because I think such people don't deserve to be in the military.
They had murdered our kids our near and dear.
When a Navy sedates Tylik
it's a P.R. catastrophe.
Russian president, Vladimir Putin steps in.
He vows to raise the Kursk
His pledge sends a message of hope and strength.
The operation will cost 130 million us dollars
but Russia believes it must be done.
There are several reasons for this.
The first and most important one is that we need all the information on
the disaster that we can get.
The other reason, no less important is to get this huge hazardous object
a nuclear object, out of the area of the Barents Sea
which is characterized by heavy traffic.
These are the two reasons that make the raising of the Kursk necessary.
In May 2001, The Dutch company Mammoet, signed the contract to raise
the Kursk by September.
Mammoet is a world leader in lifting and transport.
It is a very complicated job, because you have nuclear aspects.
You are working on a, on a depth of 118 meters.
You have a very, very special equipment to do the lifting
So it is for our company...
...it is really, really a milestone to do this job.
Mammoet brings in the Rotterdam company, Smit international
as a partner.
Together, they will tackle the most complex ocean salvage job
operation in history.
The salvagers devise a plan.
And the enormous barge, called the Giant 4
will be anchored over the Kursk
26 cables will be lowered from the Giant and attached to the submarine.
Each one will be fitted into a hole cut by divers into the sub's hull
The sub will be lifted from the bottom
and secured under the barge.
The Kursk will then be towed to a dry dock, 110 miles away
near the Russian city of Murmansk
Theory pales against practice.
If they succeed, The Kursk would be the heaviest vessel ever lifted
from the ocean floor.
No ship to my knowledge, this large
has ever been salvaged from about 300 feet.
Something displacing over 20,000 tons
I don't think we've ever undertaken anything of this size or complexity
The Kursk's two nuclear reactors were shut down.
But the sub also contains dozens of missiles and torpedoes.
A weapons explosion could unleash a nuclear disaster.
I don't say there is no risk
There is always the risk in this type of operations
but you make your assessments in such a way that you eliminate
all the events
and you limit, you limit the risks in that respect
but there is always the risk
The countdown begins.
The salvagers have just 4 months.
before Arctic weather forbids them from raising the Kursk
July, 2001.
In Amsterdam, the Netherlands
an enormous barge undergoes its most unusual refitting
over 20 years of service.
She is the Giant 4..
At 24,000 tons and 450 feet long
the Giant's purpose
is to transport heavy objects for the oil industry,
even entire rigs.
But she has never lifted a nuclear submarine from the ocean floor
The barge is custom-fitted for each job.
For the Kursk
the Giant is outfitted with 26 lifting jacks.
Each jack has been tested to 900 tons.
A bundle of 54 cables extends from each jack
which will be lowered to the Kursk
During experiments in a Russian laboratory
the cables prove stronger than the steel plugs
that will marry them to the Kursk
To keep the barge stable over the sub the lifting jack
has a hydraulic system much like a car's suspension
to counteract wave action of 8 feet.
So what we have to do is to create a suspension system based
on gas cylinders
that takes out the action of the waves
which then takes all the forces and the load from the waves
but does not affect the lifting units.
The Giant undergoes another critical modification.
A massive hole is cut into her hull
in order to accommodate the Kursk's conning tower, once sub
and barge are married.
The bottom of the barge is partly opened up.
One part to, to, to have the the plane
say the command tower of the submarine will fall
into the structure of the barge.
And underneath the barge, we have made a kind of shuttle
which are, are perfect with wood.
And those shuttles, they have the same curve
as the outer hull of the submarine.
Modifications on the Giant continue 24 hours a day
to meet the September deadline.
On July 16th, in the Barents Sea
another ship begins the first phase of the operation
over the wreck of the Kursk
She is the Mayo. 270 feet long,
the Mayo is the dive support vessel
for the men with the most perilous job in the entire Kursk operation.
A rotating crew of 12 divers and 70 support staff are aboard
The Mayo contains such ''saturation diving system.''
In order to give the divers maximum time under water
they live for four weeks in tiny steel cylinders
their bodies pressurized to a depth of Kursk
They are unable to leave the chamber during their month-long job.
It would kill them if they did.
The living chamber is connected to the diving bell, so that the divers
can transfer from one to the other without depressurizing.
So when this bell is mated
onto here, you've got a sequence of doors that have to be opened
and closed when the divers pass from the living quarters actually
into the diving bell.
And then this has to be parted from the living system and then tracked
out to the moon port
and dropped down to their working depth to carry out their work
So basically this is a taxi to their job.
A tether connects the divers to the bell
delivering them air, light
and hot water to heat their suits...
...as the sea temperature is barely above freezing.
Two divers work at all times while another monitors them from the bell.
300 feet down their first task is to clear the hull of debris and silt.
It is dangerous and gruesome work
The Kursk is a tomb to the remains of over a hundred men.
She also contains unexploded weapons and two nuclear reactors.
The divers are on constant alert for radiation leaks.
Their most critical job is to cut 26 holes into the Kursk's hull
to attach the lifting cables.
To do this
the divers use an abrasive water jet system.
Shooting from the nozzle at up to 22,000 p-s-i,
the water and grit combination can cut through the Kursk's steel hull
like a laser.
For the divers' safety
the Mayo must remain exactly in place over the Kursk
What the ship does is
we've got three bow thrusters forward and we got two of them
other thrusters aft
and what he's doing is instructing the computer to actually move.
So it's got a G-P-S position where it knows where it is
and it's now gonna move ten meters in the direction to that new position.
And it will then sit on that position
and you can move the ship any which way, what, whatever you want.
The divers rotate around the clock in 6 hours.
After each shift
they return to their cramped compressed home.
Cutting the hull turns out to be a much more difficult
operation than expected.
The Kursk is covered by six inches of rubber, a noise reducer.
The precise high-pressure jet merely mangles this rubber layer.
After two weeks work, just two of 26 holes are cut.
There is no time for this setback
As divers labour on the hull of the Kursk, they report that
the bow is destroyed.
Few things could cause such destruction.
Many in the Russian Navy believe
American spy submarine collided with the Kursk
I think that as the submarine Kursk
was working on its mission in the Northern testing areas
it was kept under surveillance by foreign submarines.
I'm not pointing any fingers here.
It isn't relevant
whether those were U.S. or British or some other submarines.
There have been dozens of submarine collisions
most in Russia's Barents Sea.
Captain Sergei Bolgakov experienced one of the most recent.
In March, 1993
I was on active duty.
On March 20th, the collision occurred.
As we found out later, we collided with the U.S...
...submarine, Grayling.
It happened in the Barents Sea.
The U.S. Navy has been operating up there for quite a while
keeping an eye on the Soviet Navy
really to see how they operate
and what their capabilities were so in the event of a war
we would be able to handle them a lot more easily.
Three American submarines were in the area
spying on the Russian naval operation when the Kursk sank
But the United States denies that one of its submarines collided
with the Kursk
I don't think the American submarine would have, one, made it back
Two, if it made it back
it would have probably done so on the surface.
And three
with 130 people on the American attack submarine...
...we'd know by now.
The Russian Navy continued to search clues
a telltale scrape
maybe even some parts from a NATO sub.
So far they find no evidence.
The Navy now guards the Kursk's site from any other unwelcome intruders.
The missile cruiser, Peter The Great keeps constant vigil
warding off NATO ships and submarines.
Spy ships circle the area
this one Norwegian
inquisitive about the unique salvage operation.
Out of sight, below the sea
divers continue their morbid work on a steel tomb.
Rusting Place but remained more than 100 men.
And on the first anniversary of the sub's loss
at a service in Saint Petersburg
the mourning has still only just begun.
12 corpses were removed by divers from the submarine in October,2000.
One of them was Dimitri Kolesnikov.
On his body, a note wrapped in plastic
final words to his wife of four months Olga.
I love you. Don't be too upset.
I can't see my own writing in the dark
but I'll try writing nevertheless.
It looks like we don't have much chance
ten or 20 percent at best.
Let's hope someone will read this.
Here is a list of names of all compartment personnel who are
at present in compartment nine and are going to try to break out.
Love to everyone.
Don't despair.
Kolesnikov.
Kolesnikov's note says
he was trapped in the very rear of the submarine
with 22 other men.
He writes three hours after the explosion at 1:15 p.m.
and again at 3:45.
Proof that he and several others spent their final hours
in icy darkness
waiting for a rescue that would never come.
I don't know where Dima found the strength
to write those amazing words.
One year to the day since the Kursk's sank
the people of Saint Petersburg
pay tribute to the loss of the crew.
Many must have died instantly
But others, like Dimitri Kolesnikov lived a few harrowing hours longer
ultimately running out of oxygen and time.
For the families, raising the Kursk has a personal meanings.
It will bring their dead home.
When the Kursk sank in August, 2000
the sound was detected by scientists nearby in Norway.
They heard two noises just over two minutes apart.
The first, small.
The next, 3.5 on the Richter Scale
comparable to a small earthquake.
But one thing was unusual:
the explosions were eerily similar.
We compared them
and they were very, very close in terms of the, seismic signal.
Talking about the character of them now
of course the size was vastly different.
The, the first one was very small
and was barely undetected even at the closest station.
The acoustic evidence provides clues to what happened when the Kursk sank
August 12th, 2000.
As part of a war game
the Kursk is ordered to fire a practice torpedo.
At 8:51 a.m.
the Kursk's captain radios for confirmation.
The missile cruiser, Peter The Great
moves 30 miles off and waits.
Two and a half hours later
a small explosion from below.
The captain does not surface the sub.
The Kursk must be severely flooding.
134 seconds later
a devastating blast.
The sound indicates that the first explosion was a single torpedo
The torpedo contains a tank of fuel propellant.
On typical Russian torpedoes that fuel is hydrogen peroxide.
Heated hydrogen peroxide in contact with certain metal surfaces
is known to explode.
Fire had started.
The hydrogen peroxide heated
and the crew failed to eject it overboard.
The explosion was inevitable.
That fire then, a couple of minutes later
spread to one or two other torpedoes
lying alongside this one and that then detonated the warheads
which just tore open the bow of the submarine.
The second explosion would have killed everyone in the forward
half of the submarine in less than a minute.
But what triggered the first explosion remains an unsolved mystery.
August 14th, 2001.
300 feet below the dive vessel Mayo
the divers labor against the Kursk's tough outer hull.
After four weeks
only 11 of 26 holes have been cut in the submarine.
They had expected to be finished the first phase by now.
And winter weather is just one month away.
Despite to setback
Phase Two is set in motion. 200 miles west in Kirkenes, Norway
a barge carrying a revolutionary saw arrives from Holland.
The salvagers fear that the damaged bow may fall off during the lift.
They have decided to remove 60 feet from the front of the submarine.
But many believe the Russians have their own motives for this surgery.
It will leave the clues of what sank the sub
at the bottom of the Barents Sea.
I think the only hard evidence if it exists at all
is in the forward torpedo room.
And again that's the section they're leaving on the ocean floor.
But they've lost a chance to have technicians
forensic scientists if you will
go over that forward torpedo room once it was on the surface.
The saw is a cable encrusted in sharp steel cutting bushings.
It has been tested on an old hulk
similar in strength to the hull of the Kursk
But until the divers complete cutting holes, the saw barge will wait
in Norway, a delay the operation cannot afford.
110 miles south of the site
the largest dry dock in Russia awaits the Kursk
But the dry dock is too shallow to accommodate the barge Giant
with the submarine harnessed beneath.
The solution lies in Severodvinsk in the Russian north
at the Sevmarsh shipyard.
Sevmarsh has the job of building pontoons for the final critical
part of the lift.
Ironically
this shipyard also built the Kursk ten years earlier.
The huge submersible pontoons
will lift the Giant fully out of the water
and escort the barge-sub combination into the dry dock
The construction of 300-foot long pontoons in just three months
is the fastest large-scale operation in the history of shipbuilding.
August 21, 2001.
Salvagers get their first taste of winter.
All operations cease.
September will be much worse.
After three days of ferocious seas
work resumes on the wreck of the Kursk
But the salvagers now officially admit that technical problems
have delayed the lift by a week
Now the divers proceed at a furious pace.
Over the next two days ten holes are cut.
Finally, on August 28th
the last of 26 holes is finished.
The first phase is complete.
Now the salvage ships mobilize in a synchronized plan.
The saw barge leaves Norway.
And sixteen hundred miles away in Amsterdam
the Giant gets underway.
Towed at just five miles an hour
the Giant will reach the Kursk in two weeks.
After 2 month's success and delays
greatest risks are ahead.
August 30th, 2001
The cutting saw, designed to sever 60 feet off
the mangled bow of the Kursk
arrives at the site.
The humble, rusting barge is flagship of the next and most dangerous
phase of the operation.
The saw must be placed exactly
to avoid explosive impact with the sub's forward missiles
or with torpedoes in the devastated bow.
Two 40-foot-high anchors
designed to burrow their way into the seabed
will keep tension on the saw.
They are lowered and then positioned on either side of the Kursk's bow
an operation that takes four precious days.
The saw chain, with its steel bushings
stretches over the top of the Kursk's hull.
On September 4th
the cutting begins.
Diving operations halt
during lethal contact with the saw.
The chain slices through the Kursk at an amazing speed.
The operation was expected to take days.
25 percent of the cutting is complete after just two hours.
Then a setback
The saw breaks loose from the anchors.
Working around the clock
it takes a full two days to reattach the saw.
After another day's work...
...good progress
only 20 percent of the Kursk's hull remains to be cut.
But the saw now digs into the seabed
and breaks again and again.
The delay costs another three days.
Now the Giant completes her sixteen-hundred-mile voyage.
She arrives in nearby Kirkenes Norway, destructers to wait there.
If the bow is not removed
the Giant will never get her chance to lift the Kursk
On September 11th
the terror event that shakes the United States
reaches the distant Barents Sea.
Russia joins the world in mourning.
But the operation does not pause.
Divers continue to grapple with the saw.
On September 14th
the final few inches of the Kursk's steel hull are severed.
Now another frenetic week passes
as teams of divers clear debris from the holes in the Kursk's hull
to install the lifting cables.
On September 26th, the Giant arrives from Norway
and anchors in position over the Kursk
But the Giant may be too late.
The deadline to lift the Kursk has passed
and from now on
the weather will be the salvagers' worst enemy.
From mid-September on
you're not going to be able to pull off a salvage operation.
From mid-September probably to March
because of heavy weather.
Just then,
the worst storm of the year lashes the Barents Sea.
The Giant's captain, Pete Sink
calls his short team to consider the options.
Anchored
he runs the risk of facing the storm broadside
putting the barge in jeopardy,...
...but to leave the shelter
would delay the lift even further.
Sink the team decides to ride it out.
For two days the Giant is battered by wind and sea.
The weather breaks at last
but the lift operation needs at least 48 hours of calm seas to succeed.
In nearby Murmansk
Project chief Frans van Seumeren makes a grim statement.
Of course
it is sad that the forecast for tomorrow is not good
because there's a lot of swell with the northeast wind
and probably we cannot do a lot tomorrow.
Thursday, Friday is, is by the weather not possible anymore.
But they have come too far to give up now.
The next stage of the operation proceeds.
Four cables from each lifting jack
guide heavy steel plugs called grippers down to the submarine.
The grippers secure each of the 26 lifting bundles to holes
in the submarine.
They expand and lock into position.
Now the Giant is married to the Kursk
After four months
all of the intricate pieces of the operation are finally in place.
The weather must hold.
The lifting jacks can only compensate for waves of about 8 feet.
If the waves get any higher
the sub will be disconnected
and the lift called off maybe forever.
3:30 a.m.
October 8th, 2001.
In calm seas and biting Arctic air
the time has come the last to attempt to raise the Kursk
Divers are cleared from the site.
If even a single cable breaks
the recoil could kill.
Okay, Malcolm
you starting with the lifting and pull to the back side
several tons, yes? Okay?
Jon van Seumeran is in charge of the Giant.
Yeah, I'm back Yeah, touching on the aft section now.
The Kursk is embedded in the ocean floor
making an exact lifting calculation impossible.
The system can handle 18000 tons lifting power.
The salvagers begin with 4,000
about halfway divided between the bow and the stern.
Computers show the weight supported by each jack
and indicate how each hydraulic compensator counteracts
the motion of the sea.
Power is increased to 7,000 tons
Miraculously, suction from the seabed offers no resistance.
At 9,600 tons, the Kursk rises off the ocean floor.
The Kursk is the heaviest object ever lifted from the bottom of the sea.
At 5:30 p.m.
she fits snuggly under the Giant.
It is a technological victory that has never been equaled
in the history of ocean salvage.
Over a year since her catastrophic loss
the Kursk and her entombed crew are going home.
It takes two days for the Giant and her tragic cargo, reach the dry dock
110 miles south near Murmansk
Another technical challenge awaits.
The dock is too shallow
so pontoons must lift the Giant and the Kursk
The Russian-built pontoons are designed to lock onto the Giant's hull
but problems plague the seemingly simple plan.
The operation takes 12 days.
But in the sheltered bay, Arctic storms no longer pose any threat.
It is mid-October
a full month later than scheduled.
Finally, the pontoons lock onto the Giant.
Water is pumped from the pontoons
lifting the barge 25 feet above the water.
The Kursk emerges beneath the Giant.
Russian Navy experts will spend the next months
combing the sub for clues to what sank her.
They find parts of the front of the sub embedded deep in her middle
terrifying proof of a massive torpedo explosion.
Experts estimates that the blast cost to 5 tons TNT
through the sub's steel hull.
But they can find no proof if the explosion was caused
by a collision or by human error inside the Kursk
On October 21st, 2001
the Russian Navy eases the barge cradling their sheltered submarine
into the dry dock
Underneath the Giant,
the lifting cables are lowered and grippers retracted.
Two days later,
salvage ship and submarine finally part.
The Kursk's conning tower
appears in the Arctic air.
The Kursk's fate is to be scrapped at a cost of ten million U.S. dollars.
A United States Congress Nuclear Safety Fund will pay
for her destruction.
Deep inside the Kursk
there is one final gruesome task
the search for human remains.
Of 118 men lost
82 bodies are recovered.
Most can be identified
evidence that many may not have been killed in the blast.
Several may have died hours later
trapped in darkness, knee deep in icy water
when oxygen finally ran out.
This image haunts Olga Kolesnikov
the final terrible moments of her husband Dimitri
stranded in the submarine.
I am still waiting for him to come back
I am waiting for him all of the time.
With my mind, I understand that I must accept this tragedy
as an accomplished fact
but my heart refuses to believe it.
At the bottom of the Barents Sea
divers placed a memorial where the Kursk was lost
a permanent tribute to the catastrophe
and to the triumph of those who raised her
from the unforgiving sea.