http://www.boston.com/dailynews/307/world/Chief_investigator_says_Russia:.shtml

Chief investigator says Russia's Kursk submarine was not sunk by a collision

By Associated Press, 11/3/2001 12:46

MOSCOW (AP) The sinking of the Russian nuclear submarine Kursk was not caused by a collision with a foreign submarine, the leading investigator said Saturday.

''I don't know who is saying this, but I can tell you for sure: we do not have a single conclusion indicating this,'' Prosecutor General Vladimir Ustinov said, according to the Interfax news agency.

The Kursk's entire 118-person crew died when explosions sent the submarine, one of the Russian Navy's most advanced vessels, plunging to the Barents Sea floor during military exercises on Aug. 12, 2000. Investigators have been examining the wreckage, which was raised from the ocean Oct. 8.

Officials said the first explosion in the Kursk's bow was caused by a practice torpedo, but opinions have differed on what triggered that explosion.

Most experts now believe it was caused by a flaw in the torpedo, but some officials had continued to say a submarine collision was a possibility. They included Deputy Premier Ilya Klebanov, who said this week that dents on the submarine's hull could indicate an ''external impact.''

Ustinov said it was a second explosion, two minutes and 15 seconds after the first, that doomed the submarine.

''We believe that the first explosion was the explosion of a torpedo,'' which in turn detonated ammunition stored in the front part of the Kursk, Ustinov said.

Russian and American submarines played cat-and-mouse games during the Cold War era, sometimes coming dangerously close. Both the United States and Britain operate submarines in the Barents Sea, but both countries deny that their vessels were involved in the disaster.

The Kursk was raised from the seabed by a Dutch consortium in a $65 million salvage effort and put in a dry dock on Russia's Arctic coast.

Since then, investigators and forensic experts have pulled out 55 bodies, the last two of which were retrieved early Friday, the navy said. Another 12 bodies were retrieved by divers from the wreck last fall.

Vladimir Mulov, the military prosecutor for the Northern Fleet, told Interfax on Saturday that 47 of the 55 recently recovered bodies have been identified.

-- Anonymous, November 03, 2001