Stradling now believes the Sidon accident happened because the pipe containing the HTP blew open, spraying the inside of the torpedo with superheated water, pure oxygen and pressurised hydrogen peroxide which had nowhere else to go. For this reason the chemical reaction can only be allowed to begin when the engine is fully operational and during the firing process. When it touches silver, the element often used in this type of torpedo, the hydrogen peroxide breaks down into water vapour and oxygen, which is used to help to power the engine.Īt the same time it expands in volume by 5,000 times. The use of HTP in torpedos depends on the reaction it has when it comes into contact with certain metals. These facts combined to explain why the explosion had taken place. 'I had taught students about the Sidon accident for years in a class about torpedos and we always believed it had something to do with the hydrogen peroxide,' Stradling told The Observer, 'but no one really knew how it had happened.'īut the report of the secret Board of Inquiry into the Sidon disaster revealed some staggering new pieces of information.Ī stainless steel pipe carrying the HTP to the engine had burst and the original inquiry had found that the torpedo had been accidentally started before it had been fired. Now, with the help of documents from the original inquiry discovered by the BBC's science programme Horizon, Stradling believes he may have found the explanation for both disasters. The front of the submarine, the Sidon, had been blown apart by an experimental torpedo containing HTP while the men on board were loading it 13 men died in the blast from the casing of the torpedo. Then, Maurice Stradling, a torpedo designer and former lecturer at the Royal Naval Engineering College in Plymouth, began to examine the similarities between the Kursk disaster and the unsolved mystery of an explosion on board a British submarine in June 1955 at Portland.
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The use of so-called HTP (High Test Peroxide), which supplies oxygen to the torpedo's engine, had been stopped in British submarines in the 1950s after a series of accidents, although no one could quite explain why the substance (which is not flammable and does not mix or react with fuel) could cause an explosion. Far from being a new super-torpedo, the weapon cleared for use by the Russian navy in 1997 was old-fashioned, cheap and potentially unstable.
When the Kursk smashed into the ocean floor on 12 August last year, stories quickly emerged about the presence on board of torpedos containing highly concentrated hydrogen peroxide liquid. And what they have discovered is deeply embarrassing for the Russian navy's high command. More credible was the theory being pushed until recently by senior officers in the Russian navy that the Kursk had collided with a British or American submarine spying on the manoeuvres in the Barents Sea.īut now British torpedo experts and seismologists working on the case believe they have solved the mystery of the Kursk by drawing on secret government documents about a near-forgotten submarine accident off the coast of Portland on the southern coast of England. It seemed inconceivable that the double hull and nine water-tight compartments of the submarine could have been punctured by anything but the most violent explosion.Įntire websites have been devoted to the theory that something went wrong with tests on a top-secret new ultra high-speed torpedo, Shkval (Squall), said to be unstoppable by Nato technology.īut there is no evidence that there were any Shkval torpedos on board, and some experts doubt their very existence. At first it was suggested that the submarine may have hit by an old World War II mine or been struck by friendly fire from the naval exercises.īut these explanations seemed to contradict Russian claims about the Kursk's impregnability. The sinking of the Kursk was a conspiracy theorist's dream, with some of the wilder explanations emerging from the highest levels of the Russian naval command.
Looking back, those scenes now seem all the more cruel as it must have been clear to the navy from the start there was never any hope of rescuing the crew.
All 118 crewmen lost their lives in the disaster: a devastating blow to Russian military pride and the reputation of the recently elected President Vladimir Putin, who refused to cut short his holiday to deal with the crisis.įew will forget the scenes of desperate relatives, waiting at the quayside for news of the sailors, growing ever more furious at the official smokescreen of disinformation.
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