Britain ready to help sub rescue bid

4:00 PM

MURMANSK – Britain says it is preparing to fly out a submarine to help the rescue 116 crew trapped in a crippled Russian submarine.

A British Defense Ministry spokesman said: "We are getting ourselves ready so we can act immediately if the call does come through."

The spokesman said an LR5 submarine was being loaded onto a plane at Prestwick airport in Scotland. The LR5 has a crew of three and is capable of rescuing 16 people at a time.

Russia has not yet accepted offers of help from Britain or the United States.

Russian officials have held talks with NATO staff on the rescue effort in the Barents Sea, but it was not clear whether the rescue craft which the United States and Britain have offered to help with the undersea rescue would provide any advantages over Russia's.

A naval commander said a group of officers would be in Brussels later on Wednesday to see what help NATO could offer.

In Moscow, Defence Ministry spokesman Igor Dygalo told Reuters: "Defence Minister Igor Sergeyev has thanked all those who offered their assistance. We did not say 'no' to anyone."

The Russian Navy currently has 22 ships involved in the attempt to rescue the crew of the Kursk, the teams battling bad weather on the surface and poor visibility at depth.

A Moscow-based navy spokesman said by telephone that after two failed attempts, a third rescue capsule capable of rescuing up to 15 sailors at a time will try to link up to the crippled submarine.

"The new attempt to dock a rescue capsule to the Kursk will be launched at 8 am (6 pm Wednesday NZ time)," he said.

Itar-Tass news agency quoted a navy spokesman as saying visibility near the sub had dropped less than two metres.

The men, trapped in darkness on the damaged vessel, the Kursk, which sank when they shut off the reactor after an accident at the weekend, were likely to be lying down to save energy as air ran low, a navy spokesman said.

Cooped up inside the vessel, they have tapped out signals heard by rescue teams but these have become fainter.

"The signal is getting weaker. Of course, the oxygen is running low - people just need to lie or sit down," the spokesman at the base at Severomorsk said on Tuesday.

Russian officials sounded increasingly grim on the chances of rescuing the crew. Navy commander Vladimir Kuroyedov told RTR television: "All we know is that there are still people alive, and they are signalling SOS.

"What remains is our hope, which leaves us fewer and fewer chances every day. Our calculations show that by August 18 they will run out of oxygen," he said.

Earlier on Tuesday, Kuroyedov had given a bleak assessment of the crew's chances of survival in a report to President Vladimir Putin, currently on vacation in a Black Sea resort, saying the prognosis was "very grim."

"I am not a pessimist, I am a realist," he said.

The rescue effort was being pursued through the night, focusing on using the two capsules. They have three-man crews who guide the craft with video cameras and visually through portholes.

RTR state television showed Kuroyedov pointing out damage to the Kursk on a diagram. On the starboard side, a torpedo hatch was wide open and a command tower was damaged. On the port side, bits of the vessel were scattered on the sea floor.

He was quoted as saying the navigation room and the bow were wrecked. The periscope was up.

Officials have said the damage may have been caused by a collision or an explosion on board, but have been reluctant to give firm theories at this stage.

A Russian Navy spokesman said the submarine was tilted on the sea bed, with its bow pointing down, and also listing sharply to one side.

As a result "these capsules and devices are sliding off it and cannot join with the vessel," he said.

If they succeed in docking, "rescue teams will probably have to carry out crew members, who are likely to be exhausted, on their shoulders," RIA quoted the Navy press office as saying.

If the crew cannot be freed using the rescue capsules, a backup plan is to try to raise the entire submarine by strapping 400 tonne pontoons to both sides and inflating them with pressurised air, Interfax quoted Kuroyedov as saying.

There was no immediate word if such a plan would run the danger of giving the crew the bends, or decompression sickness, if the sub were raised too quickly.

Kuroyedov said in televised comments that rescuers were being driven by fear for the sailors' lives. "Our lack of knowledge about the fate of the crew has marked all our work," he said.

"(The rescuers) know the men down there are their comrades."

- REUTERS