Haunting letter was discovered on board submarine that saw 118 crew members meet a tragic fate

The Kursk submarine disaster killed all 118 people on board.

A heartbreaking letter was found inside the submarine, where 118 crew members lost their lives.

A letter was once discovered on a Russian nuclear submarine that sank, killing all 118 crew members.

The disaster happened on August 12, 2000, when the Kursk submarine (K-141) sank to the bottom of the Barents Sea during a naval exercise.

The first explosion happened in the torpedo room because a faulty weld caused a leak of high-test peroxide (HTP), a chemical that can be as powerful as 100–250 kilograms of TNT.

Just two minutes later, a second, much stronger explosion occurred. It was so powerful that it registered 4.2 on the Richter scale and was detected as far away as Alaska, USA.

The explosions caused the submarine to sink 108 meters to the seabed. At first, 23 sailors survived the blasts, but they died a few hours later due to a lack of oxygen, according to Britannica.

After the tragedy, a handwritten letter from one of the crew members gave insight into what happened.

Captain-Lieutenant Dmitri Kolesnikov wrote:

“All personnel from sections six, seven, and eight moved to section nine.

“There are 23 people here. We made this decision due to the emergency. None of us can get to the surface.”

The letter also included a personal message to his wife, Olga, expressing his love and concern in his final moments. Sadly, all 23 crew members, including Kolesnikov, died soon after.

After the disaster, Vice-Admiral Valery Ryazantsev blamed poor training and maintenance as possible reasons for the accident.

He said:

“The crew had no experience with HTP-powered torpedoes and had not been trained to handle or fire them.

“Because they lacked experience and training, and inspections were incomplete, they accidentally started a chain of events that led to the explosion.”

Boris Kuznetsov, a legal expert, also criticized the government’s response to the crisis.

“The most important lesson is that authorities should not lie. When they do, their mistakes have terrible consequences,” he said.

A year after the disaster, President Vladimir Putin admitted that he stayed on holiday during the crisis.

“I probably should have returned to Moscow, but it wouldn’t have changed anything,” he said. “I had the same level of communication in Sochi as in Moscow, but from a public relations point of view, I could have shown more urgency.”