Dedicated to the Northern Fleet submariners who died in the Barents Sea and the World Ocean page 8 August 12-13: "The boat didn't get in touch" On Saturday, the complex exercises of the Northern Fleet forces entered their highest stage. Surface ships carried out missile firing, fought off air raids of a simulated enemy... And the submarines evaded the sonar captures of the surface ships, gamely launched torpedo attacks, drilling their whale-shaped hulls into the gloomy depths of the combat training ground. About the tragedy that has already occurred, no one even suspected. There was still time for a communication session with the leaders of the exercise, which the Kursk was supposed to leave for... In the evening of the same day, Lieutenant Colonel Alexey Palkin took over the duty at the headquarters of the Northern Fleet. His assistant, having gone to his office for a while, quickly returned to the control room of the duty officer and reported excitedly: "The boat is missing!.." - From the moment when the boat did not get in touch, - Alexey Alekseevich told me later,-the Il-38 was lifted into the air within an hour. He barraged in the combat training ground, where the submarine was supposed to be, according to all calculations, until nightfall. The plane tried to visually detect either the nuclear-powered ship itself, or signs of its location in a given area... "Anti-submarine" returned to the airfield around eight in the evening. At this time, the chiefs and many officers of the naval services and departments were already called to the SF headquarters. An operational group was also formed there to meet the Commander-in-Chief of the Navy, Admiral of the Fleet Vladimir Kuroyedov, who, according to available information, was supposed to fly to Severomorsk at 10 am on August 13. Somewhere in 19.00 - 19.30 on Saturday, the head of the Department of Search and Rescue Operations of the Northern Fleet, Captain 1st Rank Sergey Morozov, came to the control room of t ... Read more