MOSCOW. May 24 (Interfax-AVN) - Adverse weather conditions in the area of the Kursk nuclear submarine disaster in the Barents Sea impede the recovery of fragments of the submarine's first compartment from the sea bottom, aide to the Russian Navy commander Colonel Igor Dygalo told Interfax-Military News Agency.
Wind gusts in the sea amounted to 17 meters per second and the sea swell was three to four points on Friday, Dygalo said.
All vessels involved in the recovery operations are ready to put out to sea as soon as the weather gets better, he noted. At present the Mikhail Rudnitsky rescue vessel, Altai rescue tug and Kil-164 hulk vessel are at the port of Severomorsk.
"However the weather forecast for a few days is not optimistic," Dygalo said.
The ship-lifting detachment of the Northern Fleet was originally expected to leave for the disaster area on May 15. However the departure has been postponed several times due to bad weather.
After two fragments of the Kursk submarine's first compartment are retrieved from the Barents Sea bottom, the remaining fragments will be destroyed by blast, Northern Fleet Commander Admiral Gennady Suchkov told Interfax-AVN on Friday.
Only the air balloon of the exploded torpedo and pieces of the torpedo tube will be lifted, Suchkov. "There is no need to recover other blast-damaged pieces of the nuclear submarine's first compartment for they will say nothing about the causes of the Kursk's disaster," he said.
"The air balloon and a piece of the torpedo tube are a different matter. When these fragments are lifted, the scenario of the tragedy should be fully clear," Suchkov noted.
He said that the recovery operation was to begin in June.