Based on actual events, K-19: The Widowmaker is an intense and suspenseful military thriller. The story follows the maiden voyage of a Soviet nuclear submarine, but during its sea trials it suffers a critical reactor failure. Starring Harrison Ford, Liam Neeson, and Peter Sarsgaard, the film has a solid cast.
The movie K-19: The Widowmaker (2002), starring Harrison Ford and Liam Neeson, is based on the story of the K-19's first disaster. The original crew of the submarine were allowed to read the script and had complaints, which led to several changes in the script.
According to CNN, not only was the script inaccurate, but it was also insulting. Survivors decried the portrayal of a broken-down ship, drunken shipmates, and a fictionalized conflict among the ship's officers in command. Captain Igor Kurdin, head of the St.
The K-19 – known to those in the navy as “Hiroshima” – was launched in 1959. During its service it suffered numerous radiation accidents that killed members of its crew. After a final accident in 1961, the two reactor compartments were cut out of the submarine's hull, though their spent fuel was not offloaded.
In 1959, the Soviet Union launches its first nuclear powered ballistic missile submarine, the K-19 – nicknamed "The Widowmaker" due to many deaths that occurred during manufacturing. The ship is led by Captain Alexei Vostrikov (Harrison Ford), aided by executive officer Mikhail Polenin (Liam Neeson).
Five minutes later, Korchilov stumbled out of the reactor room, tore off his gas mask and vomited. “That was the first time I felt: 'Yes, this is radiation,' ” Zateyev said. Of the 139 crew members, 22 died of radiation poisoning--eight in a matter of days, the rest in the next two years.
K-219: A Project 667A Yankee I-class submarine was damaged by a fire in a missile tube and explosion on October 3, 1986. It then sank suddenly while being towed after all surviving crewmen had transferred off. Six crew members were killed. Location: 950 kilometres (510 nmi) east of Bermuda in the North Atlantic Ocean.
1. How long did Kursk crew survive? According to experts, 23 crew members took shelter in the 9th compartment and survived for six to eight hours.
Soviet search efforts, lacking the equivalent of the U.S. SOSUS system, failed to find K-129; and, eventually, Soviet naval activity in the North Pacific returned to normal. K-129 was subsequently declared lost with all hands.
He retired in 1986, and after 1990, he was actively involved in Soviet Navy veterans' affairs. He died in 1998 from a disease of the lungs, and is buried in Moscow next to some of his comrades from the K-19.
While it is true that--as with any feature film based on historical incident--some characters and story elements in “K-19” are fictional, it is a complete mischaracterization to say that the script depicts the crew as “uncultured, undereducated people who suffer from a lack of discipline, alcoholism and technical ...
When Russia's first nuclear submarine malfunctions on its maiden voyage, the crew must race to save the ship and prevent a nuclear disaster. When Russia's first nuclear submarine malfunctions on its maiden voyage, the crew must race to save the ship and prevent a nuclear disaster.
In a later script, several scenes were cut, and the names of the crew changed at the request of the crew members and their families. The Hotel-class submarine K-19 was portrayed in the film by the Juliett-class K-77, which was significantly modified for the role.
Survival Rate
Reports from the American Heart Association show that only 12% of people suffering from the widowmaker heart attack outside the hospital get to survive. However, those already admitted to the medical facility during this heart attack have a 25% survival rate.
But Widowmaker is perhaps most notorious for her assassination of the Shambali leader, Tekhartha Mondatta at a rally for peace in King's Row.
Taking inspiration from another Blizzard Entertainment character, Sylvanas Windrunner from World of Warcraft, they chose to make a character that represented the "darker aspect" of the game's storyline.
In May 1968, the nuclear submarine USS Scorpion sank in the Atlantic with all hands on deck. Possible causes explored over the decades have ranged from a defective torpedo to a Soviet attack. In the years since the disaster, further documents have been declassified shedding new light on this mysterious tragedy.
Radiation poisoning
K-19 is one of the most infamous nuclear-powered submarines sailing for the Soviet navy's Northern Fleet. In July 1961 the reactor lost coolant after a leak in a pipe regulating the pressure to the primary cooling circuit. The reactor water started boiling causing overheating and fire.
After two months, the Soviet Union abandoned its search for K-129 and the nuclear weapons it carried, but the United States, which had recently used Air Force technology to locate two of its own sunken submarines, pinpointed the K-129 1,500 miles northwest of Hawaii and 16,500 feet below the surface.
The Russian divers removed secret documents and eventually recovered a total of 12 bodies from the ninth compartment. This contradicted earlier statements made by senior Russian officials that all the submariners had died before the submarine hit the bottom.
The film accurately portrays what is now accepted to have really happened: a hydrogen peroxide leak in one of the sub's HTP (high test peroxide) torpedoes. The blast then set off a chain reaction which caused the other torpedo warheads on board to explode minutes later.
Submarine recovery
A consortium formed by the Dutch companies Mammoet and Smit International was awarded a contract by Russia to raise the vessel, excluding the bow. They modified the barge Giant 4 which raised Kursk and recovered the remains of the sailors.
The Chernobyl nuclear accident was caused by an unfortunate cocktail of human error and flawed reactor design. It was the worst nuclear disaster in history, releasing more than 400 times as much radioactive material as the Hiroshima atomic bomb.
On Thursday, the Missouri retired aerospace engineer fought back tears as he was notified that a submarine wreck, discovered off the coast of Japan last year, is what remains of the USS Albacore -- one of 52 Navy submarines lost during World War II, according to Naval History and Heritage Command, or NHHC.
Current Status. Today, the TMI 2 reactor is permanently shut down and 99 percent of its fuel has been removed. The reactor coolant system is fully drained and the radioactive water decontaminated and evaporated.