BBC News | EUROPE | Balloonist hopes to raise Kursk

The Swedish businessman and international balloonist Per Lindstrand is putting together a multi-million-dollar bid to raise the crippled Russian nuclear submarine from the Arctic seabed.

Mr Lindstrand told the BBC's Newsnight programme that his company could manufacture huge bags, each capable of lifting 1,000 tonnes.

"The whole bid will be put together in the next 24 hours and then it will be up to the Russians," he said.

The attempt to raise the damaged Kursk from the bottom of the Barents Sea would be made once all rescue missions had run their course.

Per Lindstrand with Richard Branson and Steve Fossett.
Mr Lindstrand with his ballooning colleagues
Mr Lindstrand said the heavy-duty lifting bags, consisting of a very strong fibre, could be produced within a month.

The bags "will be wrapped around the submarine and increase the buoyancy, and bring it off the seabed and hopefully bring it up (so it can be) towed into docks," he said.

He admitted that his company had never lifted a submarine using such a method.

"But neither has anybody else," he added. "I think we've got a good chance."

He said his company, Lindstrand Balloons Ltd, had already carried out tests.

Mr Lindstrand, 49, has carried out several long-distance balloon flights.

In 1998 he flew the ICO Global balloon with British entrepreneur Richard Branson and balloonist Steve Fossett, covering 20,000km in an unsuccessful attempt to circumnavigate the globe.


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