United States intelligence officials concluded that an explosion off the northern coast of Russia earlier this month happened as part of a salvage mission to raise a nuclear-powered missile from the bottom of the ocean.
CNBC cited several people with knowledge of the intelligence assessment who said the incident, which resulted in the death of five people, was not related to a missile test as once thought.
"This was not a new launch of the weapon, instead it was a recovery mission to salvage a lost missile from a previous test," one source told CNBC.
Another source said, "There was an explosion on one of the vessels involved in the recovery and that caused a reaction in the missile's nuclear core, which led to the radiation leak."
Russia initially tried to cover up the incident. After the explosion, two nearby sites that monitor radiation in the air mysteriously went offline for days.
The missile is called Burevestnik but is also known as Skyfall. It was originally believed the Aug. 8 accident was the result of a test.
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