BUENOS AIRES, 17 Nov 2018:
The Argentine Navy today said a private company hired by the government has located the submarine ARA San Juan some 800m below the ocean’s surface – a year after it went missing with 44 crew members aboard.
The San Juan had a seven-day supply of air when it last reported its position on 15 Nov 2017. The crew had been ordered to return to a naval base at Mar del Plata on the country’s east coast, after reporting water had entered the vessel through its snorkel.
Ocean Infinity, a maritime company that can search and map the seabed, was hired by Argentina following the failure of a massive international operation to find the vessel after it went missing in the South Atlantic.
The San Juan was some 430km off Argentina’s Patagonian coast when it sent its last signal.
The vessel was found in an underwater canyon with its tail partially “imploded,” Argentina’s defence minister Carlos Aguad said.
Given the poor visibility at the site, the ministry said it only had preliminary information about the state of the submarine, which was scattered in pieces on the ocean floor.
Aguad could neither confirm nor deny if the vessel could be recovered, but said the government did “not have the means to extract the submarine.”
The disappearance gripped the nation’s attention as the government struggled to provide information about the tragedy. Relatives of the crew still have questions.
“We have found them,” Jorge Villarreal, father of one crew member told local radio. “Now we are going to search for the truth. For us this is the start of a new chapter.”
Aguad said: “Much of what happens from here will have to be resolved by the justice department. If there is someone responsible, they will be held responsible.”
At the time of the disappearance, the Navy said water that had entered the submarine’s snorkel caused its battery to short-circuit.
Naval officials said international organizations helping to search for the missing vessel a year ago detected a noise that could have been the submarine imploding, just two hours after its last contact.
The disaster spurred soul-searching over the state of the military in Argentina, which – after a series of financial crises – has one of Latin America’s smallest defence budgets relative to the size of its economy.
– Reuters