Argentinian sub missing

[DaveMac]

I hope this ends well

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/11/17/argentine-navy-loses-contact-submarine-carrying-44/

[Sharpnel]

After seeing some different pictures of the San Juan I'm surprised she's still in service. The conning tower/sail looks like someone repeatedly struck it with a 16 lb. sledgehammer. There was some plating on the bow that gave me concern as well. Hopefully they were old pics from before her last refit. Godspeed to all of those aboard her, including Argentina's first (only?) female officer to serve aboard a sub.

[marauder648]

I fear the worst, no comms for several days now. :(

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQ3MkrSc5yY

[JadeHellbringer]

After seeing some different pictures of the San Juan I'm surprised she's still in service. The conning tower/sail looks like someone repeatedly struck it with a 16 lb. sledgehammer. There was some plating on the bow that gave me concern as well. Hopefully they were old pics from before her last refit. Godspeed to all of those aboard her, including Argentina's first (only?) female officer to serve aboard a sub.

Their navy hasn't been funded particularly well over the past 20 years or so- their ships tend to have a lot more rust and maintenance issues than similar navies' seem to have. Which may or may not be a factor here, but would explain the dings in the hull at least.

[glitterboy2098]

well all the pictures in the articles i've looked at are dated to 2014, when dated at all, so i could believe that the pics are pre-refit. that said, i suspect that the following 3 years probably haven't been kind to the sub.

and apparently the US navy and NASA are lending aid to the search.
https://news.usni.org/2017/11/17/nasa-aircraft-joins-search-missing-argentine-submarine-44-sailors-u-s-navy-submarine-rescue-crews-equipment-mobilizing

[hoosierhick]

I saw somewhere this morning that they had found her on the bottom in about 200ish feet of water and they think she had a battery fire.  I'll see if I can dig up a link.

[Liam's Ghost]

I saw somewhere this morning that they had found her on the bottom in about 200ish feet of water and they think she had a battery fire.  I'll see if I can dig up a link.

The Argentine navy has denied a press report that the ship had a fire aboard, so that might be a false report.

[hoosierhick]

The Argentine navy has denied a press report that the ship had a fire aboard, so that might be a false report.

Yeah, I found on another board where I saw that and there was no link to the story.  I'm thinking it was probably a false report too.

[ANS Kamas P81]

Hopefully she's just floating around with a catastrophic electrical casualty to the boat and everyone's waiting around to be found and rescued.  Otherwise...god, I hope she went down in the deep.  At least that's quick.

[Wrangler]

There a report that a signal may have been received by Argentinans. So there maybe hope. The signal had issues, so their not certain if it was the submarine's crew or not.

[garhkal]

Wow.  Dats gotta suck..

[glitterboy2098]

hopefully the sub's crew is OK.

[DaveMac]

Not looking good

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/nov/19/missing-argentina-submarine-sent-seven-failed-satellite-calls-search

[Wrangler]

Wow, this is tragic.  If they can't find them.  Aside from terrible loss of the crew, Argentina's first submarine officers was aboard the ship.

[I am Belch II]

So very sad, hope everyone is ok.

[glitterboy2098]

Wow, this is tragic.  If they can't find them.  Aside from terrible loss of the crew, Argentina's first submarine officers was aboard the ship.

you mean first female sub officer. pretty sure they've had a number of sub officers before.  ;)

[Nightlord01]

Not looking good

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/nov/19/missing-argentina-submarine-sent-seven-failed-satellite-calls-search

Ok, there's some pretty bad info in that article, not unusual, but not helpful. That submarine either had no EPIRB, or the PIRB wasn't functional. They can be a bit twitchy, but are pretty robust and the usual issue with PIRBs is that they tend to sound when there's no emergency, not fail to sound in an actual release. PIRBs are observable by satellite, other ships, and aircraft, so if no one observed the PIRB, it never sounded.

If the sub could make seven satellite calls, they would need to be at PD or on the surface, you can't use SATCOM underwater, the signal is blocked. So either the boat was underway on Sunday, or this is simply unexplained activity from an unknown platform.

Historically, survival on a stricken submarine is hideously rare, the greatest irony of submarine life is that the functions of a submarine that keep it alive in war time are the same functions that inhibit crew survival in peace time. :-(

[Kidd]

Good update here: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-argentina-submarine/satellite-calls-yield-no-clues-on-missing-argentine-submarine-idUSKBN1DJ0GT

Key extracts:

As waves of up to 8 meters (20 feet) and winds reaching 40 knots complicated the search by sea, authorities spent Sunday trying to trace the submarine’s location through data from the satellite calls without significant progress, a navy official told reporters.

“We analyzed these signals, which as we know were intermittent and weak,” said Gabriel Galeazzi, a naval commander. “They could not help determine a point on the map to help the search.”

U.S. satellite communications company Iridium Communications Inc, which was brought in to help analyze the calls, said they did not originate with its device aboard the vessel and may have been from another satellite communications company’s equipment.

It said the last call it detected from its device was on Wednesday, the same day the government said the vessel vanished.

More than a dozen boats and aircraft from Argentina, the United States, Britain, Chile and Brazil had joined the effort. Authorities have mainly been scanning the sea from above as the storm made the search difficult for boats, navy Admiral Gabriel Gonzalez told reporters.

“Unfortunately these conditions are expected to remain for the next 48 hours,” Gonzalez said from the Mar del Plata naval base, about 420 km (240 miles) south of Buenos Aires where the submarine had been heading toward before vanishing.

A search of 80 percent of the area initially targeted for the operation turned up no sign of the submarine on the ocean’s surface, but the crew should have ample supplies of food and oxygen, Balbi said.

The navy said an electrical outage on the diesel-electric-propelled vessel might have downed its communications. Protocol calls for submarines to surface if communication is lost.

Three boats left Mar del Plata on Saturday with radar detection probes and were following the path that the submarine would have taken to arrive at the base in reverse, Balbi said.

“Those probes allow the boats to sweep the ocean floor during their journey and try to make a record of the floor in three dimensions,” Balbi said.

The U.S. Navy said its four aircraft were carrying a submarine rescue chamber designed during World War II that can reach a bottomed submarine at depths of 850 feet and rescue up to six people at a time. The chamber can seal over the submarine’s hatch to allow sailors to move between the vessels.

It said it also brought a remote-controlled vehicle that can be submerged and controlled from the surface.

[DaveMac]

Day four and no progress

A total of 13 ships and six aeroplanes are braving strong winds and high waves over an area of 66,000 sq km (25,500 sq miles) more than 400 km (250 miles) east of the bay of San Jorge off the coast of Patagonia

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/nov/19/search-for-missing-argentinian-submarine-fails-to-find-any-clues

[HobbesHurlbut]

Just saw on CNN that the ships sonars may have picked up sounds that are associated with tools banging on hull.

[garhkal]

I saw that yesterday on the ticker.  BUT i'd like to know why no station are givig this story MORE air play than just being on the ticker??

[Feenix74]

Not a US Navy sub. Not happening in US continental waters.

Unfortunately your news can be a bit American-centric.

[garhkal]

True dat.. 
But isn't that the same most other countries?

[Sabelkatten]

Not knowing how much US news covers it... News papers in Sweden have an update daily, thought given how much information is available the updates have usually been rather short.

[JadeHellbringer]

Not knowing how much US news covers it... News papers in Sweden have an update daily, thought given how much information is available the updates have usually been rather short.

Unfortunately that's kind of how it's going to be outside of Argentina- there's no news, and 'no news' makes for a pretty short and simple news segment. As I recall, the same happened with Kursk years ago- the only real coverage was of the back and forth between Moscow and other countries on whether assistance would be sent or not, but actual reports from the site were limited to 'it hasn't come back up still' up until the submersibles finally headed down (far too late).

[Kidd]

Without venturing further into Rule 4 zone, I'll just note FYI that as expected, some people did take advantage of this incident to attempt some politicking with regards to certain participants in the search efforts. (Saw it coming, was really hoping that it would not be an issue.) Happily, it seems the attempt backfired spectacularly.

True dat.. 
But isn't that the same most other countries?

IMHO as a citizen of the Internet-connected world, anybody should be capable of getting a relatively balanced worldwide news coverage these days. CNN, BBC/Sky, and Channel News Asia adequately covers the headlines from America, UK/Europe, and SE-Asia.

Its more the esoteric nature of this event that leads to reduced news coverage or public awareness. Without belittling the impact of the incident, its no more meaningful to the general public who don't follow defence-related news than, say, a mine collapse in some other corner of the world... and how many of us know of the last such disaster?

The submariners here are anxiously watching their ISMERLO feed though. It's a shocking event that strikes very close to home, as nobody here in the SEA operates nucs...

[Feenix74]

Update from Australian national news website:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-11-22/oxygen-fears-for-missing-argentine-submarine-as-search-continues/9179526

[JadeHellbringer]

I was thinking about that last night while reading some of the news on it. At this point, unfortunately, it's a recovery op. Either they're out of air, or they're afloat and would have been in contact with SOMEONE by now. Even in the most optimistic scenario, hope is pretty well out realistically.  :-\

[DaveMac]

I was thinking about that last night while reading some of the news on it. At this point, unfortunately, it's a recovery op. Either they're out of air, or they're afloat and would have been in contact with SOMEONE by now. Even in the most optimistic scenario, hope is pretty well out realistically.  :-\

Sadly I agree with you

[Wrangler]

If it does end bad, i hope they can find the ship so they can be with their love ones.