Argentinian sub missing

[JadeHellbringer]

Seems you were right on the money with this one.

Has anything been said about search and recovery of the presumed wreck?

Not that I've heard, but that's not surprising regardless. There may not BE a plan yet, really.

The good thing here in that regard- and I admit, 'good thing' is on a sliding curve- is that this boat is going to be a hell of a lot easier to actually bring up than last time something like this happened. The Kursk was a behemoth, lifting her- even after removal of her shattered bow section- was a herculean task. This boat weighs a fraction of what an Oscar does- so the kind of specialized recovery gear that put in a hell of a lot of work to get Kursk back to the surface probably won't need to be taxed quite as much here.

Same other issues apply, of course- the weather and currents down there aren't any easier than where Kursk sank, bringing up a sunken submarine is never an easy task to begin with, and I sure wouldn't want to be one of the men who have to go aboard afterwards to see the aftermath. But, at least it'll be easier on the actual crane barges and such.

[garhkal]

Seems you were right on the money with this one.

Has anything been said about search and recovery of the presumed wreck?

Nope.  Tv news is all about NK, and other stuff...  Not even a mention on the TICKER about the sub in a week to my recollection..

[cavingjan]

not really any news to report on it except that the rescue mission has been abandoned.

[ANS Kamas P81]

The good thing here in that regard- and I admit, 'good thing' is on a sliding curve- is that this boat is going to be a hell of a lot easier to actually bring up than last time something like this happened. The Kursk was a behemoth, lifting her- even after removal of her shattered bow section- was a herculean task. This boat weighs a fraction of what an Oscar does- so the kind of specialized recovery gear that put in a hell of a lot of work to get Kursk back to the surface probably won't need to be taxed quite as much here.

Have they even found the wreck yet?  As far as condition, that really depends.  Kursk basically suffered a torpedo hit and lost hull integrity, and went down in shallow waters.  If the theory's correct, then San Juan suffered a catastrophic implosion in the deep, unlike the Kursk's situation.  This would, if the Argentines are lucky, be a recovery effort akin to the K-129.  If they aren't, well...there's always the final fate of Scorpion.

The boat was broken in two by massive hydrostatic pressure at an estimated depth of 1,530 feet (470 m). The operations compartment was largely obliterated by sea pressure, and the engine room had telescoped 50 ft (15 m) forward into the hull due to collapse pressure, when the cone-to-cylinder transition junction failed between the auxiliary machine space and the engine room. (...) The sail was ripped off, as the hull beneath it folded inward. The shaft came out of the boat...

[DaveMac]

Rescue mission officially discontinued

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/nov/30/argentina-calls-off-missing-submarine-rescue-effort

[garhkal]

That sucks.  I wonder how long it will be before someone does a dive for the remains of the sub and makes a film of it?

[ANS Kamas P81]

They'll be diving for a while with robot subs; at the very least there's classified communications material onboard that the Argentine government would like back (and probably without British help) and lord knows what else.  Even if they don't retrieve it, they'd probably like to make sure noone else gets their hands on whatever it is.

[cavingjan]

i think the first question is how long until the wreck is found.

[DaveMac]

No luck so far

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/dec/03/blurry-image-could-be-missing-argentine-submarine-says-navy

[Kit deSummersville]

i think the first question is how long until the wreck is found.

Before or after MH 370? It could be like a race....

[Kidd]

Before or after MH 370? It could be like a race....

ARA San Juan is (at this point) far more localised than the possible sites of MH 370

Plus the 3 stakeholder govts most involved in the 370 search have basically given up and moved on. The latest news is that a private company will continue the search, but only on a "no find, no fee" basis with the Msian govt, which has a lot more pressing things to spend money on.

[ANS Kamas P81]

The IO's a big place, unfortunately...and 370 is going to be a complete mystery until the boxes are recovered.  At least we know some things about San Juan and have enough evidence to compile a working theory of her loss.

[Nightlord01]

The IO's a big place, unfortunately...and 370 is going to be a complete mystery until the boxes are recovered.  At least we know some things about San Juan and have enough evidence to compile a working theory of her loss.

Recovery from that depth is highly unlikely. Recovering a sub is difficult enough, doing so from deep water, with questionable structural integrity? Not likely. This is a very delicate and expensive operation, and since there's not much that can be gained vice exploration with ROVs, it's probably better to leave her there and mark it as a grave site.

MH 370 is a total mystery, but more is known as highly probable than will ever be proven, even if the black box is recovered, they only have four hours of record time and are in an overwriting loop, the plane was in the air longer than four hours after it started unguided flight, so no recordings of what happened are ever going to be found.

[ANS Kamas P81]

Straying a bit off topic, but I'll tie it back in in a moment.  As far as 370 goes, that's still 4 hours of the plane's captain and crew talking to the passengers, because they had to realize at some point "hey we've been flying for a lot longer than usual and there's not a damn thing out there, what's going on" - did anyone attempt to get into the cockpit, was there any post-deviation communication to the FLIGHT CREW who absolutely would know something's wrong, things like that.  Even if it doesn't have a word from the guy behind the wheel, SOMEONE's gotta be on tape.  Or did the whole plane depressurize, everyone passed out/died from O2 deprivation, and was it a flying tomb the entire time?  It'd at least answer some questions.

Bringing it back to the San Juan, are there systems like that on a modern sub?  At least something to monitor the bridge audio, listen to the commands being given, and should there be an Incident either serve as a solid timeline of everything that happened or else at the very least a grave marker for a lost boat with her last hours recorded.  I grant such things are probably deeply classified, and certainly the contents would be, but I do wonder if they exist.

[Nightlord01]

Bringing it back to the San Juan, are there systems like that on a modern sub?  At least something to monitor the bridge audio, listen to the commands being given, and should there be an Incident either serve as a solid timeline of everything that happened or else at the very least a grave marker for a lost boat with her last hours recorded.  I grant such things are probably deeply classified, and certainly the contents would be, but I do wonder if they exist.

There are, sort of. All naval vessels have a log, in which every command decision made is recorded. It's not anything like the aviation black box, just a simple written log, but it's the same idea in principle. Aviation black boxes are a simple looped recording device which records everything said in the cockpit, all of the sensor data and all of the machinery status updates. They are an excellent system that is effectively tamper proof, and fail proof to every reasonable measure, but that is just for an aircraft. A sea going ship is far too large and complex to make that sort of equipment possible, although certain functions are replicated by automated systems throughout the ship, unlike aviation, these systems are not mandatory, and are very expensive. It's highly unlikely that the San Juan would have them fitted.

Straying a bit off topic, but I'll tie it back in in a moment.  As far as 370 goes, that's still 4 hours of the plane's captain and crew talking to the passengers, because they had to realize at some point "hey we've been flying for a lot longer than usual and there's not a damn thing out there, what's going on" - did anyone attempt to get into the cockpit, was there any post-deviation communication to the FLIGHT CREW who absolutely would know something's wrong, things like that.  Even if it doesn't have a word from the guy behind the wheel, SOMEONE's gotta be on tape.  Or did the whole plane depressurize, everyone passed out/died from O2 deprivation, and was it a flying tomb the entire time?  It'd at least answer some questions.

I don't think I was clear, it's a looped recording. As in, it overwrites itself every four hours, thus since the aircraft remained in the air for greater than four hours it would not hold the data of whatever caused the loss of comms. :-(

[ANS Kamas P81]

I don't think I was clear, it's a looped recording. As in, it overwrites itself every four hours, thus since the aircraft remained in the air for greater than four hours it would not hold the data of whatever caused the loss of comms. :-(

Yeah, it won't have the audio of the deviation from flight and the audio of the various communication failures.  But there would still be four looped hours of someone at the controls, as well as what those control inputs were.  And there is no way you can take a five and a half hour flight, most of which is going to be over land, and drag it out to seven and a half hours (based on fuel loading) over the ocean without someone noticing and trying to bring it up to the pilots - which would have been caught on the loop at some point.  I mean, I can't imagine - short of, like I said, catastrophic depressurization and 100% blackout/death of all aboard at altitude - there being nothing on that tape at all, especially as the airliner runs out of fuel and begins its descent into the water.

[Nightlord01]

Yeah, it won't have the audio of the deviation from flight and the audio of the various communication failures.  But there would still be four looped hours of someone at the controls, as well as what those control inputs were.  And there is no way you can take a five and a half hour flight, most of which is going to be over land, and drag it out to seven and a half hours (based on fuel loading) over the ocean without someone noticing and trying to bring it up to the pilots - which would have been caught on the loop at some point.  I mean, I can't imagine - short of, like I said, catastrophic depressurization and 100% blackout/death of all aboard at altitude - there being nothing on that tape at all, especially as the airliner runs out of fuel and begins its descent into the water.

Uhh, I'd hate to tell you this, but the cockpit on commercial aircraft shares air supply with the rest of the aircraft. If there was, as I suspect, smoke and fumes in the aircraft, it wasn't just the flight crew that ran out of clean O2. :-(

[DaveMac]

Blame gane starts

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/12/10/german-firms-investigated-faulty-batteries-link-missing-argentine/

[Bosefius]

We just had to pull several posts joking about this situation. This is unacceptable and will result in warnings. If you can't pay respectfully don't post.

[ANS Kamas P81]

I'm reminded of the current scandal in the USN over repairs, port facilities, and whatnot turning into a truly massive bribery case.  So far we haven't lost any ships because of that, or crew lives, but for the Argentines this is going to really be a nasty investigation.  Here's hoping they find the source of the problem damned quick, and that it's not nearly as endemic to the fleet as ours is.  Have they announced any plans for a fleetwide standdown and inspection?

Also, I note that they're ballparking 1000 meters of water for the San Juan's resting place.  That's easily reachable with modern deep-dive subs, it shouldn't be hard to ascertain her final remains and what happened to cause it all.  Seems she went down over a relatively shallow area and it could have been a lot worse; if San Juan had ended up in the Ross Deep not so far away she'd be a good six to eight times that.

[Kidd]

I'm reminded of the current scandal in the USN over repairs, port facilities, and whatnot turning into a truly massive bribery case.

Fat Leonard?

there is 1 big keyword in Ferrostaal's statement in that article above that leaps out to me. But that's all I'm gonna say about that...