# Argentinian Navy Submarine Missing



## parsifal (Nov 20, 2017)

A submarine of the Argentine navy has been missing now for five days.

The submarine has about 7 days of air. It had surfaced and radioed that it had a serious electrical fault on board. It had been ordered to return immediately but went missing approximately 432 kilometres offshore.

44 crew were aboard at the time she went down. Bad weather has hampered the vessels location by rescue forces and her position remains a mystery. 

The vessel is well compartmentalised and on the basis of the circumstances of how she went missing, she probably sank relatively intact. 

If the submarine is not located, it will be a hard loss for everyone.

The ship is named the ARA SAN JUAN.

Missing Argentinian submarine tried to return to base after power malfunction

Best of luck to the rescuers.

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## pbehn (Nov 20, 2017)

As the son of a seaman and husband to the daughter of a submariner I offer a prayer.


_View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDjwUzUnNpU_

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## vikingBerserker (Nov 21, 2017)

I think it's very cool all the countries that are offering to help. They just announced that the noise picked up was not from the sub, I'm still pretty hopeful.

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## Lucky13 (Nov 22, 2017)

Fingers crossed!

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## parsifal (Nov 22, 2017)

Hopes are fading fast now. its been more than 7 days, and that was the limit of their air supply

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## airminded88 (Nov 22, 2017)

What a horrible way to go 
Speak volumes of the commitment to their nation.
Let's hope for a miracle to happen within the next hours.

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## rochie (Nov 22, 2017)

A guy on the BBC who was a sub rescue expert said they may have a controllable atmosphere upto today or maybe tomorrow.

Hope its tomorrow and they are found.

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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Nov 22, 2017)

All of this is also assuming they were alive to begin with. The submarine had some kind of an issue, and was ordered to return to port. I can't image they would do so submerged. I could be wrong, I honestly don't know. Never been a Submariner. I would like to think if they were on the surface, they could have abandoned ship. What if they had some kind of hull breech? What if they had a catastrophic fire or something?

That is unfortunately the feeling I get from all this.

I hope I am wrong, and they are all still alive, and this all ends with a happy ending of the crew being rescued.

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## Lucky13 (Nov 22, 2017)

I really hope, that they're found before it's too late!

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## parsifal (Nov 22, 2017)

Fire is the most likely scenario, though anything is possible at this point. There may have been a build up of noxious chlorine, or explosive hydrogen from the batteries.

With an electrical fault as has been reported, the ship almost certainly surfaced to make her report. the weather state was bad. It would only take a momentary lapse of judgement, or an injured sailor topside for a ship wallowing and rolling in that sea to take on a large amount of water and then catch fire. If a fire took hold, an explosion is on the cards.

But the likely outcomes isn't that the ship went down suddenly or in an immediately fatal condition. The circumstances suggest that she went down with those poor devils alive at the time.  Aconventional boat with no power cannot easily surface, it was thought the boat sank in about 600 feet of water, about the limit of her hull strength. Much deeper, or with a compromised or aged hull and she may well have crushed herself as she sank, killing all on board from an early point.

The ARA needs to recover the wreck to determine the exact cause of loss .

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## vikingBerserker (Nov 27, 2017)

They talked about a possible explosion after having issues with the batteries. I hope it was a quick death for them.

RIP

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## CharlesBronson (Nov 27, 2017)

Thanks for the good wishes friends, sadly it seems that all the crew has already no chance of survive. The important part now is as parsifal said to find the sub to investigate what happened to him. Also I should thank to all the natios working together with our navy to find the sub.
This was an advertising made by the german firm Thyssen in english about the TR1700, the San Juan is the 2nd of this class.

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## fubar57 (Nov 27, 2017)

Water got in missing sub's snorkel, caused short circuit, Argentine navy says


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## parsifal (Nov 29, 2017)

They that go down to the sea in ships,
that do business in great waters;
These see the works of the Lord,
and his wonders in the deep.
For He commands, and raises the stormy wind,
which lifts up the waves thereof
They mount up to the heaven,
they go down again to the depths;
their soul is melted because of trouble.
They reel to and fro, and stagger like a drunken man,
and are at their wit's end.
Then they cry unto the Lord in their trouble,
and he brings them out of their distresses.
He renders the storm a calm,
so that the waves thereof are still.
Then are they glad because they be quiet;
so he brings them unto their desired haven.
Oh that men would praise the Lord for his goodness,
and for all his wonderful works to the children of men!

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## nuuumannn (Nov 29, 2017)

Very tragic circumstances and a sad loss. Heartfelt wishes to the families and friends of those aboard.

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## vikingBerserker (Nov 18, 2018)

The finally found her, RIP.

Argentine Navy submarine may have 'imploded'; photos show wreckage on sea floor


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## parsifal (Nov 18, 2018)

ARA are against recovery of the wreckage. Famillies want it recovered.

Putting the family wishes to one side for the moment, not wanting to recover the wreck seems very odd to me. Surely the cause of the loss would become a lot clearer if the wreckage was recovered. Not recovering the wreck leave the causes wide open to speculation.

Ive heard the Argentinian navy is in deep financial trouble to the point that they have let maintenance slide in many cases. And limited training opportunities severely, all on the basis of saving a few pesos. For subs that's just asking for an accident to happen

Argentina 'lacks means' to raise lost sub

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## nuuumannn (Nov 18, 2018)

That's so sad. Perhaps salvage could be conducted by a sympathetic ally?

The Argentine economy has been a basket case for years now. What was once one of the world's wealthiest nations has become financially poor because of greed and corruption over decades. Very sad.


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## GrauGeist (Nov 18, 2018)

What a tragedy, certainly.

But if the sub blew up (which appears to be the case), there's really not much that can be accomplished by raising her. I know that family members are insisting it be raised to recover the victims, but they probably don't understand that there will be little if any remains left. The explosion and subsequent breaking apart of the boat would have scattered the victims about the debris field and any victims that remained in the various portions of the hull would have been exposed to sea creatures.

The area should be left as is and declared a gravesite, to be honest.

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## jetcal1 (Nov 18, 2018)

Leave it be. They won't be able to recover every body. Send an RV when possible for forensic evaluation of the hull for the investigators.


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## parsifal (Nov 18, 2018)

Its obvious that it blew up, but what caused the explosion. Sea water onto a lead acid battery, if the submarine was fully closed up might cause production of deadly chlorine gas, but risk of explosion should be minimal. if the ship was open and venting, risk of asphyxiation is very low as well. 

The ocean state was poor and the boat did report an electrical problem in the forward battery room. There are a number of possible scenarios that could lead to a dangerous situation, and that could well relate to the ARAs operating procedures for their submarines. If training has been cut short or curtailed, the risk of human error goes up exponentially.

Just the same as an air crash investigation, the causes of the loss need to be better understood and appropriate responses and safety procedures worked out. It might simply be that hull maintenance had been allowed to slide too far to the point that it was now dangerous to operate the sub to its design diving limits.....or it could be an issue of watertight integrity if operating on the surface.

Whatever the cause, more details are needed to ascertain the cause of the loss. I get the distinct impression the Argentine government doesn't want to delve too deeply in the causes of the loss......


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## GrauGeist (Nov 19, 2018)

Since the boat broke up and scattered across a large area at half a mile deep, the recovery cost would be profound if they intended to recover all pieces for a forensic model.

I could see recovering the boat if it was still intact...this would allow them to recover the sailors as well as having a fairly clean model to examine to find the source of the sinking.

But the condition of the sub currently seems like it would offer up little in the way of an exact cause as most of the interior systems would be shredded, contaminated and scattered about, losing context.


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## jetcal1 (Nov 19, 2018)

parsifal said:


> Its obvious that it blew up......."
> 
> ".Whatever the cause, more details are needed to ascertain the cause of the loss. I get the distinct impression the Argentine government doesn't want to delve too deeply in the causes of the loss......



I'm wondering if they had a secondary explosion from hydrogen gas along with issues of chlorine gas from the sea water. (Were they able to dewater the battery compartment?) An imploded hull implies that all the major compartments were closed off. That may have been done due to the original accident but would have been partially relaxed so the crew could eat and make head calls. I think they had another engineering casualty while the boat was buttoned up.

Looking at one of the pictures, the marine growth on the bow was particularly disturbing, it certainly implies there was a bunch of deferred maintenance.


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## TheMadPenguin (Jul 12, 2019)

**Content advisory: Speculation**
IF the sub sank with hatches closed, then on implosion there is a temperature/pressure spike that can set off explosives such as torpedo warheads.
c.f. after-sink explosions on Kirishima http://www.navweaps.com/index_lundgren/Kirishima_Damage_Analysis.pdf pages 26 & 27 especially.

Unknown: Were there closed compartments able to experience sudden collapse; did this include the torpedo room.
Unknown: Were there torpedoes aboard.


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