The BBC is reporting some hope for the 44 crew members of the Argentine Navy submarine ARA San Juan, which went missing on a routine mission this week:
ARA San Juan in an undated photo at her base in Mar del Plata
Photo via Wikimedia.
Signals have been detected that are thought to have come from an Argentine submarine that went missing with 44 crew on board, officials say.
The defence ministry is now trying to trace the location of the seven failed satellite calls received on Saturday.
[…]
The ARA San Juan was returning from a routine mission to Ushuaia, near the southern-most tip of South America, to its base at Mar del Plata, south of Buenos Aires.
Its last contact with the navy command was on Wednesday morning.
An Argentine destroyer and two corvettes are conducting a search around the area of the sub’s last known position off the south-eastern Valdez peninsula.
But so far there are no clues about its whereabouts.
It is thought that the submarine may have had communication difficulties caused by a power cut.
Navy protocol dictates that a vessel should come to the surface if communication has been lost.
Update, 31 January 2018: Earlier this month, CDR Salamander shared a graphic summarizing the US Office of Naval Intelligence acoustic detection analysis of the ARA San Juan:
[Click to see full size image]
Update, 19 November, 2018: The New York Daily News reports that the remains of the ARA San Juan have definitely been located about 700 miles east of Puerto Madryn at a depth of over 2800 feet.
An Argentine submarine that vanished with 44 crew members aboard was found at the bottom of the South Atlantic Ocean a year and a day after it disappeared, authorities said.
The wreckage of the ARA San Juan was located 2,850 feet deep, and about 700 miles east of the city of Puerto Madryn.
“It appears to be complete, but it obviously imploded,” Argentine naval Capt. Gabriel Attis told reporters, CNN reported, adding the sub’s hull was “totally deformed, collapsed and imploded.”
The [220]-foot vessel vanished off the coast of Argentina on Nov. 15, 2017, as it traveled back to its base in the coastal city of Mar Del Plata.
