“We are continuing with this phase of search and rescue. We are in the critical part, it has reached the seventh day in terms of oxygen, supposing that for seven days it has not had the capacity to go the surface and renew the oxygen. But we are not dismissing the other options, that it could be on the surface.”
More than 4,000 personnel from 12 countries are now scouring the South Atlantic search zone, braving stormy conditions with high winds and waves up to seven metres high....
The British contingent has drawn insults from far-Left figures in the country where the dispute over the Falklands remains contentious. Leaders of the Workers’ Party and of radical Left wing group Quebracho branded British forces “pirates” and occupiers on Twitter, but were widely condemned by Argentine users.
November 23, 2017
"The search for the Argentine submarine ARA San Juan reached a 'critical' point on Wednesday amid fears the 44 crew members..."
"... could be on their last day of oxygen, as the country’s navy said they had found “no trace” of the missing vessel.
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It's a very great tragedy. Saw a news item this morning that a great noise was heard shortly after the last radio communication on Wednesday last. This item had not been previously publicized and suggests the boat might indeed be on the bottom and possibly all hands already perished. And don't know whether the noise was a radio emission or an actual audible sound.
They're dead.
Eternal Father, strong to save,
Whose arm hath bound the restless wave,
Oh, hear us when we cry to Thee,
For those in peril on the sea!
News reporting is pretty inconsistent on this matter. Now, the report is that the noise was an audible and occurred very recently about 30 miles near the last known location of radio communication. And oxygen could last as long as ten days. Some commenters on the new item suggested the crew launched a torpedo to generate the noise. Have no idea whether this is feasible.
Argentina has submarines? How many Navy's have submarines?
All that aside, may they rest in peace.
My family's prayers today are for the crew and their families. How sad and tragic!
They should've painted the submarine yellow, because everyone lives on a yellow submarine.
That noise may have been the hull crushed.
I don't know how deep the water is there but I think it is beyond the continental shelf.
Thresher went down just off the shelf in 1963 and it took 6 months to find any remains. It was 1980 before she was found.
How many Navy's have submarines?
Actually quite a few. I'd say close to thirty, and another half dozen or so that used to operate subs but don't have any currently.
I think Argentina has (had) three. Makes one wonder about the depth of their experience and facility for dealing with this tragedy.
I think Argentina has (had) three. Makes one wonder about the depth of their experience and facility for dealing with this tragedy.
The Argentine navy started operating subs in 1927, and have owned 42 of them over the years.
A large number of Argentine subs, perhaps the majority, have been former USN boats of the Gato, Tench, and Balao classes.
The San Juan was built in Germany and sold to Argentina in 1985. She is 216 feet long and displaces 2,140 tonnes surfaced. The main propulsion is diesel-electric and her high-tech batteries and hydrodynamic hull make ARA San Juan faster submerged than surfaced. The vessel is capable of 25 knots submerged which is really hauling.
40 countries have submarines, a number which surprised me. Along with some of those countries, such as Azerbaijan. NORKS have the most, which also surprised me.
https://www.globalfirepower.com/navy-submarines.asp
If they were alive, they would have released an emergency beacon buoy.
I don't know how deep the water is there but I think it is beyond the continental shelf.
Google Maps satellite view shows the shelf pretty far out - 100 miles at the north, and 200 to 400 miles offshore towards the Falklands.
"If they were alive, they would have released an emergency beacon buoy."
I'm no expert in naval matters but this would be the logical thing for the captain to have done. If the beacon buoy wasn't released presumably the ship suffered catastrophic such as sinking to crush depth before it could have been released. Or perhaps the buoy was launched and inoperative.
I think it's only about 300 feet there, well above crush depth. But if they had a battery fire, or significant leak, they could have all died in the early stages, or have access to significantly less oxygen if they are stuck in a small part of the boat.
We had a switch in the 707 that you could throw to release the emergency beacon buoy. Back then it was just a siren type transmitter on 243 MHz. No GPS in them days.
The problem was every once in a while the switch would fail and eject the buoy on take-off. We had this happen twice in Iceland.
You had to call the rescue squadron, and the PJ's would make a big deal out of it to get their scuba suits wet. So a huge HH-53 helicopter to fetch our beacon :-)
It cost us a case of beer every time they had to go pick one up.
One of the enlisted guys asked if we should go back and land, and get a different plane. He was worried if we crashed we wouldn't be able to mark our position.
Oh well...
The nice thing was we had poopy-suits if we survived the crash landing. You couldn't live very long in them, but it made it easy to find the bodies floating around, and the sharks didn't like the smell of the rubber.
General Pete didn't like Orange though, so he equipped the planes with green poopy-suits. I'm not sure green would be a good color against the grey north Atlantic, but that's what the Brits used, so we copied them.
Oh well...
In August of 2000, Putin and his shameless band of criminals, refused to admit the submarine's troubles for political reasons, & initially refused the help of foreign navies to rescue the ship and crew in similar trouble to the Argentine vessel's current plight. All 118 on board the Kursk submarine perished.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kursk_submarine_disaster
We should get some DESRON15 ships out there. I’m sure they’d run into it.
Etienne said...
We had a switch in the 707 that you could throw to release the emergency beacon buoy.
Question 1: How many commercial jets have survived an open ocean ditching?
Answer 1: Zero
Question 2: What do pilots call the life preservers on a 707?
Answer 2: Wreckage markers
Sounds like now that the Argentinians heard the explosion shortly after the last radio contact last Wednesday, but did not inform the Americans, British or even the family members of the crew. So best guess is that the boat is a wreck on the bottom and everyone aboard is dead but Argentinians allowed a fake search to take place hoping maybe that nothing else would be found and the problem would just go away?
Wow! Those people have government problems as bad as ours.
When I was on a sub in the Navy we would weld over the submarine rescue buoy (had 1600' of cable and a phone on it) as they had a tendency to come loose. Nothing worse than a sub trailing a big orange buoy behind it as it went on it's "stealthy" mission.....
Not that big if a deal though, average depth of the ocean is approx 12000', the sub's test depth at 1300'. You do the math.
We'd tell each other the buoy was there so you could write your mother about how "Safe" we were.
From what I remember, the buoy was welded only for SPECOPS and SSBN deterrent patrols. The 72 day underwater type operations where there's radio silence and no one knows your missing until the 72 days is up.
But we did refer to the escape equipment and emergency buoys as devices to make congresscritters and mothers happy. The wives knew if we went down, we weren't coming back.
The sound of a collapsing pressure hull is explosive. The depth there is 3000 meters. Crush depth is maybe 300.
I'd love to be wrong.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/world-latin-america-42100620
"Argentina has submarines? How many Navy's have submarines?"
About 30 countries' navies have subs.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_submarine_operators
Some sonograms of the San Juan disaster were released publically; in this video a former sonarman analyzes them using his experience and PowerPoint.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bc39NVy1v20
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