RIP

Argentina submarine: ARA San Juan found

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-46245686

The wreckage of a submarine which went missing with 44 crew on board a year ago has been found, the Argentine navy says.

The ARA San Juan submarine disappeared 430km (270 miles) off the Argentine coast on 15 November 2017.

The navy stopped its rescue mission two weeks after the sub's disappearance.

However, a year and a day after it went missing, officials announced it had been found 800m (2,620ft) below the surface of the Atlantic Ocean.

According to a tweet from the Argentine navy, the ARA San Juan had been positively identified under the water by a US company.

The navy had earlier shared a picture from the seabed, suggesting a 60m-long object might be the missing submarine.

submarine tragedies always make me recall the old folk song "The Scorpion Departs, But Never Returns"

Was just reading USNI article about the anniversary of her loss. Glad for the family that she was found.

S! to the men who went down with her, hopefully they’re with their mates from the Belgrano now.

True, first they are spending time with other silent service comrades
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Thresher_(SSN-593)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Scorpion_%28SSN-589%29


I heard a blip on the wireless that a naval expert said that modern subs have special high-tech bouys that can be launched to the surface to signal for help. I could not hear the entire radio piece so I don't know if the San Juan was even designed (i believe they said the Germans designed and built the sub?) with such an emergency system and if it would have been any help in a rapid decompression emergency.

many planes have "blackboxes" that can often be recovered to help determine the cause of crashes, is there any type of comparable device for subs?

Has it been determined yet what caused the sub to go down?

edit:


Ok, I just read this from the BBC article,


The ARA San Juan was returning from a routine mission to Ushuaia, near the southern tip of South America, when it reported an "electrical breakdown".

According to naval commander Gabriel Galeazzi, the submarine surfaced and reported what was described as a "short circuit" in the vessel's batteries.

a) The photos that I saw looked like an old class 205 or 206 boat to me, so yeah, quite possible that it was originally made in Germany
b) Whether such a buoy would have helped, I doubt, because
c) while the exact dive limit is a secret, I doubt that the old class 206 boats were so overspecced that, designed as diesel-electric submarines for coastal waters, it could withstand the pressure of 800m depth (where it was found).

It sounds as if they went down and had no way of stopping the dive (if there was, indeed, a complete loss of energy). Even if the hull was designed to withstand such immense pressure, if they couldn't get the engine/batteries working again to resurface under own power, there would've been no way to mount a resuce in that depth.

Or they might prefer to commiserate with fellow diesel boat sailors on eternal patrol. Lots of them to choose from.



We had a bouy on the Permit class (formerly Thresher class) boats that could be released. It had a cable that rescuers could follow down to the disabled sub. I wouldn't call it "high tech" but new ones could be fancier.

We didn't have aircraft style "black boxes". I don't know about current subs.

As for rapid decompression... that wasn't a problem for subs to worry about. That would be more of a concern for the International Space Station. Rapid compression on the other hand, was a concern. Subs need to keep the high sea pressure outside of the pressure vessel.

What a horrible way to die. The fact that it’s not an instant death and you are just waiting inside the sub until the hull gives in.

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its instant death, if you go below the maximum hull pressure it simple collapse and tons of water get in, you get crushed so fast.

BTW from the link posted above
"Accidental activation of torpedo
The U.S. Navy's court of inquiry listed as one possibility the inadvertent activation of a battery-powered Mark 37 torpedo by stray voltage. This acoustic homing torpedo, in a fully ready condition and without a propeller guard, is theorized by some to have started running within the tube. Released from the tube, the torpedo then somehow became fully armed and successfully engaged its nearest target: Scorpion"

did i read this right ? at first i though it was a torped inside the bay, but it says released from tube, does that mean, they think the torped launched and then attacked its own sub ??

Torpedoes were notorious for activating in their tubes and standard guideline back then were to open the tube and let the torpedo out to prevent the warhead from detonating in the sub.

I am American and only familiar with the loss of USS Thresher and Scorpion so they will be the first visit of the San Juan servicemen.