Hopes rise as Navy team joins hunt for lost Argentine sub

THE Royal Navy last night deployed its elite submarine rescue team to join the search for a missing Argentine submarine, after failed satellite calls thought to be from the vessel raised hopes the crew were still alive.

HMS Protector, a naval ice patrol and survey ship, also began scouring the South Atlantic as part of the international hunt for the missing vessel, and HMS Clyde was being diverted from South Georgia.

Argentine officials said naval bases had detected seven incomplete satellite calls over the weekend attributed to the sub and were now trying to use them to pinpoint its location. The communication attempts “indicate that the crew is trying to re-establish contact, so we are working to locate the source of the emissions,” the Argentine navy said, adding that the calls lasted between four and 36 seconds.

An international team of ships and aircraft were braving heavy seas and high winds to search for the Germanbuilt ARA San Juan which has been lost since last week.

The Royal Navy said it was sending the Submarine Parachute Assistance Group to join the hunt. The highly trained team of medics, engineers and escape specialists is continuously on six hours’ notice to go anywhere in the world. Team members are parachute trained so that they can leap into the water at the scene if needed, but in this case will embark on HMS Protector to give specialist help. They carry inflatable boats and life rafts, medical equipment and communications gear which allows them to talk to trapped crews.

The San Juan and its 44 crew last made contact on Wednesday when she was 267 miles off the coast in the Gulf of San Jorge. The latest possible calls were a sign for “cautious enthusiasm”, naval experts said, showing the crew may be alive, afloat and at a shallow enough depth to attempt to communicate.

The hunt also includes help from Brazil, Chile, Uruguay and the US. America has already sent three search planes and two submarine rescue chambers. The San Juan had been returning from a routine mission to Ushuaia, near the southernmost tip of South America, to its base about 250 miles south of Buenos Aires.