‘Blurry image’ a fishing vessel, not missing sub, Argentina says

LA PAZ, Bolivia — The blurry sonar image of an object deep in the South Atlantic was a sunken fishing vessel and not an Argentine submarine that went missing Nov. 15 with 44 crew members, the country’s navy said Saturday, ending hopes that the sub had been located.

Rescuers had sent an unmanned Russian submersible to review the 66yard-long object located at 1,565 feet below sea level.

The missing submarine, the ARA San Juan, was roughly that length — 72 yards — and officials said the image was “unclear.” They sent the submersible to “visually verify” if it was the San Juan.

“It was confirmed that it wasn’t the submarine’s shell” but a sunken fishing vessel, Argentine navy spokesman Enrique Balbi said later Saturday.

The navy “regrets that without a rigorous analysis expectations were generated in the families and society, which must now face another frustration,” Balbi said.

Before Balbi’s announcement, authorities had said that if the image did not reveal any new clues, the search would focus on other signals of interest detected in parts of the South Atlantic where the vessel was last heard from.

Argentina’s navy said Thursday that it is no longer looking for survivors although a multinational operation will continue searching for the vessel.

“The extreme environment, the time elapsed and the lack of any evidence eliminates a scenario compatible with human life,” Balbi said. “These are hours of intense pain and anguish (for relatives) in light of the loss of their loved ones, our 44 comrades.”

The German-made sub went missing as it traveled from the southern port of Ushuaia to the city of Mar del Plata, 250 miles southeast of Buenos Aires.