Navy calls off effort to rescue sub crew

BUENOS AIRES — Families of 44 crew members aboard a submarine that has been lost for 16 days are demanding that Argentina reverse its decision to stop looking for survivors.

The navy said Thursday that the search was no longer considered a rescue mission, but it would continue looking for the missing sub.

Experts said the crew only had up to 10 days of oxygen if the sub remained intact under the sea. An explosion was also detected near the time and place where the ARA San Juan went missing on Nov. 15.

Relatives of the crew met with Argentina’s defense minister and the navy chief Friday at the sub’s naval base in the coastal city of Mar del Plata. Some held pictures of their loved ones.

Some relatives said they still had hope for a miracle.

“Some days I got up and felt hopeless, but then I would run into somebody, or receive a message that referred to the possibility of finding them alive, and suddenly I was filled with hope again,” said Carlos Miguel Mendoza, 46, the brother of one of the missing sailors.

The disappearance of the San Juan transfixed Argentina during the early days of the search. Military personnel from 18 nations rushed to a large stretch of the ocean off the coast of Patagonia to mount one of the largest maritime search missions in modern times. Roughly 4,000 military personnel, 28 ships and nine aircraft participated in the search.

Fatal submarine incidents are extraordinarily rare in peacetime. The last major accident aboard a submarine happened in 2000, when a Russian vessel, the Kursk, sank during a training exercise with 118 on board.

Argentine officials have said the San Juan was seaworthy when it set out on a routine training mission Nov. 8 during which the sailors also sought to interdict illegal fishing boats. The German-made vessel had recently undergone a complete overhaul.