Submarine crew missing in South Atlantic ‘fast running out of oxygen’
THE agony deepened yesterday for families of the 44 crew on a missing submarine after the Argentine Navy said it was at a ‘critical phase’ of low oxygen.
The San Juan has been lost in the South Atlantic for seven days after reporting a fault with its batteries.
The navy had warned that the crew had oxygen for only up to ten days if they were unable to surface. Despite a huge search, no trace of the sub has been found.
Argentine Navy spokesman Enrique Balbi said: ‘We are in the critical phase, particularly with respect to oxygen.
‘There has been no contact with anything that could be the San Juan submarine.’
Relatives of the submarine’s crew have gathered in the city of Mar del Plata, where the search is being co-ordinated.
Elena Alfaro, the sister of crew member and radar expert Cristian Ibanez, was in tears as she said: ‘We came today because we had hope that they had returned.
‘It is incomprehensible that so much time has passed. We are in pain.’
The families had been given hope after reports that a heat signal had been detected 230ft underwater by a rescue plane and a ship 185 miles off the Argentine coastal city of Puerto Madryn. But this was later discounted as a false alarm.
Mr Balbi said: ‘At the moment we have no trace of the submarine.’
Around 30 boats and planes and 4,000 personnel from Argentina, the UK, the United States, Chile and Brazil have joined the search for the 32-year-old submarine.
It last transmitted its location about 300 miles from the coast.
Planes have covered some 190,000 square miles of the ocean surface, but much of the area has not yet been scoured by boat.
The Royal Navy deployed its elite submarine rescue team to join the search after the ice patrol ship HMS Protector also began scouring the South Atlantic.
The patrol vessel HMS Clyde is also being diverted from South Georgia.
P-8 Poseidon aircraft from the US Navy are trying to detect the submarine using ‘sonobuoys’, which are equipped with a sonar system and are normally used during antisubmarine warfare.
In recent days, several possible signals, including sounds and flares, that have been detected have turned out to be false alarms.
Overnight, a British ship reported observing three orange and white flares. But they did not come from the San Juan, Mr Balbi said.
Argentinians have been gripped by the search, with local newspapers placing photographs on their front pages of crew members’ relatives praying.
The first signs of the crew’s families’ frustration with the Argentine government emerged after they held a tense meeting with President Mauricio Macri.
‘It is practically suicide to send them on something that is so old,’ the wife of one sailor said.
‘There has been no contact’