All 53 crewmen of lost Indonesian submarine are dead, admits military chief

INDONESIA’S military has officially said all 53 crew from a submarine that sank and broke apart last week are dead.

Search teams have located the vessel’s wreckage on the ocean floor, it added.

The grim announcement came a day after Indonesia said the submarine was considered sunk, not merely missing, but did not explicitly say whether the crew was dead.

Officials had also said the KRI Nanggala 402’s oxygen supply would have run out early on Saturday, three days after the vessel went missing off the resort island of Bali.

“We received underwater pictures that are confirmed as the parts of the submarine, including its rear vertical rudder, anchors, outer pressure body, embossed dive rudder and other ship parts,” said military chief Hadi Tjahjanto.

“With this authentic evidence, we can declare KRI Nanggala 402 has sunk and all the crew members are dead,” he said.

The navy previously said it believes the submarine sank to a depth of 2,000-2,300ft, much deeper than its collapse depth of 655ft, at which point water pressure would be greater than the hull could withstand.

An underwater robot equipped with cameras and deployed by Singaporean vessel MV Swift Rescue provided the images, while the Indonesian vessel KRI Rigel had scanned the area where the submarine was believed to have sunk using multibeam sonar and a magnetometer, Mr Tjahjanto said.

The cause of the disappearance was still uncertain.

The navy had previously said an electrical failure could have left the submarine unable to execute emergency procedures to resurface.

An American reconnaissance plane, a P-8 Poseidon, landed early on Saturday and had been preparing to join the search, along with 20 Indonesian ships, a sonar-equipped Australian warship and four Indonesian aircraft.

The German-built diesel-powered KRI Nanggala 402 had been in service in Indonesia since 1981 and was carrying 49 crew, three gunners and its commander, the Indonesian Defence Ministry said.