Mystery of lost Argentine submarine solved
Vessel, found almost a year after vanishing, had imploded at sea
BUENOS AIRES — In the year since 44 Argentine sailors vanished aboard a submarine, some relatives of the missing crew members had refused to speak of their loved ones in the past tense as they held out hope for a miracle — or at least clarity as to what befell them.
This weekend, Argentine officials said the wreckage of the submarine had been found, offering the first concrete answers about one of the deadliest and most confounding maritime disasters in modern times.
“If we had a speck of hope, now there is none left,” said Gisela Polo, the sister of Esteban Alejandro Polo, 32, one of the sailors who died. “We’ve seen the images. They described the depth where it was found. It makes no sense to keep talking about him as if he were still alive.”
The discovery of the submarine — almost a year to the day after it disappeared in stormy weather — revealed that it imploded close to the ocean floor, officials said on Saturday, but that its main hull appeared to be largely intact. Now the government of President Mauricio Macri will have to answer questions from frustrated families about what more can be gleaned from the wreckage.
“This is news that fills us with enormous pain,” Macri said in a recorded message Saturday night in which he announced three days of national mourning. “Now we’re opening a period of serious investigations to find out the whole truth.”
Ocean Infinity, a Houston-based ocean-mapping company hired a few months ago, found the submarine nearly 270 nautical miles from the port of Comodoro Rivadavia in Chubut province and about 3,000 feet under water. The company used unmanned, robotic devices to find it.
Argentina’s government signed a contract with Ocean Infinity that guaranteed the company $7.5 million if it found the submarine.
Navy officials said Saturday that the relatively small area in which debris from the vessel was scattered and dents on its hull suggested an implosion caused by high pressure from the depth of the ocean.
The submarine was found in an area that was searched extensively but that is filled with canyons, making finding it difficult. That area became a focal point after the Vienna-based Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization, which has sensors around the globe to monitor nuclear tests, recorded an incident deep in the ocean that was consistent with an explosion.
“This is the area where we had assigned 90 percent of probability for it to be located,” said Vice Adm. José Luis Villán, the head of the Argentine navy.
The Norwegian-flagged Seabed Constructor vessel operated by Ocean Infinity was scheduled to leave the coast of Argentina on Nov. 15, as the 60-day search contract was up and the crew was scheduled to head to South Africa in preparation for its next mission, said Oliver Plunkett, chief executive of Ocean Infinity.
Then, as a member of the team was combing through the images they had already gathered in previous sonar sweeps, he said he had found something in the data, something worth postponing the departure by a few days and inspecting more closely. It was the San Juan. “The remarkable thing about it, it was literally the last thing we were going to do,” Plunkett said. “It is a truly unbelievable moment, in the last hour on the last day.”
Argentine officials had little to say regarding next steps or recovery efforts beyond the need to survey the scene more carefully.
Some relatives said the news, while painful, brought a measure of closure.
“I had already assumed he died,” said María Itatí Leguizamón, the wife of Germán Oscar Suárez, a radar operator on the vessel. “But I couldn’t help it. There was a part of me that kept holding on to the hope that he could still be alive. But now I know for sure and I can mourn.”