This according to BBC News:
God be with those men and their families. Those have got to be fairly old boats with a small maintenance budget.
Any bubble heads out there with the quick scoop on what the Argies have in the way of boats? I imagine old German, Swede? and maybe French?
Three diesel electric boats, two TR-1700 “Santa Cruz” class boats built in the 80’s and on Type 209 built in the early 70’s. all German construction.
The missing boat is the newest of the three and finished a major refit in 2013.
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Traitor Yankee… Thanx, I could not open the article.
Doesn’t look good. Sub still missing.
BBC News Update:
1985 and bought new from Germany…
Search Efforts:
The Argentine Navy said it ordered “all terrestrial communication stations along the Argentine coast to carry out a preliminary and extended search of communications and to listen into all the possible frequencies of the submarine.”
The US Navy said it was helping. It planned to deploy a P8-A Poseidon maritime aircraft to Argentina on Saturday, the US Naval Forces Southern Command.
The 21-person US crew had been in El Salvador supporting “counter-illicit trafficking patrol operations,” the agency said in a statement. The aircraft also had assisted in a search for a South Korean ship that sank in April in the South Atlantic, !! that would be consistent with the Stellar Daisy !! and more recently, it was sent to Dominica in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria.
NASA also will help in the search with a P-3 Orion aircraft, agency spokeswoman Katherine Brown told CNN. She said the US plane was “already in Argentina on a scientific mission.”
The P-3 is a turboprop aircraft capable of long-duration flights, according to NASA.
Source - CNN’s Diane Ruggiero, Spencer Feingold and Marilia Brochetto contributed to this report.
I have no idea where these supposed satellite signals are being generated from? Floating EPIRB? Bouy down to the sub on the bottom? surely not from a sub on the surface…
I believe the submarine is down and the only hope is that she rests on the bottom well above crush depth so that there might be a hope for a rescue to occur. If a crew is brought to the surface from a sunken boat then it will be a historic event because I am at a loss to recall any other sunken subs where a crew was saved using a DSRV
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Not a DSRV but a DSR system nonetheless, USS Squalus, SS 192 in 1939.
The only other successful rescue I am aware of is the Pisces V submersible.
Latest from BBC News:
but if the sub was on the surface it would have established communications with the searchers by now so it must be down which is not good because the clock is ticking for the men on her
The latest from BBC News (4 hrs. go):
The DSV Skandi Patagonia will take part in the search for the missing sub:
She is presently in Comodoro Rivadavia to take onboard equipment before joining the search tomorrow:
Could noises heard be from the sub???:
What is the crush depth of this sub???
According to this wikipedia article the max working depth is 300 m.:
So good hope that rescue could be possible, IF this is an indication of the location.
Its quite frustrating reading the poor news sources reporting this story. According to Wikipedia the max depth this sub can go is 300m but non of the news reports say what is the depth in the area that it was operating. It appears that it may have had problems with its batteries but surely this would not have stopped it releasing a EPRIB either from the surface or subsea. If it surfaced I’m sure it would have been very uncomfortable in 20 ft waves and it would have wanted to submerge once it thought it had found a suitable fix to the battery problems. If its on the bottom disabled I can only hope and pray that those guys are rescued before its too late.
It is my opinion that the water depth that the search is currently being performed in, is greater than 300m.
One wonders if, when surfaced, they were pinging AIS?
Given the parlous state of their navy one wonders why it went to sea?
Skandi Patagonia left from Comodoro Rivadavia at 1404 hrs. L/T yesterday and will arrive in the search area sometime today:
She carry a rescue chamber able to reach 260 m. WD and holding 6 pers.:
If the sub is located on the shelf there may be a hope, but anything deeper than 260 m. is outside reach of the rescuers.
The Skandi Patagonia is on charter by the US Navy and carry their rescue equipment and personnel:
http://www.ellitoral.com/index.php/id_um/159947-infografia-asi-es-el-minisubmarino-preparado-para-el-rescate-7-dias-sin-comunicacion-con-el-ara-san-juan-nacionales.html?utm_source=relacionadas
A second Norwegian vessel, the PSV Sophie Siem is also engaged by the US Navy to take part in the rescue mission. She will carry a mini submarine and decompression chamber on board: