Families and loved ones of 44 crew aboard the ARA San Juan vanished after reporting a small fire which is believed to have taken out the subs communications. Enrique Balbi speaking for the Argentine Navy says a massive search will continue until the submarine is found.
Weather conditions aren't helping matters as the days of rough seas have made the search difficult but better weather conditions Tuesday gave the sailors families hope. Balbi continued, "We are considering all possibilities and obviously the most critical situation would be the fact that we are on the sixth day of oxygen." The search has been narrowed to a 20km (12 miles) but so far two false alarms have been all they have picked up.
<img src="https://media.8ch.net/file_store/5ee1f4630485306001b7dd54af062c4454926971e24e1e45e9b7c4c7e10a49f1.png" style="max-height:640px;max-width:360px;">
<span style="margin-top:15px;rgba(42,51,6,0.7);font-size:12px;">Credit: BBC</span>
The last known contact with the submarine was when it surfaced to report a breakdown according to naval commander Gabriel Galeazzi. The mission was cut short due to a "short circuit" in the sub's batteries and ordered to return to the naval base in Mar del Plata. The captain contacted the naval base once more to report the problem had been adequately fixed and the sub would submerge and proceed to Mar del Plata naval base.
The was the last known contact, made at 7:30 local time on Wednesday, November 15 and it is unknown what has happened to the submarine since. The search for submarine first began after the sub failed to make contact twice a day with the base as Argentine navy protocol requires.
44 crew members are aboard the submarine which was built in the 1980's in Germany and is home to the Argentine navy's first female crew member, Eliana María Krawczyk. Her family said it was her dream to serve aboard a submarine and her father calls her "the queen of the sea."
<blockquote class="twitter-video" data-lang="en"><p lang="es" dir="ltr"><a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/AYER?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#AYER</a> Compartimos con ustedes más imágenes sobre el temporal que están capeando las unidades afectadas al operativo de búsqueda y rescate del <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/SubmarinoARASanJuan?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#SubmarinoARASanJuan</a> <a href="https://t.co/qRKZWgdD7o">pic.twitter.com/qRKZWgdD7o</a></p>— Armada Argentina (@Armada_Arg) <a href="https://twitter.com/Armada_Arg/status/932676333208993792?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 20, 2017</a></blockquote>
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Conditions are making the search slow and difficult as Bluefin UUV vehicles search the depths with sonar scanning technology. When the submarine is located, a Submarine Rescue Chamber (SRC) can be attached to the escape hatch and carry up to six at a time back to the service as well as deliver much-needed oxygen to surviving crew members.
<img src="https://media.8ch.net/file_store/6a913ffdae844c1f04689b67274cb17d804f921e88decb40ba8a2e4a7dab7ec2.png" style="max-height:640px;max-width:360px;">
<span style="margin-top:15px;rgba(42,51,6,0.7);font-size:12px;">Credit: BBC</span>
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Source: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-42064144
