What is ARA San Juan (S-42)?
The Ara San Juan (S-42) was an electric submarine in service with the Submarine Force of the Argentinian Navy from 1985. It was built in Germany by Thyssen Nordseewerke and the machine was updated in 2013. On 15 November 2017, San Juan went missing with 44 crewmen during a routine patrol on the South Atlantic coast of Argentina.
The submarine was believed to have suffered an electrical malfunction which eventually prompted a multi-nation search and rescue operation. Within hours of San Juan’s last transmission, the sound of an implosion was detected in the vicinity of the vessel’s last known location. On 30 November, the search and rescue operation was abandoned.
A year after the disappearance of ARA San Juan, the Argentine Navy reported on 16 November 2018 that the wreck of San Juan had been found at a depth of 907 metres, 460 kilometres southeast of Comodoro Rivadavia after the submarine had imploded.
What happened to the 44 sailors on ARA San Juan (S-42)?
Soon after it was discovered that the ARA San Juan had disappeared, a search and rescue operation was carried out by the International Submarine Escape and Rescue Liaison Office – an organisation of over 40 countries set up in 2003 after the Kursk submarine disaster. Despite tough weather conditions, a search was carried out around 482,507 square kilometres of ARA San Juan’s last known location.
Search efforts continued for several days, without success as the extreme weather conditions made the search for the submarine very difficult. Rafael Grossi, Argentinan national and director-general of the Vienna-based UN International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) proposed the use of the international hydrophones network to learn more about the submarine’s location.
On 23 November the Argentine Navy reported an event similar to an implosion had been detected around the same region as the submarine’s last known location. It was concluded that the 44 sailors on board had lost their lives. The ARA San Juan was the second largest loss of life aboard a submarine since the Chinese submarine 361 malfunctioned in April 2003.
How did ARA San Juan implode?
On 27th November 2017 a press release revealed that according to the submarine’s last report from 15 November, San Juan’s snorkel had leaked water into the forward storage batteries the day before, which ignited a fire. The crew extinguished the fire and continued onward, powered by the aft batteries.
On 30th November, 15 days after San Juan went missing, the Navy declared the end of the rescue phase of the submarine. Following this, an operation to search the remnants of the submarine on the seabed continued. Due to the odd details around the disappearance of the submarine, a criminal investigation was launched into the disappearance.
Were there any survivors of the ARA San Juan (S-42)?
On 16 November 2018, the remains of ARA San Juan were found at a depth of 907 metres, nearly 270 nautical miles from Comodoro Rivadavia, by a remote submersible operated by the Norwegian ship Seabed Constructor of the company Ocean Infinity. This private maritime company hired by the Argentine government.
Photographs from the seabed showed the shattered remains of the submarine broken up on the seabed. Ocean Infinity received a reward of $ 7.5 million (US) for finding the missing vessel. In a press conference around the same time, Captain Jorge Balbi, an Argentine Navy spokesman showed close-up photos of the wreck.
As there were no human remains found, a monument commemorating the 44 crew members who lost their lives in the wreck was unveiled in front of the Mar del Plata Naval Base on 24 October 2021.
What do you think of the ARA San Juan disappearance? What are your thoughts on the submarine implosion that inspired Netflix’s ARA San Juan: The Submarine that Disappeared? Let us know in the comments below.
you didn’t address WHY the government cancelled the search or it but then hired a private company who eventually found it…..all this a year after its disappearance.
Why?