Argentine Navy loses contact with sub-44 on board

originally posted by: Zaphod58
a reply to: pavil

That would be great if they were able to recover even some of the crew alive.

Let's hope.

A C-5M and two C-17s departed Travis AFB, California bound for Argentina today. They are carrying equipment and personnel to assist with the search, and hopefully rescue of the crew.

Still no sign, Not looking good at all. Apparently on duty off the coast of southern Argentina.

This sub was sunk on order from the british Royal Navy and the French navy and the Italian navy.
So much for having the former president Kirchner to capitulate ...

originally posted by: Flanker86
This sub was sunk on order from the british Royal Navy and the French navy and the Italian navy.
So much for having the former president Kirchner to capitulate ...

Any proof ?

A source?

and why would France or Italy be involved?

a reply to: kuhl

Because apparently the EU is even more responsible for every event in the world than the US normally is.

The seven signals were not from the sub after all. They reported a short in their batteries and were ordered back to port early before they disappeared.

CNN is reporting that two search vessels are reporting a banging sound that is similar to tools being hit against the hull.

www.cnn.com...

The Air Force has now sent 6 C-17s and 3 C-5Ms. They've flown 17 missions, including 76 sailors from the Undersea Rescue Command, and 764,000 pounds of equipment.

www.amc.af.mil...

I keep checking in on this thread when I notice an update.

I keep hoping for good news.

The Argentine Navy said the sounds heard earlier were not associated with the sub. They are approaching the end of their oxygen supply. They had 30 days of fuel and fuel, but 7 days of oxygen.

The US Navy has deployed four UUVs from the newly formed Unmanned Underwater Vehicle Squadron 1, from Pearl Harbor. One of the vehicles is a Bluefin 12D, capable of using side scan sonar down to 5,000 feet, for 30 hours. The other three are Iver 580s, capable of using the same sonar setup, down to 325 feet for 14 hours.

They've also deployed two P-8A ASW aircraft that join a NASA P-3 Orion that has been on scene since last week. The UK has at least one aircraft, and a ship involved as well. The search is being hampered by thunderstorms and high sea conditions in the area they're searching.

taskandpurpose.com...

It's believed the crew is on their last day of oxygen. Another British ship has been dispatched, along with the RN undersea rescue unit. The Argentine government has been taking a lot of heat from family members and citizens.

A group of far Left politicians called the British responders pirates and made remarks about the Falkland Islands. The President also apparently made remarks at one point that it was suicide to deploy such old ships.

www.telegraph.co.uk...

a reply to: Zaphod58

Argentina needs to understand that every sailor on a British ship searching right now are doing it because they genuinely want to rescue fellow mariners.
Heck the majority of every ships company won't have been born when the Falklands war was going on.

a reply to: TJames

The Argentine people, and most in the government do, and are grateful for everyone there helping. It was just a few idiot politicians looking to score points.

a reply to: Zaphod58

Got ya.
I bet everyone searching will feel a communal sense of loss when it becomes hopeless.
In times of peace matelot's look out for each other at sea.
This is a really sad story for so many families.

I've been following this one, hoping for a positive outcome, as time goes by this is looking less and less likely. I feel for those poor souls, knowing they're on borrowed time and, most likely, not being able to do a damn thing about it.

My heart goes out to their families too...

originally posted by: charlyv
If it is an electrical problem, it may be DIW on the surface. There are few things that could make it sink uncontrollably if it is purely loss of electrical power. Certainly, they would never try to submerge with any kind of problem.

Usually, there are emergency beacons and crank-up radio generators, if they had have such equipment. They are usually packaged in the life rafts.

I certainly hope that they are all ok. If they are on the bottom, it better be above crush depth, as conventional boats probably cannot maintain hull integrity lower than 900ft. God be with them.

Let's hope they have a hull made of titanium. I hope they are found quickly and safe.

From wikipedia:

Dive depth The dive depth cannot be increased easily. Simply making the hull thicker increases the weight and requires reduction of the weight of onboard equipment, ultimately resulting in a bathyscaphe. This is affordable for civilian research submersibles, but not military submarines, so their dive depth was always bounded by current technology. World War One submarines had their hulls built of carbon steel, and usually had test depths of no more than 100 metres (328 feet). During World War Two, high-strength alloyed steel was introduced, allowing for depths up to 200 metres (656 feet), post-war calculations have suggested crush depths exceeding 300m for late-war German Type VII U-boats. High-strength alloyed steel is still the main material for submarines today, with 250–350 metres (820 to 1,148 feet) depth limit, which cannot be exceeded on a military submarine without sacrificing other characteristics. To exceed that limit, a few submarines were built with titanium hulls. Titanium has a better strength to weight ratio and durability than most steels, and is non-magnetic. Titanium submarines were especially favoured by the Soviets, as they had developed specialized high-strength alloys, built an industry for producing titanium with affordable costs, and have several types of titanium submarines. Titanium alloys allow a major increase in depth, but other systems need to be redesigned as well, so test depth was limited to 1000 metres (3,281 feet) for the Soviet submarine Komsomolets, the deepest-diving military submarine. An Alfa-class submarine may have successfully operated at 1300 metres (4,265 feet),[2] though continuous operation at such depths would be an excessive stress for many submarine systems. Despite its benefits, the high costs of titanium submarine construction led to its abandonment as the Cold War ended.

The Argentine Sea is located in the South Atlantic Ocean off the southeastern coast of Argentina, extending from the approximate latitude of Montevideo, Uruguay, southward to Tierra del Fuego, and is situated about 500 mi (800 km) north of Antarctica. The Argentine Sea has a surface area of 390,000 sq mi (1,000,000 km2)[1] and is one of the largest seas in the world. The average depth of the sea is 3,952 ft (1,205 m) and the maximum depth is 7,296 ft (2,224 m).

Argentina's navy are investigating reports of a "hydro-acoustic anomaly" detected a few hours after a submarine went missing.

Mr Balbi told journalists: "Today is the seventh day, which was critical for oxygen capacity."
The loud noise happened four or five hours after the submarine's last radio contact, about 30 nautical miles (60 kilometres) north of its last-known position. "It's a noise," Mr Balbi said. "We don't want to speculate."
www.bbc.co.uk...

a reply to: Flanker86


There are sailors out there who may be dead or dying and you chime in with your BS. Give it a rest, will you?

Thirty ships and aircraft, along with approximately 4,000 personnel from the US, Argentina, Chile, the UK, and Brazil are involved in the search. The crew could possibly stretch the oxygen on board until Tuesday at the latest. Spain has sent several containers that can lower food an oxygen to the sub if it's trapped on the bottom. That would give them more time to formulate s rescue plan.

www.express.co.uk...