Argentina: water caused battery to short circuit in missing submarine

A navy spokesman said that water entered the snorkel of the missing ARA San Juan causing the battery to short circuit as hopes fade

(Photo: Sky News)
(Photo: Sky News)

Water reportedly entered the snorkel of the missing Argentinian submarine ARA San Juan, causing the battery to short circuit before it went missing on 15 November, said a navy spokesman on Monday.

Hope is dwindling, as the San Juan only had a seven-day oxygen supply when it lost contact. A sudden noise was detected, which the navy said could have been the implosion of the vessel.

Ships with rescue equipment from Russia and the US joined the search.

Prior to its disappearance, the submarine was ordered back to its Mar del Plata base, after it reported water had entered the vessel through its snorkel, causing a battery short circuit, said spokesman Enrique Balbi.

“They had to isolate the battery and continue to sail underwater toward Mar del Plata, using another battery,” Balbi said.

After contact with the San Juan was lost, the Vienna-based Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization, an international body which runs a global network of listening posts designed to check for secret atomic blasts, detected a noise the navy said could have been the submarine’s implosion.

Relatives of crew members of the ARA San Juan
Relatives of crew members of the ARA San Juan

The search for the 65-metre diesel-electric submarine is concentrated in an area about 430 km off Argentina’s southern coast.

The effort includes ships and planes manned by 4,000 personnel from 13 countries, Britain, Brazil and Chile.

Among the crew’s family members, fissures started appearing on Monday between those who refuse to give up hope and those who say it is time to accept that their loved ones will not come back alive.

Some relatives have said they are focusing on the lack of physical evidence of an implosion and the possibility that the submarine might have risen close enough to the ocean surface to replenish its oxygen supply after it went missing.

But Itatí Leguizamón said she believed her husband, the crew member German Suárez, died.

Itati Leguizamon, wife of submariner German Suarez branded the Navy “perverse bastards” for allowing families to continue to believe their loved ones could be found alive (Photo: Sky News)
Itati Leguizamon, wife of submariner German Suarez branded the Navy “perverse bastards” for allowing families to continue to believe their loved ones could be found alive (Photo: Sky News)

“There is no way they are alive,” she told reporters.

“It is not that I want this. I love him. I adore him. He left his mother and sister behind, but there is no sense in being stubborn.

“The other families are attacking me for what I am saying,” she said, “but why have they not found it yet? Why don’t they tell us the truth?”