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SUBMISS Argentine Navy

GK .Dundas

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Contact lost sometime on the 15 th .
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-42030560
 
The sea is the enemy of all sailors, I hope these guys are safe.
 
This is a thirty four year old sub anything could have gone wrong and I hope they find it soon the clock is ticking.
 
https://news.usni.org/2017/11/17/nasa-aircraft-joins-search-missing-argentine-submarine-44-sailors-u-s-navy-submarine-rescue-crews-equipment-mobilizing

UPDATED: NASA, U.S. Navy Aircraft Join in Search for Missing Argentine Submarine, 44 Sailors; U.S. Submarine Rescue Crews, Equipment Mobilizing - Sam LaGrone - November 17, 2017 1:27 PM • Updated: November 18, 2017 6:26 AM

This post has been updated with additional information from U.S. Southern Command.

A NASA research aircraft has joined in the search for a missing Argentine submarine and its crew of 44 and a U.S. Navy sub-hunting aircraft is on the way.

A NASA P-3 Orion is now looking for the diesel-electric attack boat ARA San Juan (S-42), which has not been heard from since Wednesday, according to press reports from the region. Late Friday, U.S. Southern Command announced a U.S. Navy P-8A Poseidon left the Compalapa Air Base in El Salvador to join the search.

“U.S. Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) directed the U.S. Navy to deploy a P-8A Poseidon multi-mission maritime aircraft to Bahia Blanca, Argentina, Nov. 18 to support the South American nation’s ongoing search for the submarine A.R.A. San Juan in the waters of the Southern Atlantic,” read a late Friday statement from U.S. Southern Command.
“The aircraft and its 21-person crew will depart El Salvador’s Comalapa Air Base, where it was supporting counter-illicit trafficking maritime patrol operations. Once in Bahia Blanca, they will join the ongoing international search for the Argentinean Navy vessel and its crew, as requested by the government of Argentina.”

In addition to NASA’s P-3 and the Navy’s P-8, the Argentine Armada has dispatched destroyer ARA Sarandí (D-13), and corvettes ARA Rosales (P-42) and ARA Drummond (P-31).

“Detection has been difficult despite the quantity of boats and aircraft [in the search],”
Argentine naval spokesman Enrique Balbi told reporters.
“Obviously, the number of hours that have passed — two days in which there has been no communication — is of note.”

U.S. defense officials told USNI News the search has been hampered by rough weather in the Southern Atlantic. Earlier on Friday,

“We are investigating the reasons for the lack of communication,” Balbi said, according to Reuters.
“If there was a communication problem, the boat would have to come to the surface.”

The submarine departed from the Argentine Armada naval base in the southern city of Ushuaia, located southwest of the Strait of Magellan, and was headed to its homeport at Mar del Plata, near Buenos Aries. The submarine was last heard from about 250 miles off of Patagonia.

The NASA P-3, a modified anti-submarine warfare platform, had been operating out of Ushuaia as part of its annual Antarctic survey when it was asked to join in the search for the missing submarine, U.S. Southern Command spokesman Jose Ruiz told USNI News.

Outside of the aircraft, the U.S. has not been asked to contribute assets to the search but is preparing specialized submarine rescue equipment in anticipation of a request from Buenos Aries, USNI News has learned.

U.S. Navy Undersea Rescue Command is mobilizing the specialized submarine rescue equipment and personnel in San Diego to crew the Submarine Rescue Diving and Recompression System (SRDRS), two defense officials confirmed to USNI News.

The system can be transported via cargo aircraft and loaded onto a surface ship for rescue operations.

San Juan is one of three Argentine Armada submarines. The German-built TR-1700 attack boat joined the fleet in 1985 and completed a midlife upgrade in 2013, U.S. Naval Institute’s Combat Fleets of the World author Eric Wertheim told USNI News on Friday.

The following is the complete statement from U.S. Southern Command.

U.S. NAVY P-8A POSEIDON TO SUPPORT ARGENTINA SEARCH FOR SUBMARINE

NAVAL STATION MAYPORT, Fla. – U.S. Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) directed the U.S. Navy to deploy a P-8A Poseidon multi-mission maritime aircraft to Bahia Blanca, Argentina, Nov. 18 to support the South American nation’s ongoing search for the submarine A.R.A. San Juan in the waters of the Southern Atlantic.

The aircraft and its 21-person crew will depart El Salvador’s Comalapa Air Base, where it was supporting counter-illicit trafficking maritime patrol operations. Once in Bahia Blanca, they will join the ongoing international search for the Argentinean Navy vessel and its crew, as requested by the government of Argentina.

The P-8A Poseidon is the Navy’s newest maritime, patrol and reconnaissance aircraft and is configured with state-of-the-art sensors and communications equipment, allowing it to support a wide range of missions over large bodies of water, including sub-surface search-and-rescue operations. It can reach an airspeed of 564 mph, has a ceiling of 41,000 feet and a range of 1,200 nautical miles with four hours on station, allowing it to loiter over search areas.

In April, SOUTHCOM deployed a P-8A Poseidon to Galeão Air Force Base in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, where it took part in an internationally-supported search for The Republic of Korea ship, Stella Daisy, which tragically sank in the Southern Atlantic, off the western coast of Africa.

In the aftermath of Hurricane Maria, P-8A Poseidon aircraft conducted overflight assessment missions, capturing images of conditions on the ground in Dominica to support U.S. foreign disaster assistance operations led by the U.S. Agency for International Development.

SOUTHCOM is one of the nation’s six geographically-focused unified commands with responsibility for U.S. military operations in the Caribbean, Central America and South America.

 
SUBSAR was part of my purview when I was with FDU(P)...the one thing about these sort of incidents is that it can bring to bear a whole pile of international assets in hurry to help submariners regardless of nationality, as long as the country concerned asks for help.  ISMERLO (International Submarine Escape and Rescue Liaison Office) maintains a call system where undersea medicine and rescue personnel worldwide get emails/texts regarding all SUBMISS/SUBLOST/DISSUB and SUBSAR ops.  There are some remarkable assets out there from some surprising places actually. For more info, go to ismerlo.org

Fingers still crossed.

MM
 
Satellites may have detected signals possibly from the striken sub.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-42041978

Signals have been detected that are thought to have come from an Argentine submarine that went missing with 44 crew on board, officials say.
The defence ministry is now trying to trace the location of the seven failed satellite calls received on Saturday.
Argentina has stepped up the search in the South Atlantic for the ARA San Juan submarine, with a Nasa research plane joining in.
The diesel-electric vessel disappeared 430km (267 miles) off the coast.
Britain and countries in the region have offered assistance.
The task of the rescuers has been complicated by heavy winds and high waves.
Power cut?
The ARA San Juan was returning from a routine mission to Ushuaia, near the southern-most tip of South America, to its base at Mar del Plata, south of Buenos Aires.
Its last contact with the navy command was on Wednesday morning.
An Argentine destroyer and two corvettes are conducting a search around the area of the sub's last known position off the south-eastern Valdez peninsula.
But so far there are no clues about its whereabouts.
It is thought that the submarine may have had communication difficulties caused by a power cut.
Navy protocol dictates that a vessel should come to the surface if communication has been lost.
 
http://www.popularmechanics.com/military/navy-ships/a13810730/navies-team-up-argentina-san-juan/?src=nl&mag=pop&list=nl_pnl_news&date=112117

Video of the weather conditions and the Royal Navy’s Submarine Parachute Assistance Group (SPAG) at link above.


Article on the Royal Navy’s Submarine Parachute Assistance Group (SPAG) here:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/defence/10648941/Elite-Navy-rescue-team-always-on-call-to-help-submariners.html

World Navies Are Teaming Up to Find a Missing Submarine - Kyle Mizokami - Nov 20, 2017
The Argentine submarine ARA San Juan hasn’t been heard from in five days.

Navies worldwide are scrambling to assist Argentina in locating a submarine overdue since last Wednesday. The ARA San Juan, an aging diesel electric attack submarine, was last heard from on November 15th. In response, the navies of the world—including Argentina’s wartime adversary, the UK's Royal Navy—are mounting an international rescue effort.

The submarine was sailing from a base in the southern Tierra Del Fuego region of Argentina to its home port at Mar de Plata near the capital Buenos Aires. Shortly before it went missing, the captain reported a failure of the boat’s batteries as well as a second message with contents that have not been revealed. The submarine was supposed to arrive on Sunday, and its last known location was 267 miles off the coast of Argentina in the Gulf de San Jorge. Rescue efforts are concentrating within 186 square miles of the last known point of contact.

The Argentine Navy and Air Force quickly mounted a search effort, and a NASA P-3 Orion research aircraft already in the area joined in, along with a U.S. Navy P-8 Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft. A second Poseidon was dispatched to Argentina this weekend, and Argentina’s neighbors Brazil and Chile are also contributing ships and aircraft to the effort.

Poor weather is reportedly hampering the search, with rescue ships dealing with swells as large as two story buildings. A series of seven satellite telephone calls were originally thought to have been made by the San Juan but were later debunked. Today, November 20th, U.S. Navy officials told CNN that a series of banging noises that sounded like tools being struck against a ship hull were detected. The search is is now being narrowed down to a 35 square mile area within the original search area.

Despite antagonism between the United Kingdom and Argentina over the former’s possession of the Falkland Islands and the 1982 Falklands War, the UK immediately offered to send the nearby ice patrol ship, HMS Protector. The offer was accepted. The Royal Navy is also sending the elite Submarine Parachute Assistance Group, a team of airborne-qualified rescue specialists on six hour standby to assist in submarine emergencies, to link up with Protector.

Over the weekend, Three U.S. Air Force C-17 Globemaster III and one U.S. Air Force C-5 Galaxy aircraft transported a Submarine Rescue Chamber (SRC) and Remotely Operated Vehicles (ROVs) from Miramar, California to Comodoro Rivadavia, Argentina. Crucially, San Juan was built with the ability to mate with U.S. Navy deep sea rescue submersibles in emergencies thanks to a hatch standard the U.S. has encouraged other navies to adopt for decades for just this sort of situation. This should make it possible, if the submarine is located, for a ship carrying the Submarine Rescue Chamber to link up with and start offloading sailors from the stricken submarine. First developed during World War II and still used today, the SRC can rescue up to six sailors at a time at depths of up to 850 feet.

The U.S. Navy is sending a second rescue system, the Pressurized Rescue Module, early this week. The PRM is capable of offloading up to 16 trapped submariners at depths of up to 2,200 feet. Disabled submarines rarely land on the ocean floor on a totally level surface, and the PRM is capable, according to USNI News, of mating to submarines at 45 degree angles in both pitch and roll.

The U.S. Navy’s Underwater Rescue Command prepares a Submarine Rescue Chamber for air transport to Argentina, November 18, 2017.
The ROVs sent to Argentina consist of a Bluefin 12D (Deep) UUV and three Iver 580 UUVs from Unmanned Undersea Vehicle Squadron 1, based in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. According to a U.S. Southern Command press release, “both types are capable of deploying quickly and searching wide areas of the ocean using Side Scan Sonar, a system that is used to efficiently create an image of large areas of the sea floor. The Bluefin 12D is capable of conducting search operations at 3 knots (3.5 mph) at a maximum depth of almost 5,000 feet for 30 hours, while the Iver 580s can operate at a depth of 325 feet, traveling at 2.5 knots (2.8 mph) for up to 14 hours.”

The incident highlights the risks smaller navies are exposed to by operating submarines without an explicit submarine rescue capability. Only the largest navies, typically those who have endured tragedies in the past, maintain the sailors and equipment to get trapped submariners out of their boats.

The San Juan is one of the older submarines in service worldwide. Built in Germany, it was handed over to Argentina in 1984 along with a sister ship, Santa Cruz. The submarines displaced 2,300 tons underwater fully equipped and are 214 feet long. Each is equipped with the SMA MM/BPS-704 surface search and navigation radar, an Atlas Electronik sonar suite and Thales passive sonar arrays, and six bow-mounted 533-millimeter torpedo tubes for wire-guided torpedoes. The boats have a crew of eight officers and 21 enlisted sailors, or can alternately sail with a crew of 12 and 30 embarked Argentine naval commandos.



http://fox5sandiego.com/2017/11/21/argentina-missing-sub-could-be-out-of-oxygen-soon/

Argentina: Missing sub could be out of oxygen soon - , UPDATED AT 08:35AM, NOVEMBER 21, 2017

ARGENTINA — An Argentine navy submarine that’s been missing for nearly a week may soon run out of oxygen if it hasn’t surfaced, the country’s navy says — a scenario giving urgency to a multinational search for the vessel and its 44-member crew off Argentina’s South Atlantic coast.

The navy lost contact with the ARA San Juan submarine on November 15, shortly after the vessel’s captain reported a failure in the battery system while the sub was submerged, the Argentine military has said.

Ships and aircraft from at least seven nations have been scouring parts of the South Atlantic for the sub. On Tuesday, three vessels will move to an expanded search area, Argentine navy spokesman Enrique Balbi said.

“The search area is two times the size of Buenos Aires,” Balbi said Tuesday.

VIEW GALLERY (6 IMAGES)

A day earlier, the spokesman said the search had entered a critical phase because the ARA San Juan crew’s oxygen could run out by Wednesday in one of the worst-case scenarios.

Under normal circumstances, the vessel has sufficient fuel, water, oil and oxygen to operate for weeks without external help, Balbi said, and the vessel could “snorkel” — or raise a tube to the surface — “to charge batteries and draw fresh air for the crew.” The oxygen situation also could be helped, even if the vessel bobs adrift on the surface with the hatch open.

But if the sub doesn’t surface, oxygen might last only seven days, Balbi said. The vessel was submerged when the navy last made contact with it, and Tuesday would mark the sixth full day of its disappearance.

“This phase of search and rescue is critical,” Balbi said Monday. “This is why we are deploying all resources with high-tech sensors. We welcome the help we have received to find them.”

‘Short-circuit’ reported before disappearance
The submarine was traveling from a base in far southern Argentina’s Tierra del Fuego archipelago to its home base in Mar del Plata, a city hundreds of miles to the northeast, when the Navy lost contact with it last week.

The sub’s last known location in the San Jorge Gulf, off southern Argentina’s Patagonia region, is nearly midway between the bases. The vessel had been due to arrive at its destination Sunday.

Shortly before the navy lost contact with the sub, the vessel’s captain reported it had experienced a “short circuit,” Argentine navy spokesman Gabriel Galeazzi said Monday.

The captain was told to “change course and return to Mar del Plata,” Galeazzi said.

This type of problem is considered routine, and the crew was reported safe, he added.

There was one more communication with the captain before the sub went missing, Galeazzi said. The navy did not give details of its content.

The San Juan is a German-built, 65-meter long (213-foot) TR-1700 submarine, powered by one electric and four diesel engines, the Argentine navy said.

Approximations of oxygen in the vessel are complicated, said William Craig Reed, a former US Navy diver and submariner.

“It’s dependent upon the last time they actually recharged their batteries, how long ago they refreshed the air, what’s inside the submarine,” Reed said.

Peter Layton, a visiting fellow at the Griffith Asia Institute at Australia’s Griffith University, offered a scenario similar to Balbi’s: If the vessel had sunk but was still intact, Layton said, the crew would have about a week to 10 days of oxygen.

If the hull is intact, it can withstand ocean depths up to about 600 meters, Layton said. If the vessel is resting on Argentina’s continental shelf, it is likely in waters shallower than this, but if it’s farther out into the Atlantic Ocean, it could be below its “crush depth” in which the hull buckles under pressure.

The search
Ships and aircraft from Argentina, the United States, Uruguay, Brazil and other nations have been searching for the sub on the surface and underwater.

Earlier hopes that searchers may have heard communication attempts by the crew have not panned out, the military said.

For instance, noises that had been detected Monday initially were thought to be a possible distress signal from the crew.

But later analysis determined the noises were not from the missing vessel but instead might have been from the ocean or marine life, Balbi said.

The Argentine navy on Saturday reported seven communication attempts that were initially believed to originate from the San Juan. But officials said Monday those calls had not come from the missing sub.





 
There were earlier reports today that the USN believed they had located the sub in about 230 feet of water.  That speculation has now been dismissed by the Argentine Navy who admit they don't know where she is.  Hopefully they're on the surface somewhere as per their doctrine, as by now they should be out of oxygen if still submerged. 
 
OK your sub loses power how do you maintain buoyancy or do you sink like a rock ? I just dont see how this is going to end well for the crew.
 
Your buoyancy has little to do with power. It has to do with how your buoyancy tanks have been trimmed.

A submerged submarine is neutrally or possibly even very slightly negatively buoyant.

Most submarines that I am aware of have manual means to blow their tanks (displace the water with air from the compresse air storage tanks) and therefore make themselves positively buoyant,  but can only do that once or twice before recharging their air.

I see it as not a very good sign that the Argentinean sub was unable to manually blow. Or maybe they did, but could not stay on the surface for some reason and then sank- now without a reserve of air to try again. There has been no sign of either red flares or the submarine emergency buoy- also not very good omens.

I hope they are okay but...
 
Actually, T6, the original report is that the communication was lost in the middle of an actual transmission reporting electrical problems.

That entails that, if the event that caused the loss happened at the moment of interruption, the sub was on the surface or near the surface so a comm mast could be raised. If on the surface, the sub was already in positive buoyancy condition. If near the surface, the most likely trim is a small positive buoyancy from the "quick" tanks. That's preferred option for such operation. It means that you use the planes to slightly push down to maintain depth. It's easier that way than the reverse (slight negative) mentioned by SKT, and which is used when at normal diving depth and below.

As SKT indicates, the buoyancy is not directly related to the availability of electrical power, but of compressed air in the various air tanks, to be used by the authority of a certain number of people on board only (OOW, Captain, Chief of the boat) depending on the circumstances.

To my mind, there is a more ominous possibility here, and I sincerely hope it's not the case. If the sub was running on the surface at the time of transmission and (as there was a storm) the boat got rolled over by a wave from the side, it may have rolled far enough to lose the air in the ballast tanks from the bottom (the bottom of ballast tanks are opened to the sea, it's the air pressure in the tank that fills them or empties them) they would have sunk in a rolled over position. At that point, there is no amount of air in your various reserve that can save you because any air you use will also go right out of the bottom instead of pushing the water out.

One of the (unreported) fact that leads me to believe this is a strong possibility is the fact that there are no reports of the submarine emergency buoy's signal having been picked up. The buoy has it's own battery and is manual release to free float to the surface. With all the assets and the knowledge of the approximate whereabouts of the sub at the time of the last communication, getting the buoy's signal should have happened by now with all the assets in area, should it have been released.

That's where my fear comes from: No buoys would indicate it was either not deployed or if deployment was attempted, it was not in a position to float free: a rolled over submarine. On the other hand, the absence of such buoy may also (fingers crossed) indicate that there is no submarine emergency, just a complete loss of power/communications in which case, the submarine should be nearing it's destination any day now.
 
Thanks.Very informative.

https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/624/cpsprodpb/177D0/production/_98880269_missing_argenitine_submarine_640_v3-nc.png
 
Same...at least the Argentines are asking for help, unlike the Russians.  There are some Argentines, of course, that are looking the gift horse in the mouth from the Brits  ::).

MM
 
Not really sure of their security/economic zones...I'd imagine about 3-12 miles if it's anything like what we have.  The Argies claim to the continental shelf, so that the Falklands are encompassed.

MM
 
medicineman said:
Not really sure of their security/economic zones...I'd imagine about 3-12 miles if it's anything like what we have.  The Argies claim to the continental shelf, so that the Falklands are encompassed.

MM

Thanks
 
medicineman said:
Same...at least the Argentines are asking for help, unlike the Russians.  There are some Argentines, of course, that are looking the gift horse in the mouth from the Brits  ::).

MM

Looking at the route given I suspect they were poking around the Falklands at some point gathering intel or practicing such.
 
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