Lost Submarine found

Rashi Agarwal

The ARA San Juan, an Argentinian submarine that went missing one year ago has been found. The submarine was discovered in an undersea ravine more than 3,000 feet deep by the Seabed Constructor, a ship hired to locate the lost sub. The prevailing theory is the submarine was the victim of a fire that damaged its batteries, leading to an underwater explosion that eventually sank the sub.

Argentine Navy officials announced the discovery of the submarine on November 17th, sharing photographs taken of the sub by unmanned undersea vehicles. The submarine is scattered in pieces on the ocean floor, with the bow section, tail, and propeller all blown off the submarine.

The San Juan, one of Argentina’s three diesel electric attack submarines, disappeared
on November 15th, 2017. The San Juan was a German-made TR-1700 class submarines and one of the fastest diesel electric boats in the world. The submarines had six 533- millimeter torpedo tubes in the bow and could sail to a maximum depth of 980 feet. On the day it went missing, San Juan reported water had entered the submarine’s air snorkel, causing a battery fire. The submarine made one last communication, reporting it was proceeding on course, when the Argentine Navy lost contact with it. Despite an intensive search by navy forces including the US Navy, the submarine’s remains were never found.

On November 17th, two months after it had begun searching, the seabed exploration
company Ocean Infinity had a promising sonar contact on the bottom of the South
Atlantic. The company explained that it had several such contacts, but that there had
been many natural geologic formations that resembled the San Juan in both shape and size. The ship leading the search, Seabed Constructor, sent unmanned underwater vehicles to investigate the contact and returned with 67,000 photos of the missing submarine.