Missing Argentine submarine had reported electrical malfunction
An Argentine military submarine reported an electrical problem and was headed back to base when it went missing last week in the South Atlantic, the navy said on Monday, while storms complicated efforts to find the vessel and its 44 crew members, APA reports quoting Reuters.
Hopes for a successful search for the ARA San Juan submarine, which went missing last Wednesday off the Argentine coast, waned when the navy said satellite calls detected over the weekend did not in fact come from the vessel.
More than a dozen boats and aircraft from Argentina, the United States, Britain, Chile and Brazil joined the search effort. Authorities have mainly been scanning the sea from the sky, as storms have made it difficult for boats.
Gabriel Galeazzi, a naval commander, told reporters that the submarine had come up from the depths and reported an electrical malfunction before it disappeared 268 miles (432 km) off the coast.
“The submarine surfaced and reported a malfunction, which is why its ground command ordered it to return to its naval base at Mar del Plata,” he said.
The malfunction did not necessarily cause an emergency, Galeazzi added. The craft was navigating normally, underwater, at a speed of five knots toward Mar del Plata when it was last heard from, he said.
“A warship has a lot of backup systems, to allow it to move from one to another when there is a breakdown,” Galeazzi said.
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