ARA San Juan (S-42) was a TR-1700-class diesel-electric submarine in service with the Argentine Navy as part of the Argentine Submarine Force between 1986 and 2017. The submarine was built in West Germany and entered service on 19 November 1985. San Juan underwent a mid-life update from 2008 to 2013.
On 15 November 2017, San Juan stopped communicating during a routine patrol in the South Atlantic off the coast of Argentina. A multi-nation search operation was mounted to try to locate the submarine, which was believed to have suffered an electrical malfunction. Within hours of San Juan's last transmission, reports describe an acoustic anomaly consistent with an explosion, detected in the vicinity of the vessel's last known location. On 30 November, hopes of rescuing the crew alive were abandoned.
Video ARA San Juan (S-42)
Design
Built by Thyssen Nordseewerke, San Juan was laid down on 18 March 1982 and launched on 20 June 1983. It had a single-hull design, with a lightweight bow and stern and a watertight superstructure in the central part. Her sister vessel, ARA Santa Cruz, is the only other one of her type, though the program originally sought to produce a larger number of submarines.
Maps ARA San Juan (S-42)
Name
The submarine's name derives from the province of San Juan; the names of all Argentine submarines begin with the letter S. Past ships with the same name are a destroyer (1911), a surveyor (1929), and a torpedo boat (1937).
The prefix ARA is the acronym of the Argentine Navy in Spanish (Armada de la República Argentina).
Operational history
The submarine entered service on 18 November 1985.
In 1994, during the FleetEx 2/94 "George Washington" exercise with the United States Navy, San Juan managed to avoid detection by US antisubmarine forces for the entire duration of the war game, penetrating the destroyer defense and "sinking" the command ship USS Mount Whitney. The submarine has taken part in other exercises including Gringo-Gaucho and UNITAS.
A mid-life update was carried out in Argentina between 2008 and 2013, taking longer than expected due to budget constraints. The upgrade cost around 100 million pesos ($12.4 million) and comprised more than 500,000 work hours during which the submarine was cut in half and had her four MTU engines and batteries replaced. The updates were carried out at the Argentine Industrial Naval Complex's (CINAR) Tandanor and Storni shipyards. Later, San Juan was tasked with carrying out surveillance exercises in the economic zone around Puerto Madryn, particularly in the role of combating illegal fishing.
Disappearance and rescue efforts
On 17 November 2017, it was announced that she had not been heard from since 15 November when the vessel was on its way to Mar del Plata from Ushuaia following a military exercise, and that a search and rescue operation had been launched 200 nautical miles (370 km; 230 mi) southeast of San Jorge Gulf. There were 44 servicemen on board the missing submarine, including Argentina's first female submarine officer, Eliana María Krawczyk. The submarine carried oxygen for no more than seven days when submerged.
The search and rescue operation was carried out under the auspices of ISMERLO, an international organisation of over 40 countries set up in 2003 following the Kursk submarine disaster. The search area was 482,507 square kilometres (186,297 sq mi) in size and weather conditions throughout the search and rescue period changed, making the task far more difficult on days with large waves and high winds.
On 23 November the Argentine Navy said an event consistent with an explosion had been detected, on the day the submarine lost communications, by CTBTO seismic anomaly listening posts on Ascension Island and Crozet Islands.
By 24 November, the search and rescue operation to find San Juan involved more than 30 aircraft and ships from Argentina, the United Kingdom, Brazil, the United States, Chile and other countries. In all, more than 4,000 personnel from 13 countries assisted the search, scouring an area the size of Spain.
On 27 November, it was revealed to the press that according to the submarine's last report from 15 November, San Juan's snorkel leaked water into the forward storage batteries the day before, which ignited a fire. After quenching the fire, the crew disconnected the forward storage batteries. The submarine continued to move powered by the aft batteries.
On 30 November, 15 days after San Juan went missing, the Navy declared the rescue part of the operation to be over, turning its attention to finding the submarine and not her crew. The loss of 44 crewmen constitutes the largest loss of life aboard a submarine since the Russian Kursk sank on 12 August 2000.
Gallery
See also
- List of active Argentine Navy ships
- List of submarines of Submarine Force Command
- List of submarine incidents since 2000
Footnotes
References
Further reading
- Amendolara Bourdette, Ignacio (2005). Guia de los buques de la Armada Argentina 2005-2006 (in Spanish and English). Buenos Aires, Argentina. ISBN 987-43-9400-5.
- Burzaco, Ricardo (1999). SUBMARINOS DE LA ARMADA ARGENTINA 1933 - 2000 (in Spanish). Buenos Aires, Argentina: Eugenio B. ISBN 9789879676417.
External links
- Latin-American Submariners Community website (in Spanish)
- Argentine Submarine Force official website - Archived page (in Spanish)
- (in Spanish) Argentine Navy official website - Submarine Force page (Poder Naval - Fuerza de Submarinos - Unidades (accessed 2017-02-04)
- Submarine Shipyard Nordseewerke official site (in German)
- CN (RS) Carlos A Zavalla. "LA ENTREGA DEL SUBMARINO SAN JUAN" (in Spanish). Fundacion Histarmar. Retrieved 9 December 2017.
- Carlos Mey. "TR-1700, Imagenes del Interior" [ARA San Juan, interior pictures] (in Spanish). Fundacion Histarmar. Retrieved 10 December 2017.
Source of article : Wikipedia
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