The submarine, the San Juan, was located almost 2,600 feet below the ocean’s surface by a private company that the government hired after an international search failed to find the vessel, which disappeared on Nov. 15, 2017.
The announcement came in a tweet: “There has been a positive identification of the #AraSanJuan.”
A spokesman for the navy, Rodolfo Ramallo, said the discovery of the San Juan “closes one chapter and opens another.”
“Based on the state of the submarine, we will have to determine what happened,” he said.
The submarine disappeared during a routine trip from Ushuaia in the Patagonia region to Mar del Plata in Buenos Aires Province. Eight days later — in the midst of recovery operations that covered 186,000 square miles — the navy announced that an explosion had been recorded near the submarine’s last known location, just hours after its final communication with the military.
The explosion came to light only after analysts from the United States government and an international nuclear weapons monitor detected it and notified the Argentines. Vessels from Brazil, Britain, Chile, Russia and the United States, among others, combed the seas as part of the search.
Daniel Esteban Polo, 56, whose 32-year-old son Daniel Alejandro Polo had been aboard the San Juan, said early Saturday that he was on his way to join other relatives of the missing sailors. “I’m going to Mar del Plata to be with my wife and everyone else,” said Mr. Polo, who lives in the suburbs of Argentina’s capital.
Over the past year, the naval base in Mar del Plata has become a gathering point for relatives of the crew, waiting for news about their loved ones. Just two days ago, family members and others gathered there to commemorate the first anniversary of the submarine’s disappearance.
At that ceremony Thursday, President Mauricio Macri promised the families that the search would continue until the San Juan was found. “I want to tell you that we won’t abandon you,” he said.
It was unclear on Saturday whether the military would be able to bring the San Juan to the surface. If not, Mr. Ramallo said, the navy may be able to use images to analyze the vessel for answers about its disappearance.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 |
Eliana Krawczyk
(enda kvinnan bland U-båtens besättning
enligt den argentinska tidningen Clarín)
|
