I want to set things right, and remember the crew of this ship, who are now on eternal patrol in her.
Below: ARA San Juan in May of 2017, six months before she was lost with all hands.
Among San Juan's crew of 44 was Argentina's first female officer, possibly making her the first woman to die in a submarine.
San Juan was a TR-1700 class diesel-electric submarine, built in 1984 in West Germany under contract for Argentina. A small ship, she weighed in at just 2200 tons. Her propulsion system consisted of four diesel generator sets, an electric motor for propulsion, and eight 120 cell batteries for submerged operation. Her top speed was 25 knots, and her maximum operating depth was a respectable 300 meters (980ft).
She was underway on a routine training mission, transiting from Ushuaia at the Southern tip of South America, to the Navy base at Mar del Plata, about 240 miles south of Buenos Aries.
On November 15, 2017, San Juan made her last radio transmission. Her snorkel mast head valve had apparently failed, resulting in some flooding and a fire in the forward batteries. The fire had been put out and batteries had been disconnected. She was making headway using the aft batteries.
Two days later, on November 17, it was announced that the San Juan was missing. A search and rescue operation was initiated, with no success in locating the missing ship. On November 30 the rescue was called off.
Almost a year to the day that San Juan sank, her wreckage was located at 45° 56′ 59″ S, 59° 46′ 22″ W, at a depth of 900 meters (3000ft) following an exhaustive search. Photos of the ship have been published. I do not post such photos here out of respect for the crew and their families.
Below is a Google Earth image of San Juan's starting point, destination, and final resting place. Falkland Islands are to the right in this image.
A belated rest in peace, brothers and sister.
2 comments:
Love your blog, keep up the great work, sir.
Have you posted about, or do you have any thoughts on, the crash of the USS San Francisco near Guam a few years back? Thanks again, for your very cool blog!
Hi Judas,
I have not posted anything about the San Francisco. It was an interesting mishap for sure though. I might just do a few posts on undersea collisions. There have been a few of those, most of which were covered up, and that alone makes them very interesting!
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