After a year! The Argentine Navy finds ARA submarine
It was found this Friday, a year after having disappeared with its 44 crew members
Almost exactly a year ago, on November 15, 2017, the last contact with the ARA San Juan submarine took place while sailing in the Gulf of San Jorge, according to the newspaper El Tiempo. The submarine would have started its journey on November 8, a week before its disappearance, from Ushuaia, back to Mar de Plata.
Read in english: ¡Después de un año! La armada argentina encuentra el submarino ARA
This Thursday a year of its disappearance was fulfilled and the Argentine Navy organized a tribute in commemoration to the members of the navy that belonged to the crew of the ARA San Juan submarine. According to El Espectador, Argentine President, Mauricio Macri, participated in the aforementioned tribute.
The find
That same Thursday, November 15, a year after the disappearance and while the tribute was taking place, the Ocean Infinity company, which, according to El Tiempo, will charge 7.5 million dollars for the search, found the remains of the submarine to 800 meters deep and 600 kilometers from Comodoro Rivadavia, where the search operations center was located. Then, the next day, Friday, November 16, the army was able to confirm that the objects found belonged to the wanted submarine.
According to the spokesman of the navy to the TN channel, finding the submarine is only the first part of the process, because now the state of the ship must be known to decide how to proceed with what is found. The American company specializes in searches of this nature and had already been a few months in this particular case.
According to the spokesman, they had already started a new search and thanks to that they found the area where the submarine was. This company has equipment owned and brought the highest-end technology for this search, that's why it was selected. According to the Infobae portal, although the company requested the sum of 7.5 million dollars, it was explicit in the contract with the Argentine State that there would be no remuneration if the result of the search was not positive.
Read also: Colombia: the State Council curbs the use of fracking in the country
And now that?
This Friday the Argentine Navy, then, issued an official statement confirming the news. In his Twitter account, it was confirmed that the company had found the ARA San Juan submarine.
El #MinisterioDeDefensa y la #ArmadaArgentina informan que en el día de la fecha, habiéndose investigado el punto de interés N°24 informado por Ocean Infinity, mediante la observación realizada con un ROV a 800 mts de profundidad, se ha dado identificación positiva al #AraSanJuan
— Armada Argentina (@Armada_Arg) 17 de noviembre de 2018
Although this is great news for those who were in uncertainty about the fate of their families, according to El Tiempo, the authorities warned family members of the crew members that they had died on the ship and none had survived.
Now it is necessary for the navy to investigate what exactly happened to the submarine, whether it was a technical fault or a bad location issue. Already the authorities are reunited with the relatives, who are waiting for the decisions of the procedure of the Navy.
LatinAmerican Post | Juliana Rodríguez Pabón
Translated from: '¡Después de un año! La armada argentina encuentra el submarino ARA'
Listen this article
