Argentina’s Navy has found no trace of the ARA San Juan, a submarine that went missing on Wednesday carrying 44 crew members, as fears grew that the vessel is set to run out of oxygen reserves.
“We are in a critical phase now on the seventh day,’’ navy spokesperson Enrique Balbi said Wednesday in Buenos Aires.
Hopes of rescuing the vessel’s crew before its week’s supply of oxygen runs out have been repeatedly raised and dashed by false alarms triggered by under-sea noises, a lifeboat and flare rockets, all initially thought to have come from the submarine.
Local media reported that a metal object at a depth of 70 metres in the southern Atlantic had been detected along the submarine’s planned route.
But thorough examination of the area showed no signs of the ARA San Juan, which last made contact with its naval base on Nov. 15 to give word of a battery glitch.
The crew was then ordered to take the shortest route to its home port of Mar del Plata, 400 kilometres south of Buenos Aires, Captain Gabriel Galeazzi, another navy spokesperson, said.
The navy has avoided associating the mechanical problem with the disappearance of the vessel and said it had sufficient back-up machinery.