The international search for the 44 crew of the missing ARA San Juan submarine has officially been called off by the Argentine Navy, although the search for the vessel will continue in shallow waters.
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The announcement was made Thursday, a full 15 days after an explosion is believed to have sent the ill-fated vessel to the depths of the Atlantic ocean off the coast of Patagonia.
The ARA San Juan had a seven-day supply of air when it reported its last position on Nov. 15. The crew had been ordered to return to a naval base in Mar del Plata after reporting water had entered the vessel through its snorkel.
"More than double the number of days have passed where it would have been possible to rescue the crew," navy spokesman Enrique Balbi told a news conference. "We will continue the search... there will not be people saved."
Balbi said 28 ships, nine planes and 4,000 people from 18 countries were involved in the search covering 557,000 nautical miles; more, including radar monitoring.
"Despite the magnitude of the effort made, it has not been possible to locate the submarine," he said, referring to the international response that included ships, aircraft and personnel from the United States, United Kingdom, Chile and Russia.
At the same time, Balbi insisted that efforts to find the German-built ARA San Juan would continue to a maximum depth of 500 meters – an announcement met with anger by relatives of the missing 44 crew.
Luis Taglapietra, whose son Damián was a 27-year-old trainee, told the TN news channel: "This is perverse and impossible to understand. They’re playing word games. What they are really saying is that they’re not going to be looking for it any more."
Speaking separately to the Guardian, Taglapietra, a lawyer who has been asked to represent several of the crew’s families, said: "They lied to us from the start. We don’t know what happened and it’s impossible to tell the truth from fabrication."
The San Juan went missing November 15 after losing radio contact with its home naval base in Mar del Plata, but it was not until two days later that the navy revealed that the submarine had gone missing.