‘Hope and Hopelessness’ Mark Search for Missing Submarine

The Argentine Navy has described the ‘hope and hopelessness’ in the ongoing hunt for the missing ARA San Juan submarine, which vanished 10 days ago along with all 44 crew on board.

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Citing respect for the families of the missing crew members, Navy spokesman Enrique Balbi told a press conference Saturday that officials would not speculate on their fate.

“We are at a stage of hope and hopelessness at the same time,” Balbi told reporters. “We will not speculate beyond the facts as we know them.”

No sign of the vessel has been reported since November 15, shortly after the captain reported an electrical fault.

Reports of a sound detected underwater near the submarine’s last known position off Argentina’s southern coast in the Atlantic last week suggest it may have imploded at depth.  

Despite a massive international search effort involving ships and planes from Britain, the United States and Chile, no wreckage has yet been located.

Relatives of the 44 missing crew members, meanwhile, have been left in a state of emotional purgatory. Many have been critical of the official response, claiming the Navy was too slow in accepting international offers of assistance and that the vessel had not been properly maintained.

“The problem with being the loved one of someone who is missing is that the mourning process cannot start, because they are still out there somewhere,” local psychologist Guillermo Bruchstein said in a television interview Saturday. “They are gone, but are not ‘dead.'”

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The Argentine Navy has confirmed that seven ships are currently braving three-meter waves to map the ocean floor where the ARA San Juan is most likely to be found.

The U.S. Navy has deployed unmanned underwater vehicles, or “mini-subs,” equipped with sonar in the search. A Russian plane arrived in Argentina on Friday carrying search equipment capable of reaching depths of 6,000 meters.

Opposition politicians blamed the loss on a reduction in funding for the armed forces, whose budget has declined since the fall of a military dictatorship in the 1980s.

“The loss of the San Juan is a consequence of the fact that the abandonment and degradation of our defense forces has been an official policy,” Argentine Senator Pino Solanas of the independent Project South party told local radio on Saturday.

Concerns about the crew’s fate have set off a fierce political debate in a society sharply divided between supporters of President Mauricio Macri and opposition Peronists, who have been quick to find fault with the government’s response.

“Until we find the submarine and have all the information,” Macri said on Friday, “we are not going to speculate on who is at fault.”