This picture was tweeted by a Falkland Islands account, saying: ‘#ARASanJuan as she left port for the last time on Monday, Nov 13’
The 44 crew members on board missing Argentinian submarine ARA San Juan died ‘instantly’ and without suffering after a huge explosion, a former American Navy expert has claimed.
Acoustic analyst Bruce Rule concluded they were killed after the submarine’s hull was ‘completely destroyed’ in around 40 milliseconds, leading Argentinian daily La Nacion reported.
Mr Rule calculated the energy produced by the submarine’s collapse was the equivalent of the explosion of 12,500 pounds of TNT at 1,275 feet below sea level.
Quoting key parts of the report in an article published today, La Nacion said: ‘Although the crew may have known collapse was imminent, they never knew it was occurring.
‘They didn’t drown or experience pain. Death was instantaneous.
‘The entire pressure-hull was completely destroyed in about 40 milliseconds or 1/25th of a second.’
Mr Rule, described as the former lead acoustic analyst at the US Office of Naval Intelligence which is the US’s premier maritime intelligence service, concluded the submarine wreckage had sunk vertically at a speed of 10 to 13 knots.
ARA San Juan went missing on November 15 in the South Atlantic and although the search for the vessel is continuing, Argentinian Navy officials have admitted they are now only looking for a wreck.
Navy spokesman Enrique Balbi claimed on Friday as he announced the search area was being extended that looking for the missing sub was like trying to find a cigarette in a football field.
The vessel last made contact with commanders to report that water had entered the vessel through its snorkel and caused a battery fault.
It was advised to divert to the Atlantic resort of Mar del Plata to have the problem fixed and the captain later communicated via satellite phone the problem had been contained.
An explosion was later detected around the time and place where the ARA San Juan last made contact.
The crew members on board included Argentina’s first female submarine officer Eliana Krawczyk, 35.
Argentinian Navy spokesman Enrique Balbi confirmed they were aware of the report today and said it had been taken into account.
He added: ‘It’s another clue which has been taken into account but at the moment there’s nothing definitive. We are not ruling anything out.’
Mr Rule is understood to have based his analysis on an acoustic signal picked up near the submarine’s last known location and released by the Vienna-based Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organisation.
The report had been mentioned before today in specialist forums but was only revealed by the mainstream Argentinian press this weekend.
Relatives of crew member Gabriel Rodriguez of the missing ARA San Juan submarine leave the navy base in Mar del Plata
Relatives of the lost mariners of San Juan comfort each other as it is announced the search for survivors is over
Captain Enrique Babi, head of the search operation for the ARA San Juan, said on Thursday that the navy will be ending its rescue mission more than two weeks after the sub vanished
An eerie final photograph of an Argentinian submarine missing for almost three weeks shows it leaving port and dipping below the water’s surface to head out on its suspected doomed final voyage.
ARA San Juan went missing with 44 crew members on board on November 15 in the South Atlantic, and an explosion was detected near the time and location it vanished from.
Experts said the crew only had up to 10 days of oxygen if the sub remained intact under the sea.
The photograph was taken from the Aerolineas Argentinas 737 flight near Ushuaia, at the country’s southerly tip, two days before it disappeared.
It was tweeted by a Falkland Islands account, saying: ‘ARA San Juan as she left port for the last time on Monday, November 13.’
The crew’s families are demanding that Argentina’s navy reverses its decision to stop looking for survivors.
The navy said that the search was no longer considered a rescue mission but it would continue looking for the missing sub.
American and Russian ships will join five vessels from Argentina and a Chilean ship combing an area of some 1,500 square miles (4,000 square kilometers), where sonar detected three unidentified objects on the sea floor.
The Navy will continue searching for the wreckage of the vessel, Babi said, but admitted there are now no hopes of finding the 44 crew alive
Family members of the missing crew members collapsed in grief as Babi broke the news at the naval base in Mar del Plata, where the sub was travelling before it vanished
Emotions ran high as Babi announced his decision, saying the search had already been extended to twice the length of a typical rescue mission
Some family members have denounced the navy’s response to the sub’s disappearance as well as the age and condition of the vessel.
President Mauricio Macri has promised a full investigation.
The San Juan, a German-built diesel-electric TR-1700 class submarine, was commissioned in the 1980s and was most recently refitted in 2014.
During the $12 million retrofitting, the vessel was cut in half and had its engines and batteries replaced.
Experts say refits can be difficult because they involve integrating systems produced by different manufacturers, and even the tiniest mistake during the cutting phase can put the safety of the ship and crew at risk.
At the sub’s home naval base in Mar del Plata, relatives were hit hard by Thursday’s announcement. Some hugged and fell on their knees sobbing near a fence crowded with blue-and-white Argentine flags, rosary beads and messages of support.
Others took to social media to pay homage to their loved ones.
‘I stay with this image,’ Jesica Gopar, said in a tweet that included a photo of her husband, submarine officer Fernando Santilli, smiling and holding their young son in his arms.
‘He’s the most beautiful being that God could have put on my path 13 years ago,’ she wrote. ‘He’s a hero who must be recognized along with his 43 other crew members. I hope you didn’t suffer my love.’