Buenos Aires: The wreckage of an Argentine navy submarine that exploded and disappeared a year ago was located in the Atlantic Ocean on Friday, the Navy said, crushing any remaining hope for relatives of the 44 crew.
There has been “positive identification of the ARA San Juan,” at a depth of 800 meters, the navy said on Twitter.
The Seabed Constructor, a vessel owned by US search firm Ocean Infinity, made the discovery. It had set out in September on the latest attempt to find the San Juan, whose disappearance cost the navy’s top officer his job.
The navy lost contact with the San Juan on November 15 last year, about 450 kilometres (280 miles) from the Argentine coast while it travelled northward from the country's southern tip.
“I still had hopes that they could be alive,” Luis Niz, the father of a missing sailor, told reporters, even though President Mauricio Macri's government had already declared there were no survivors.
“We are with the other relatives. They are going to show us the photos. They say that our youngsters are inside,” said Yolanda Mendiola, the mother of crewman Leandro Cisneros, 28.
“We are all destroyed here.” The discovery came the day after a ceremony, which Macri attended, at the San Juan’s Mar del Plata base on the first anniversary of its disappearance.
