Forums Forums National News Submarine Disaster

Another submarine in trouble, this time for the Argentinians.

Wouldn't you think submarines would have emergency beacons they could release and/or dye so that their position could be identified quickly.

Lets hope they are found in time.

They do have emergency radio beacons on board , so I wonder why the rescuers are not picking anything up from those. Maybe something catastrophic happened and the beacons were set on manual instead of automatic or something , and no -one could activate one . Not sure dye would be seen in a stormy sea, but if subs can launch weapons from underwater, youd hope they could also launch flare type things too wouldnt you . Again, could be down to a catastrophe . So upsetting for the waiting rellies , and terrifying for those on board . Fingers crossed for them.

Perhaps the more obvious thing to release is oil or fuel, spy planes are specifically equipped to sniff and spot them.

Presumably there has been a catastrophic failure of the electrical systems but you would assume there would be mechanical alerts of some type fitted, even if its a wind-up generator to power the emergency radio beacon - or perhaps just a battery.

If the main batteries have erupted then they really can be in trouble unless they got the area isolated fast enough.

They may not know it's location. Pacific is pretty huge and if its' dropped deep then could be impossible I suppose.

I doubt a dye would reach the surface. How many are there on board ? I thought I heard 40 +, but could be wrong.

Always wondered do subs float on their own and have to flood tanks in order to sink..if that's is the case one wonders if its just not bobbing around on the surface. How many ways out of a sub?? Inflatable liferafts on board?

If the sub is any depth you will probably die if you try to exit because of the sudden pressure changes, also if you don't have an air supply you won't be able to surface quick enough by holding your breath and they also know it is very stormy at the moment. It could be a last ditch thing to try when you are running out of air or options.

It is believed the sub would have been under water when it failed because of the stormy weather, to get it to float you would have to blast the water out the ballast tanks, while on old subs this was a mechanical operation using stored compressed air, these days its probably a bit more complicated.

I have a much better idea. Don't use submarines at all.

So DD The real problem could be mechanical electrical failure whilst submerged not allowing ballast tanks to be emptied..Not good. Lets hope the engineers on board can fix something up if that is the case

What I dont understand, is according to a CNN video I watched , the sub came to the surface to report the electrical fault in the batteries - so why on earth would they then submerge deep, to make the trip back to base? I would have thought any risk assessment would have judged that as a complete NO NO ??



The vid is a small part of this link , you may have to hunt.
http://edition.cnn.com/2017/11/20/americas/argentina-missing-submarine/index.html)

The battery fault was reported some time before they had real problems, its not uncommon for the odd battery to play up and they have procedures to cope with it.

They'd be far worse off getting tossed all over the place in the storm than under the water, when they dived they probably didn't know they had substantial problems.

I suppose, but why not just 40 ft down below the waves I wonder.Time is sadly running out now -heartbreaking.

You have to go a bit deeper than that, there is quite a swell underneath those waves for some distance plus for every wave there is a trough as well.

Unlike ships that have a controlled carve through water that stabilises them, submarines are pretty unstable, when you turn the rudder the whole thing spins so continually changing course to compensate for swell takes quite a bit of effort.

Also, the nearer the surface you are, the less stable a submarine is, which is why they don't stay at periscope depths for long periods of time, its just too much hard work.

Presumably modern submarines are fly-by-wire and all the hard work is done by a computer but I'm not sure if this sub is like that.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...ine-submarine-located-Navy.html?ITO=1490

Found it!

Let's hope ,it's not too late.

Not been verified yet , but lets hope it is , and that they are still alive .Must be agony for the families.