The high-tech ocean search firm that conducted the second sweep for missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 has located a missing Argentinian submarine.
Ocean Infinity confirmed Saturday that it had found the ARA San Juan, the Argentine Navy submarine November 15, 2017.
The discovery of the wreckage came two months of searching the seabed It was found in an Atlantic Ocean ravine in 920 metres of water about 600km east of the Southern Argentina port of Comodoro Rivadavia.
The submarine with 44 crew on board was returning from a routine mission to Ushuaia at the southern end of South American when it reported a problem with its batteries.
It was ordered to cut its mission short and return to the naval base in Mar del Plata but disappeared after a last message in which the captain reported the crew was well.
Argentinian authorities searched for two weeks without finding the sub and speculation was that a “hyrdo-acoustic anomaly” detected by the Vienna-based Comprehensive Nuclear Test-ban Treaty Organisation was the sound of the San Juan imploding.
Ocean Infinity took on the search on a “no find. no fee” basis similar to the one offered to the Malaysian government during the unsuccessful second search for MH370.
It committed to conducting the Argentinian search operation for up to 60 days using five autonomous underwater vehicles (AUV) operated by about 60 crew on the Seabed Constructor, the same vessel that searched for the missing Boeing 777.
The mission was observed by three officers of the Argentinian Navy and four family members of the San Juan’s crew.
“Our thoughts are with the many families affected by this terrible tragedy,” ocean Infinity chief executive Oliver Plunkett said. “We sincerely hope that locating the resting place of the ARA San Juan will be of some comfort to them at what must be a profoundly difficult time.
“Furthermore, we hope our work will lead to their questions being answered and lessons learned which help to prevent anything similar from happening again.”
The find demonstrates the effectiveness of Ocean Infinity’s technologically advanced search capability.
This allows it to use a fleet of autonomous AUVs to sweep big swathes of seabed at depths of up to 6000m.
The AUVs are equipped with a variety of tools including side scan sonar, a multi-beam echo-sounder HD camera, and synthetic aperture sonar.
The Seabed constructor is also able to deploy two work class ROVs and heavy lifting equipment capable of retrieving objects weighing up to 45 tonnes from 6000m.
The location of the MH370 wreckage remains a mystery after Ocean Infinity’s sweep of the area thought most likely to contain it ended without success earlier this year.
The company used a fleet of eight underwater drones to sweep an area of more than 112,000 sq. km without finding the wreckage.
The failure was a disappointment to experts from agencies around the globe who had pushed scientific boundaries in an attempt to find it.
READ CSIRO scientist says MH370 unlikely to be north or south of existing search area.
However, there are competing theories about whether the aircraft was controlled or uncontrolled at the end of its flight.
Many experts, including Australian air crash investigators, believe it was uncontrolled but some pilots say a controlled crash would put the crash site beyond the area already searched.
