Just saw a note that the Argentines have lost a sub

Read the following over at:
ARA San Juan RIP
{quote]The Argentine submarine ARA San Juan has been lost with all hands. It's crew included their Navy's first female submarine officer. No one has mentioned this on this site so I am.[/quote]
From wiki apparently the loss was a couple of weeks ago:
ARA San Juan (S-42) - Wikipedia
Here are some news articles from other sites:
Crew in missing Argentina submarine reported a fire, leak in final message
What happens when a submarine vanishes
Navy releases new timeline of hours before Argentine sub went missing - CNN
The San Juan’s Final Hours: The Loss of an Argentine Submarine
ARA San Juan: what happened to missing Argentine submarine?
I'd completely missed this and hadn't seen anything here on it either.

Even when I was young I'm not sure I'd have made a good submariner at this point I know I wouldn't. It takes a special kind of person to sign up for that job and my hats off to them in general. My condolences to the family and friends of the crew on this one.

 

Very thoughtful post, lwd, Terrible Christmas for the families of the crew. I know I would not have made a good submariner. I visited the UBoat monument near Kiel many years ago . I know they caused terrible destruction and carnage but could not help thinking about all those missing young men. I could not help just sitting down and cry.

 

I was aware and read some other articles. Thank you for the ones that you posted. I only hope that it happened fast and that they did not suffer. May they all Rest In Peace. When I was in the Navy, I would not have made a good submariner either.

 

Been following story...family members are calling the sub a piece of crap

 

I know little about Argentina's current military or political situation, but from what I read regarding the Argentinian military during the Falkland Island's war, they aren't the greatest maintainers and users of their machinery and weapons. During the Falkland islands war, many of the A-4's they used were grounded due too continual abuse and negligence on the part of the military, along with a lack of sufficient funding to repair the aircraft. I wouldn't be surprised if the submarine, built in 84, has not been kept up to safe and serviceable standards. As you said Blackwell, being a submariner would be absolutely terrifying for me, especially if I was having depth charges and mines go off around me hundreds of feet below the surface.

 

The submarine in question recently(2014?) went through a lengthy modernization(lengthy, only because it had to be prolonged for fiscal reasons).

 

Oh well that definitely changes things, this of course doesn't rule out a mechanical or technological failure of any sort. Potentially user error could be to blame, but like most tragedies such as this, we can only speculate, and we will probably never know what happened.

 

No it does not. However, rather than one failure/event, most are a series of events. Such seems to be the case here.

The submarine encounters rough seas, a possibly faulty snort allows water to enter a battery compartment possibly starting a fire, the batteries in the compartment are taken off line to prevent further damage or fire hazard to the submarine - limiting how fast and for how long she can stay submerged, the rough seas(for some reason) preclude the Captain from surfacing the damaged submarine so that she must continue her voyage submerged, at some later point the submarine begins taking on water - and without the necessary propulsion and/or emergency air pressure - cannot surface, and she sinks.

 

I don't have a lot of knowledge on sailing, let alone submarine science. At this point, all we can do is speculate, and hopefully within a few decades we can find the wreck and potentially determine a cause.