Argentina fires head of navy over submarine tragedy

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Argentina fired the head of its navy a month after a submarine disappeared in the South Atlantic with 44 crew members on board, a government spokesman said on Saturday.

Letting go of Navy Admiral Marcelo Eduardo Hipólito Srur was the first known disciplinary action taken by President Mauricio Macri’s administration since contact was lost with the ARA San Juan on November 15.

"It was decided to remove him," a government spokesman said.

A bouquet of flowers and banners in support of the 44 crew members of the missing at sea ARA San Juan submarine are placed on a fence outside an Argentine naval base in Mar del Plata, Argentina, November 25, 2017. /Reuters Photo

Families of the crew members criticized Macri’s government for not clearly communicating with them and for abandoning rescue efforts.

The navy said on November 27 that water that entered the submarine’s snorkel caused its battery to short-circuit before it went missing. The navy had previously said international organizations detected a noise that could have been the submarine’s implosion the same day contact was lost.

Hope of rescuing survivors was abandoned on November 30. The navy said it searched for double the amount of time the submarine would have had oxygen. An international search for the submarine is still underway.

Search continues one month on

Argentina's Navy says it has investigated several false leads in its continuing search for the ARA San Juan submarine.

"In these 30 days of uninterrupted search efforts, we have investigated 27 contacts with the seabed with no positive results," the navy said in a statement.

The "contacts" turned out to be "sunken fishing boats, rocky formations" and other random objects, the navy said.

The Argentine Air force joined the search efforts with a Hercules C-130 military aircraft, while the Argentine Army supplied trucks to transport gear and equipment.

Relatives of the 44 missing Argentine submarine crew members demonstrating outside of Argentina's Navy base in Mar del Plata, on the Atlantic coast south of Buenos Aires, on Friday, 30 days after the vessel disappeared. /VCG Photo

Brazil, Chile, Russia, the UK and the US have also contributed specialized personnel, as well as planes, ships and high-tech search and rescue devices

"From day one, a team of psychologists, psychiatrists and doctors, both military and civilian ... has worked to support and aid each of the relatives of our 44-member crew," said the navy.

Relatives of the victims have been pressuring the navy to find the sub and retrieve the bodies of their loved ones.

The families called on sympathizers to protest Friday night in town squares around the country, "peacefully and without political banners," to demand that the search not be abandoned.

The ARA is believed to have sunk about 350 kilometers off the coast of southern Patagonia, following an explosion.

Search vessels have been sweeping the area where the submarine is likely to have sunk, but so far to no avail.

Source(s): Reuters ,Xinhua News Agency