The missing Indonesian submarine may have descended too deep to rescue, navy says

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The missing Indonesian submarine may have descended too deep to rescue, navy says
An KRI Nanggala-402 submarine owned by Indonesia, the same model as the one that went missing on Wednesday.Alex Widojo/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images
  • The KRI Nanggala-402 went missing near the island of Bali early Wednesday with 53 people aboard.
  • Indonesia's navy said Thursday that the ship might have sunk 700 meters below sea level.
  • Experts say the submarine is unlikely to survive that far down, and rescue crews can't operate past 600 meters.
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A missing Indonesian submarine may be too deep to rescue successfully, the country's navy has said.

The navy has been searching for the KRI Nanggala-402 in waters north of the island of Bali since it missed a scheduled check-in on Wednesday morning. Fifty-three people, more than the roughly three dozen the sub was built to carry, are aboard the boat.

Indonesia's navy now believes the submarine could have sunk to a depth of 700 meters, or 2,297 feet, the Associated Press reported.

A navy spokesman, Julius Widjojono, told a local TV network that the submarine could survive up to a depth of 500 meters but that the vessel's hull would be in danger of collapsing beyond that.

"Anything more than that can be pretty fatal, dangerous," he said, according to Reuters.

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Speaking with Agence France-Presse, Vice Adm. Antoine Beaussant of the French navy said of the submarine: "If it went down to rest at 700 meters, the likelihood is it would have broken up."

The missing Indonesian submarine may have descended too deep to rescue, navy says
The KRI Nanggala-402 submarine.M Risyal Hidayat/Antara Foto via Reuters

'It is unlikely to survive'

Bryan Clark, a former US Navy submarine officer and current defense expert at the Hudson Institute, told Insider that "if a small diesel submarine like the Indonesian one goes down in 2,000 feet of water, it is unlikely to survive" given that it is well beyond the vessel's maximum depth.

Rescue crews also can't operate properly below a depth of 600 meters, experts said.

"Most rescue systems are really only rated to about 600 meters," Frank Owen, the secretary of the Submarine Institute of Australia, told the AP.

"They can go deeper than that because they will have a safety margin built into the design, but the pumps and other systems that are associated with that may not have the capacity to operate. So they can survive at that depth, but not necessarily operate."

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The cause of the submarine's disappearance is not yet clear.

Clark explained to Insider that flooding is a big problem for submarines, but "it is unusual for an accident to sink a submarine, since they have many safety systems designed to prevent water from coming into the ship and emergency blow systems to come back up to the surface if flooding does occur."

Onboard safety systems can also be used to respond to other contingencies that could result in a loss of neutral buoyancy, but while there are such systems in place, mechanical failures could render them ineffective, he said.

What caused the disappearance?

The Indonesian navy said Wednesday that a power failure might have occurred.

"It is possible that during static diving, a blackout occurred so control was lost and emergency procedures cannot be carried out and the ship fell to a depth of 600 to 700 meters," the navy said in a statement published by Reuters.

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The missing Indonesian submarine may have descended too deep to rescue, navy says
Indonesian navy ships arrive at the naval base in Banyuwangi on April 22, 2021, to join in the search for the submarine.(AFP via Getty Images)

The navy added that during rescue attempts it had discovered an oil spill on the surface of the ocean, which could mean the submarine's fuel tank was damaged.

Time is running out

In an update Thursday, the navy said it had not found any other sign of the submarine, according to Reuters.

Authorities added that the submarine's crew had enough oxygen to last until 3 a.m. local time Saturday.

The KRI Nanggala-402 is old by naval standards. The 1,400-ton vessel was made by Germany in the late 1970s, and a two-year refurbishment was completed in 2012 in South Korea, the BBC said.

The Indonesian navy told the BBC it was the first time one of its submarines had gone missing.

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