Indonesian authorities continue search for a missing submarine since this past Wednesday. Five ships and a helicopter form the deployment started for the rescue of the boat, with 53 crew on board and who lost track after diving for the rconducting naval exercises.
Contact with the ship was lost north of the island of Bali. Since then, more than 400 people have collaborated in the search mission combing the waters of the area, according to the director of the Indonesian Armed Forces Information team, Achmad Riyadh.
International collaboration
Several countries have offered their help in the search, through the shipping ships to expedite the rescue mission, such as Singapore, Malaysia and Australia. The Singaporean navy will make available to the search a vessel used to detect submarines, which is expected to arrive on Saturday.
Also, a Malaysian ship will arrive on Monday and Australian Foreign Minister Marise Payne said that they will help “as much as possible”, after being in direct contact with the Indonesian authorities to strengthen collaboration.
Moment of disappearance
The submarine KRI Nanggala-402, 1,395 tonnes and manufactured in Germany in 1997, disappeared while conducting military exercises with torpedoes at a depth of about 700 meters. The ship began the dive at 3:46 local time (20:45 GMT on Tuesday) and fifteen minutes later the maneuver of loading torpedo tube number 8.
The last communication with the submarine took place at 21:15 GMT on the same day and, before authorizing the launch of the torpedo, they lost the connection with the ship. At that time the ships participating in the maneuvers began the search, so far without success.
After four hours of searching, from a helicopter a fuel leak was detected near the area where the submarine disappeared. Indonesia currently has a fleet of five submarines: two of German manufacture (including the missing one) and three of South Korean origin.