Indonesian officials say debris from a missing submarine was found after the vessel sank as hopes of rescuing 53 sailors on board faded.
The search team on Sunday focused on pinpointing the sub’s exact location. Authorities warned any salvage operation would be risky and difficult in the deep waters.
Singapore’s MV Swift Rescue – a submarine rescue vessel – arrived to aid in the recovery effort, the navy said. Neighbouring Malaysia as well as the United States, India and Australia were among the nations helping in the search.
There are few bonds stronger than that of sailors on a submarine. Each person selected for the crew must fulfill a critical role in an intricate interplay that allows a small metal vessel to dive deep in the sea for weeks at a time.
Corridors are so cramped that sailors cannot pass each other without one person giving way. The whir of the engine thrums, a constant reverberation felt in the teeth. Sailors are stacked in narrow bunks. They practice what one submariner calls “thrifty” breathing, in order to conserve the most precious commodity in a bubble that is cruising underwater: breathable air.
“It’s a very strong brotherhood,” said Frans Wuwung, a retired sailor who trained the crew of the KRI Nanggala-402, one of the Indonesian Navy’s five submarines. “We are friends for life.”
On Wednesday, well before dawn, 53 people descended underwater as the Nanggala began torpedo drills in the southern Pacific Ocean. It should have been a routine activity for the 44-year-old German-made submarine.
The commander of Indonesia’s five vessel submarine fleet, Col. Harry Setyawan, who had started his sailing career on the Nanggala after graduating at the top of his class from the naval academy, was aboard.
His family, like that of most submarine sailors, waited at home, their nervousness about his deployment leavened by the knowledge that he always came back.
“Submarine sailors are well trained,” said Winny Widayanti, Colonel Harry’s wife. “They are great people.”
About 3 a.m., the Nanggala was granted permission to begin the drill, in waters north of the Indonesian island of Bali. Its dark hull sank into the dark waters. Then silence. Sonar pings went unanswered. The Nanggala had disappeared.
The list of submarine disasters outside war is thankfully brief. But the drama of underwater struggles, as sailors desperately preserve oxygen while battling influxes of water or internal failures and explosions, is intense. And there are rare miracles. In the case of a Russian Navy submarine trapped in a fishing net in 2005, seven sailors were freed by a rescue crew just a few hours before their oxygen would have run out.
With Indonesian Navy officials counting the dwindling hours of breathable air aboard the Nanggala, ships and aircraft from multiple countries, including the United States, converged on the Bali Sea in hopes of locating the submarine. The fear was that the vessel might run out of oxygen as early as Saturday morning.
Then, on Saturday afternoon, Adm. Yudo Margono, the Indonesian Navy’s chief of staff, announced that debris found a couple miles from where the submarine had descended three days before, and he confirmed that the vessel had sunk to a deep seabed and fractured.
Some of the items found floating in the water had been disgorged from inside the Nanggala: pieces of Muslim prayer mats, special sponges for clearing condensation, and a bottle of grease used to lubricate periscopes.
No bodies of crew members have been found, Admiral Yudo was quoted saying.
Multibeam sonar technology indicated that the Nanggala had sunk 850 meters, Admiral Yudo said, far below what is called “crush depth,” where the pressure is so intense that a steel-hulled submarine could split.
Even if the Nanggala somehow landed in an underwater valley with one of its chambers unbreached by water, the chances of surviving at such depths for so long with limited oxygen is minuscule, said Susaningtyas Nefo Handayani Kertopati, an Indonesian military and intelligence analyst.
