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Indonesia multiplies efforts to find the missing submarine on Wednesday north of the coast of Bali with 53 crew members on board. A few hours after the oxygen that could keep its occupants alive, if the device remains intact, the search tasks - in which up to 21 warships, patrol boats and helicopters participate, and that count with the help of other countries - they continue without bearing fruit. The Boeing P-8 Poseidon, a state-of-the-art US Navy aircraft designed for anti-submarine warfare and vessel interception missions will join the search team tonight. The Asian archipelago deployed the KRI Rigel-933 on Friday, a vessel with sonar capability - a technique that uses the propagation of sound under water to navigate,communicate or detect submerged objects - which is the last hope of finding the device before it is too late.
"The submarine is now in an immobile position, so that only sonar technology (from the English acronym SONAR) can detect it," Achmad Riad, spokesman for the Indonesian Armed Forces, said this Friday from Bali.
The sonar-capable warship was also used for search operations for the Air Sriwijaya company plane, which crashed last January with 62 people on board in waters near the capital, Jakarta, and whose second black box was found. three weeks ago.
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The supply of oxygen to the submarine, the KRI Nanggala 402, can last up to 72 hours after it was reported missing, a limit set at 3:00 a.m. on Saturday, local time (20:00 GMT on Friday). The ship, manufactured in the Federal Republic of Germany in 1977, was preparing to carry out military exercises with torpedoes after requesting permission to submerge at 3.00 on Wednesday, local time. Attempts from abroad to resume contact with the crew between 3.45 and 4.04 on Wednesday were in vain.
The causes of the disappearance of the submarine, the first major incident of its kind in Indonesia, are still unknown.
The Navy of the Southeast Asian country is contemplating the possibility that the submarine would lose power during the dive and could not activate the emergency device while it plunged to depths of between 600 and 700 meters, above its capacity (which allows it descend between 250 and 500 meters to be able to withstand the pressure).
Although the area where it is believed to be shallower, the Bali Sea can reach up to 1,500 meters.
"The priority is the safety of the 53 crew members," Indonesian President Joko Widodo warned, according to
The Jakarta Post.
“I put myself in the shoes of the family members of the crew. The Government is fully committed to the search and will continue operations until all those on board are found and rescued, ”added Widodo. To date, in the tracked area, about 100 kilometers north of the island of Bali, only one object of "high magnetic force" has been found, at a depth of about 50 and 100 meters, according to a spokesman for the Navy, Yudo Margono, in addition to a fuel spill located hours after the last contact with the submarine. This could indicate damage to the ship or be a signal sent by the crew, according to the Indonesian naval forces.
In addition to Indonesia, other neighboring countries are participating in the search efforts.
Two Australian frigates joined the operations on Friday morning, as a rescue ship from Singapore is expected to reach the waters of Bali on Saturday, and another from Malaysia on Sunday.
India has sent a specialized deep-sea rescue submarine.
The KRI Nanggala-402 is the oldest in the Indonesian fleet, which it joined in 1981. Another submarine that entered service that same year, the KRI Cakra, has been under maintenance since January 2020. The Asian archipelago, which It has been trying for years to modernize its military equipment and defense capabilities, it has a total of five ships of German origin, including the missing one, and three newer ones bought from South Korea.
