Indonesia looking for submarine which may be too deep to greatly help
Indonesia's navy ships on Thursday were intensely searching for a submarine that likely fell too deep to retrieve, making survival chances for the 53 people up to speed slim. Neighboring countries rushed their rescue ships to support the complex operation.
The diesel-powered KRI Nanggala 402 was taking part in a training exercise Wednesday when it missed a scheduled reporting call. Officials reported an oil slick and the smell of diesel fuel nearby the starting position of its last dive, about 96 kilometers (60 miles) north of the resort island of Bali, though there's been no clear evidence they are from the submarine.
Indonesia's navy said it believes the submarine sank to a depth of 600-700 meters (2,000-2,300 feet) - more deeply than its collapse depth estimated at 200 meters (656 feet) by a company that refitted the vessel in 2009-2012. Ahn Guk-hyeon, an official at South Korea's Daewoo Shipbuilding and Marine Engineering, said most submarines collapse if indeed they go deeper than 200 meters because of strain on the hull.
He said his company upgraded a lot of the Indonesian submarine's internal structures and systems nonetheless it currently lacks info on the vessel since it hasn't been associated with any focus on the ship previously nine years.Frank Owen, secretary of the Submarine Institute of Australia, also said the submarine could possibly be at too great a depth for a rescue team to use. "
Most rescue systems are actually only rated to about 600 meters (1,969 feet)," he said. "They can go deeper than that because they will have a safety margin included in the design, however the pumps and other systems that are associated with that might not have the capacity to use. To allow them to survive at that depth, however, not necessarily operate."
