“The sub would sink very fast, like a stone,” said Soleman B. Missing submarine with 80 sailors found full#But a defense expert, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal navy information, said that the submarine had not undergone a full maintenance since May 2018. The Indonesian Navy said that the submarine’s paperwork was in order. “The navy chief must take responsibility.”īuilt in 1977, the Nanggala was completely refitted in South Korea in 2012. “It was forced into this activity in Bali, very forced,” she said. Susaningtyas Nefo Handayani Kertopati, an Indonesian military and intelligence analyst, raised questions about whether the speed with which the submarine was redeployed allowed enough time for maintenance. The Indonesian Navy chief ordered the submarine to run through the exercise again, which was what the vessel was preparing to do when it went missing, Admiral Widjojono said. Julius Widjojono, a spokesman for the Indonesian Navy. But that drill ended “imperfectly,” with the torpedo missing its target, said First Adm. Shortly before it disappeared, the Nanggala was part of another torpedo exercise. “The Indonesian boat most likely went down through an internal problem, through flooding through a pipe that gives way or a battery explosion,” said Norman Polmar, an American submarine historian. Military officials said there were no survivors. On Sunday, Indonesian officials confirmed that the submarine had broken into three pieces at 838 meters deep - below the so-called crush depth where the pressure is so intense that it splits submarines. 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. 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. The fear was that the vessel might run out of oxygen as early as Saturday morning. 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. It should have been a routine activity for the 44-year-old German-made submarine. On Wednesday, well before dawn, 53 people descended underwater as the Nanggala began torpedo drills in the southern Pacific Ocean. “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. 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. The whir of the engine thrums, a constant reverberation felt in the teeth. 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.Ĭorridors are so cramped that sailors cannot pass each other without one person giving way. There are few bonds stronger than that of sailors on a submarine.
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