Authorities in Indonesia believe that a missing submarine with 53 crew members cracked and sunk, leaving almost no hope of finding survivors. The KRI Nanggala-402 submarine went missing early Wednesday (April 21) morning, shortly after submerging during a torpedo drill in the southern Pacific Ocean.
The military launched a massive search for the submarine on Thursday, which included 24 ships and a patrol plane to scour to the ocean for any signs of the submarine. The United States, Australia, Singapore, Malaysia, and India all sent ships and aircraft to aid in the desperate search.
They focused the search near an oil slick, which officials said could have been from a crack in the submarine or an intentional effort by the crew to release the fuel so they could float.
On Saturday, officials said that rescuing the crew was no longer an option as they would have run out of oxygen. The search crews also found several items, including prayer mats, a can of engine grease, and part of a torpedo tube that came from inside the submarine, indicating that the vessel likely cracked as it sank to the ocean floor.
Officials said that sonar indicated that the Nanggala had sunk nearly 2800 feet. At that depth, the pressure is so intense that it could cause the steel hull of the submarine to buckle and split. They do not know why the submarine submerged to that depth. They are working to locate the exact location of the sub so they can recover it and the bodies of the sailors who are believed to have lost their lives.
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