A court in Argentina has convicted a senior naval officer in connection with the loss of one of the country's submarines and her entire crew in the South Atlantic Ocean nearly nine years prior.
Local media reported that a federal criminal court has found Captain Claudio Javier Villamide, former chief of the Argentine Navy's Submarine Force Command, guilty of dereliction of duty and of negligently causing a disaster resulting in several deaths following the loss of the submarine ARA San Juan.
Villamide, who continues to claim his innocence, had been accused of making decisions that may have contributed to the submarine's loss.
On November 15, 2017, San Juan was on her way to participate in a military exercise. The submarine last made radio contact at 07:30 local time on that date when her captain reported an electrical issue with her batteries.
From that date, no trace of San Juan was found until November 16, 2018, when a remotely operated vehicle deployed from Ocean Infinity's subsea support and construction vessel Seabed Constructor located the boat's wreckage at a depth of over 900 metres some 500 kilometres east of the city of Comodoro Rivadavia.
Following the discovery of the wreck, a navy official stated that San Juan imploded after exceeding her rated crush depth of 600 metres. This resulted in a collapsed hull and debris being scattered over an area spanning 70 metres on the ocean floor.
In a report released in July 2019, a multi-party commission of legislators said that senior navy officials were at fault for San Juan's loss for allowing the submarine to participate in an exercise in the high seas despite being fully aware of a number of unresolved maintenance issues.
The night before the submarine's ill-fated voyage, the captain reported via radio that a fire had ignited in one of the onboard battery tanks after an undetermined volume of seawater entered through a ventilation system.
The following morning, the captain reported that the situation was under control as he ordered the helmsman to take the submarine to a depth of 40 metres before assessing the damage. All contact with the submarine was lost shortly afterwards.
The 2019 legislative report said that the navy had decided to continue operating the submarine even in the face of continually shrinking maintenance budgets affecting the entire fleet. The resulting maintenance issues were, "underestimated by the entire chain of command" and so were still left unaddressed by the time the tragedy occurred.
The navy had "accepted as normal" the decision to operate vessels under conditions that increasingly placed crews at risk, the report added.