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Clock ticking for missing sub crew
Urgency of search mounts as vessel's oxygen supply runs out
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uthorities are racing against time to locate and rescue the 53 sailors on board the KRI Nanggala-402 submarine, which has been missing off Bali since early on Wednesday, with the crew dependant on a rapidly dwindling oxygen supply in the vessel.
Navy chief of staff Adm. Yudo Margono told a press briefing on Thursday that the missing submarine had sufficient oxygen for three days.
“Its oxygen reserve capacity is 72 hours. Since it lost contact at 3 a.m. yesterday [Wednesday], the oxygen supply is expected to last until Saturday at 3 a.m.,” Yudo said in Bali. “Hopefully we can soon locate [the submarine] while the oxygen supplies are still adequate.”
He said the submarine was in good condition and was conducting a drill before the incident, weather conditions in the waters near the location of the exercise were moderate.
The 44-year old submarine made its last contact when asking permission to dive into deeper water for a torpedo-firing exercise. Officials attempted to re-establish contact between 3:46 a.m. and 4:04 a.m. local time but failed to get a response from the crew.
The Navy previously suspected that a blackout occurred on the Nanggala during the dive, causing the crew to lose control of the submarine and preventing the initiation of emergency procedures.
Yudo said the KRI Pulau Rimau-724, one of the vessels deployed to search for the submarine, had detected an object with a “high magnetic level” at a depth of between 50 and 100 meters, but added that further checks needed to be carried out to confirm whether it was the location of the missing submarine.
Yudo said that as of Thursday, there was no "definite proof” that the submarine had sunk.
Read also: Warships deployed to to find missing submarine with 53 aboard
President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo said his administration had mobilized all available resources for search and rescue operations, adding that ensuring the safety of the crew members was “a priority.”
“I understand the feelings of the families of the crew members at the moment. The government is engaged in and will continue operations to find and rescue all crew members on board the submarine,” he said.
At least four Navy vessels have been deployed to search for the missing submarine, namely the KRI Raden Eddy Martadinata-331, KRI I Gusti Ngurah Rai-332, KRI Diponegoro-365 and KRI Pulau Rimau-724.
They will soon be joined by the Singaporean navy’s rescue vessel the MV Swift Rescue, which is expected to arrive at the search location on Saturday, and Malaysian vessel the MV Mega Bakti, expected to arrive on early Sunday.
The KRI Nanggala-402 is the oldest active attack submarine in the Navy’s fleet. The 1,395-ton attack submarine was manufactured in Germany in 1977 and entered into service in 1981. Another Indonesian submarine that entered into service in the same year, the KRI Cakra, has been in maintenance since January last year.
Indonesia currently has five submarines in its fleet, including three newer vessels as part of a US$1.1 billion contract signed in 2011 with South Korea’s Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering.
Defense Minister Prabowo Subianto said the government was expected to have a new long-term procurement masterplan for its weapons systems, in a bid to replace its ageing defense equipment.
“President [Jokowi] ordered me last year to formulate a 25-year masterplan together with the TNI [Indonesian Military] leadership,” said Prabowo in Bali on Thursday. “We need to replace our ageing equipment quickly.”
Read also: The Type 209: a German submarine sold around the world
It is unclear whether the masterplan Prabowo referred to will replace the so-called Minimum Essential Force (MEF) plan to modernize defense equipment. The MEF was introduced by then-president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono in 2010 and is set to expire in 2024.
In light of the incident, defense analyst Curie Maharani said that while weapons systems modernization, including the submarine fleet, was important, the country should also seek to purchase its own rescue vessels for submarine accidents.
“We must understand that submarines are very prone to accidents,” she said. “Even countries with cutting-edge submarine technologies like the United Kingdom, the United States and Russia also experience such incidents.”
She emphasized that Indonesia could not always rely on outsiders’ help because rescue vessels from other countries cannot be immediately deployed to the location of such incidents, which created more risks for the crews on board because any search for a missing submarine became “a race against time.”
