Press & Media

ThayerMahan Provides Assist to Ocean Infinity in Locating Sunken Argentinian Submarine San Juan

Submarine Lost at Sea Found in South Atlantic

Groton, Connecticut (17 November 2018) – Over one year ago, the Argentinian submarine ARA San Juan (S42) was lost at sea.  The San Juan went missing on 15 November 2017 during a routine patrol in the South Atlantic off the coast of Argentina.  Recently, an American deep-sea exploration firm, Ocean Infinity, used a combination of deep sea unmanned vehicles and sophisticated Synthetic Aperture Sonar to definitively locate the wreck of the ARA San Juan on the sea floor off the coast of Argentina.

After weeks of unsuccessful search operations immediately following the report of the San Juan's loss, and international group of search assets from 40 countries was unable to locate the wreck. After the immediate search efforts were suspended without success, the American firm Ocean Infinity undertook to independently find the lost submarine.  During the mission planning for the search operation, Ocean Infinity reached out to a small local Groton, CT based firm – ThayerMahan – for assistance. The ThayerMahan team provided Ocean Infinity with search planning recommendations based upon clues provided from various sources regarding the last minutes and hours of the San Juan's operations.

The ARA San Juan was located after two months of search in 920m of water about 600km east of Comodoro Rivadavia in the Atlantic Ocean.

Mike Connor, ThayerMahan's President and CEO said:

“We were proud to have assisted Ocean Infinity in the successful search and locating of the sunken Argentinian submarine San Juan.”