Crew of Missing Argentine Submarine Had Been Ordered Back to Home Port<br />BRAZIL 500 Miles ARGENTINA URUGUAY Buenos Aires Atlantic Ocean Mar del Plata CHILE Approximate search area Falkland Islands BRAZIL<br />500 Miles ARGENTINA URUGUAY Buenos Aires Mar del Plata CHILE Atlantic Ocean Approximate search area Falkland Islands NOV. 20, 2017<br />The developments came as a team from several nations raced against time<br />and battled stormy seas in a frantic effort to find the vessel in a 186-square-mile search area off the coast of Argentina’s Patagonia.<br />20, 2017<br />MAR DEL PLATA, Argentina — The Argentine Navy disclosed on Monday<br />that the crew of a missing submarine had been ordered to return to its home port on Wednesday after reporting a battery failure.<br />The navy said on Monday that satellite phone calls made from the search area on Saturday — prompting hope<br />that they could signal the crew was alive — were not made from the missing submarine.<br />Balbi said that It’s a sound out in the sea,<br />Enrique Balbi, an Argentine Navy spokesman, said Monday afternoon<br />that search teams were analyzing a sound recorded in the search area earlier in the day to see if it might have been produced by the crew.<br />The revelation was the first official confirmation<br />that the Navy had known since Wednesday — when the submarine vanished — that the vessel was contending with equipment malfunction and might have the lost the ability to propel itself.
