Many theories about the cause of the Indonesian submarine crash

Some suggested that this submarine was hit by a missile from a foreign ship, or even lost power. But naval officials said the submarine was still trackable when it began diving for torpedo drills and ‘the lights were on’ – meaning there was only a small chance of power outages.

Fragments from the submarine were found during a search operation. When the submarine of the Indonesian navy carried 53 divers into the Bali Sea during a periodic training exercise, it may have been pulled into the abyss by an invisible but powerful force. Indonesian naval officials suspect an inner wave, known to have occurred in the waters around Bali, could have caused the sinking of the KRI Nanggala 402. (According to Britannian Dictionary: Side Wave) in, a kind of gravity wave that occurs on internal “surfaces” in ocean waters). The KRI Nanggala 402 sank to a depth of 838 meters, far beyond the reach of the rescuers. As the crew members’ personal belongings surfaced and the ship’s oxygen supplies dwindled, officials said there was no possibility of anyone surviving. The question remains: What happened? Many theories have been put forward but the authorities say there is evidence that an underwater wave – which could induce a vertical tensile force below sea level – occurred in the Bali Sea around the time. The submarine disappeared last Wednesday morning. The Lombok Strait between the islands of Bali and Lombok is believed to be famous for its violent underground waves on an almost bi-weekly basis. NASA, the US space regulator, says the combination of strong tidal currents, rough ocean floor and water exchange between two channels – one shallow and one deep – “tends to combine around 14. once a day for exceptionally strong tidal currents. Indonesian naval officials believe this natural phenomenon is more likely to be the explanation for the submarine disaster than other theories have been put forward in recent days. The waves inside are barely discernible on the ocean’s surface, but underwater, they can reach towering heights. The waves inside can look like ripples on the ocean’s surface, like this satellite image taken by NASA in 2013. (Wikimedia Commons: NASA) Rear Admiral Muhammad Ali, former commander of the KRI Nanggala 402, and now the Indonesian navy planning and budgeting assistant, said an internal wave was essentially “a strong electric current that can pull a submarine. vertically so it will sink faster than usual. ” “Our suspicions were directed towards natural conditions. Because an undercurrent appeared at that time in the north of Bali,” he told Indonesian media. Naval officials said images from Japan’s Himawari 8 satellite, as well as Europe’s Sentinel satellite, showed massive underwater waves coinciding with the sinking of the KRI Nanggala 402. . “It moves from the bottom to the north and there is a groove between the two waves,” said Rear Adm. Iwan Isnurwanto, Commander of the Indonesian Navy Command and General Staff School. “The wave speed is about two knots and the amount of water is about two to four million cubic liters.” Admiral Iwan explained that an inner wave could render the crew powerless in the face of nature. “Once the water swept along and pushed the ship down, what else could we do? There is no safety measure that can fix that.” Other theories about what happened to the submarine have also emerged. Some suggested that this submarine was hit by a missile from a foreign ship, or even lost power. But naval officials said the submarine was still trackable when it began diving for torpedo drills and “the lights were on” – meaning there was only a small chance of power outages. They also denied that the ship was overloaded, a theory that had 53 crew members on board but only 34 beds, instead arguing that the crew was divided into three shifts and took turns sleeping. “The submarine was originally for 33 staff members, then modernized to meet our need to have 50 staff on board,” said Admiral Iwan. Officials said the submarine was also designed to carry eight torpedoes – weighing about a ton each – but only four at the time of the disaster. Many other experts point out that metal fatigue due to cracking or corrosion and that the age of the parts is the more likely cause. KRI Nanggala 402 was built in 1978 and last overhauled in 2012, almost a decade ago.