Submarines have gone missing numerous times over the years but not all have been recovered. Here are 7 vessels that were lost and never found.
Elias Chavez
- Searches for lost submarines haven't always succeeded.
- As recently as 2021, underwater vessels have gone missing during routine training exercises.
For the past five decades, we've been losing and looking for submarines to varying degrees of success.
But losing a submarine is more common than it seems — and finding one is a lot harder.
Navies around the world have been losing submarines in the ocean with regularity since they started using them. Though submarines and their captains take extensive measures to not get lost, despite their best efforts, there's a lot that can go wrong with a submarine and a lot more we don't know about the Ocean. Important piping can be bent, periscopes can get crushed by passing boats, torpedoes can get loaded wrong, and, in a very specific case, a lucky totem may get removed.
In 1968 alone, four submarines from four different countries were lost within months of each other. The search for these submarines lasted days but, in some cases, the wreckage wasn't found until decades later.
The loss of submarines is not something of a bygone era either nor is it taken lightly. As recently as 2021 a submarine was lost in Indonesia during a training exercise, prompting an international search and rescue attempt involving seven different countries.
Despite the best efforts of public and private entities looking for missing submarines, the oxygen limit onboard the submarine and the vastness of the Ocean can prove to be insurmountable barriers. Here are the times we've looked for missing submarines and come up short.
On April 9, 1963, the SS Thresher, a navy submarine doing training off the coast of Cape Cod to see how far it could dive, made its preparations for its descent.
This was not the first time the Thresher would be going to its depth limit, but as it was making its descent, jumbled radio communication of a "minor problem" was heard on the boat above.
That was the last time there would be communication with the Thresher.
The Thresher's last communication was at 9:17 a.m., it wasn't until 7 p.m. of the same day that the families of the men aboard the submarine were notified that it was presumed missing.
A search began for the missing sub, but when debris from the submarine was recovered, it began to be clear what had happened. It wasn't until two months later, on June 27, that the Navy was able to find the debris field from the missing sub.
To this day, the cause of the wreck has not been determined, but the leading theory is that flooding in the engine room led to it sinking, according to the US Naval Institute.
Source: US Naval Institute
The USS Scorpion, along with its crew of 99 men, was one of four other submarines to go missing in 1968.
The Scorpion last made contact with the surface on May 21, 1968, and caused alarm when it did not resurface six days later as it was scheduled to.
The declaration that the submarine was missing came on May 27, though the Navy was aware of its failure to respond to classified correspondence on May 24.
The search lasted only a few hours when the Navy detected the Scorpion below its crush depth, the limit a submarine can dive into before succumbing to the pressures of the ocean. However, the wreckage wouldn't be found until five months later in October, at a depth of 11,000 feet.
Sources: Popular Mechanics, Discovery UK
Theories abound as to what caused the sinking of the Scorpion, but it is still impossible to know for sure.
The leading theory for years is that one of the torpedoes ignited while in the chamber and blew a hole in the ship.
Before the USS Scorpion, the INS Dakar and its crew of 69 men went missing on January 25, 1968.
Ships from Britain, the US, Greece, Turkey, and Lebanon aided in the search efforts for the USS Dakar but found nothing. The search was officially declared over on February 4, 1968, 10 years later.
The wreckage wouldn't be found for another 30 years.
Departing from England after receiving upgrades before it joined the Israeli Navy, the sub went down somewhere between Crete and Cyprus.
The reasons for the Dakar's disappearance, as with the other four subs in 1968, are unclear. Theories range from hostile attacks to internal damage but most likely it was due to human or mechanical error.
The Dakar was originally the HMS Totem, a ship in the Canadian Navy, that received a special totem they kept on board to keep the ship safe during voyages. After the ship was re-fitted and prepared for the Israeli Navy, the totem was removed and put into a museum.
Though this is not the reason for the ship sinking, it plays a role in the superstitions and conspiracy theories surrounding the disappearance of the ship.
Sources: Naval Historical Society of Australia, The Jerusalem Post, Haaretz
It wasn't until 31 years later that the Dakar was finally found in the depths of the Ocean between Crete and Cyprus.
The wreck was located about 497 miles away from Israel at a depth of 9,800 feet.
Sources: Naval Historical Society of Australia, The Jerusalem Post, Haaretz
The K-141 Kursk from Russia sunk in August of 200 with 118 of its members on board.
The Kursk sunk as a result of a torpedo room explosion while it was submerged. The blast killed 95 members of the crew on board while 23 survived in the back rooms.
Sources: The Guardian, The Navy Times
Crew members were originally estimated to have survived for three days after the explosion.
But upon further investigation, they were assumed to have died from carbon monoxide poisoning within the first eight hours.
Sources: The Guardian, The Navy Times
Though rescue attempts were made to save the remaining 23 crew members, there was outrage from families who felt that the Russian Navy didn't act quickly enough.
In October of that same year, Russian and Norwegian sailors continued efforts to recover the bodies of the 118 sailors.
In November 2017, the ARA San Juan from Argentina and its crew of 44 sailors disappeared.
The disappearance of the ARA San Juan prompted an international search party.
Ultimately, the search-and-rescue attempts were unsuccessful, failing to locate the submarine within the seven-day window.
The wreckage of the San Juan wasn't found until a year later at a depth of 2,600 feet. The working theory for the event is that a faulty valve led to the implosion of the submarine.
Most recently, on April 21, 2021, an Indonesian submarine, the KRI Nanggala-402, went missing during a training exercise.
There were reports of oil on the surface of the water near where the sub went missing, but it was unclear if it was from the Nanggala itself.
Sources: Associated Press, Geopolitical Monitor
Similarly to the missing ARA San Juan, there was an international attempt to locate the missing Nanggala.
Australia, the United States, Germany, France, Russia, India, Turkey, and South Korea offered to assist in locating the missing ship.
At one point during the search for the submarine, there were 20 Navy ships, two submarines, and five aircraft searching the area where the submarine was last detected, according to Reuters.
Sources: AP News, Reuters, Geopolitical Monitor
The search ended on April 24, just three days after the Nanggala and its 49 crewmembers went missing.
Search teams found debris believed to belong to the missing submarine. At the time of the sinking, the Indonesian Navy believed the sub to be at 2,000 to 2,300 feet, which is much further than its estimated collapsed depth.
Sources: Associated Press, Reuters, Geopolitical Monitor
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