Chatting with a mate who lives on the FI he says he hadn't heard much but looked it up and says that some Argie sources are claiming we sunk it.
So I did a quick bit of google-fu and it turns out that the submarine did have orders to covertly gather information about ships and installations on the Islands. (
@Mr Happy )
Whether SF was involved is moot though according to my mate unnecessary as anyone can fly in on the weekly flight and look around.
However it is not beyond any stretch of imagination that the op was also to maintain a familiarisation with the Islands with crews.
This particular article talks about it and according to 'Chief of cabinet la Peña' the boat at the moment of loss of contact was obeying operational order COFS Nº04/17 "C" whose priority tactical objective was to localise, identify, and film refrigeration, logistic, ships tankers and other flagged ships working with fishing ships. secondary mission is to identify aircraft and ships operating from the Islands.
Highlighted inyellow pragraph 13.
Las revelaciones secretas de Infobae sobre el ARA San Juan, una "fantasía" cumplida
This says pretty much the same thing.
ARA San Juan: un documento de la Armada revela que habría pasado cerca de las Islas Malvinas
Translation using google and touched up for speed.
The head of the Cabinet of Ministers, Marcos Peña, gave his last management report to the Chamber of Deputies last Wednesday. And among the almost thousand questions asked by the national deputies of all the political groups, one asked to know more information about the submarine ARA San Juan, disappeared on November 15, 2017.
This day, Peña informed the deputies, that the submarine had as its secondary task the monitoring of ships and aircraft of the Malvinas Islands.
And he delivered a confidential report from the Argentine Navy with coordinates that would indicate that the ARA San Juan could have been a few kilometers from the Malvinas.
The answer to question 456 of report 108, which the Cabinet Office sent to the Chamber of Deputies, informed that the primary objective of ARA San Juan "was the location, identification, photographic / filmic record of refrigerated, logistic, oil tankers, research vessels of other flags, etc., that were working with fishing vessels ".
He continues: "As secondary material objectives of this activity, vessels and aircraft operating from the Malvinas Islands were established, with the purpose of verifying the compliance of the agreements signed by both countries, regarding the obligation to inform the movements of units in particular areas, "as La Nación newspaper reconstructs today.
From this information, it can be inferred that the submarine was monitoring the vessels and aircraft inthe Malvinas, something that had been denied by the Navy and the Ministry of Defense that Oscar Aguad commands.
In addition, Marcos Peña's report includes the Operations Order (OP) COFS No. 04/17 "C" that details the full mission of ARA San Juan.
There, in a report of 8 pages and dated October 2017, a handwritten amendment appears that bears the signature of the Captain of the Frigate, Hugo Miguel Correa, Chief of Operations and Acoustic War of the Command of the Submarine Force of the Navy, where one of the five Areas of Operations of the ARA San Juan was modified and which they named Alejandra: the other four areas were called: Alessia, Esperanza, Milagros and Juliana.
According to these coordinates, the place indicated for the submarine to operate is the coast of Soledad Island, in Malvinas, near Puerto Argentino.
Another coordinate - at 52 ° 20 'S 57 ° 57' W-, the location of the submarine ARA San Juan is only about 30 kilometers above, always in the vicinity of the Falkland Islands.
This particular video claims that the British Pirates sank it, I haven't listened to all of it yet but I will get round to it. However it looks like the TV equivalent of the Mail.
I just took these off the net but it appears that official Argentine Government sources are admitting a covert intelligence gathering op.
The obvious question then arises did they then mislead the location for the search? I have no idea nor opinion so I'm not putting forward a conspiracy theory.
What seems to be clear though is that the route originally claimed for her was not the one she took.
Will keep an eye on their press from time to time.