A "blurry image" detected by an unmanned Russian underwater vessel was not the Argentine submarine that went missing with 44 crew members, Argentina's navy says.
Officials on December 2 said the images taken by the remote-controlled Panther Plus provided by Russia were of a sunken fishing vessel, and not the submarine that went missing on November 15.
The Russian submersible was deployed to review the 60-meter-long object located at 477 meters below sea level in an area where the submarine is believed to have suffered an onboard explosion related to its battery system.
Crews from Argentina, the United States, Russia, and elsewhere have been participating in efforts to recover the submarine, although hopes of finding any of the crew alive have faded.
"It was confirmed that it wasn't the submarine's shell" but a sunken fishing vessel, Argentine Navy spokesman Enrique Balbi confirmed.
He said the navy "regrets that without a rigorous analysis expectations were generated in the families and society, which must now face another frustration."
The German-made submarine went missing while traveling from the southern port of Ushuaia to the city of Mar del Plata, about 400 kilometers southeast of Buenos Aires.