As a “high complexity operation,” Brigadier General Francisco Torres described the search for remains of the FACH Hercules C-130 aircraft alongside his 38 passengers in the Drake Sea.
Torres, who is also the director of Operation of the Air Force, coordinates these tracking tasks from the air base located in Cerrillos with General Cristián Pizarro, head of the Combat Command and in charge of the operation, who is in Punta Arenas.
Currently, 22 aircraft and 8 military and civil vessels are part of this mission that presents different difficulties.
The biggest of them “is that the accident occurred in a very inhospitable sector, in the Drake Sea, which according to the sailors is one of the most difficult in the world, with a depth that ranges between 3 thousand and 4 thousand meters, with very intense marine currents,” Torres explained in an interview with El Mercurio.
To the above it is added that “the weather conditions change in short periods”.
A question arises about the duration of this tracking operation given the conditions presented in the area. In this regard, General Torres determined that “it will depend on the movements of the remains. Some will sink and eventually there will come a time when we can find nothing.”
“That is why what we will do now is fundamental, we will begin a new stage, in search of the remains on the seabed,” he added.
In detail, the director of Operation of the FACH indicated that the remains have even moved 160 kilometers in the direction of Antarctica since the beginning of surface traces, but another thing is what happens with the sinking remains, since these “are moving and not necessarily in the same direction as those that may be on the surface.”
Given this scenario, Torres stressed that the seabed search process is crucial to be able to see something “and at least take pictures”, in order to contribute to the investigation that manages to determine the causes of the accident.
However, he assured that “we cannot rule out any hypothesis. Now, I can tell you that the weather conditions on the flight route were operable. They were fine. And there is no record that (the plane) had an electrical problem,” sentenced.
Source: T13
