Just over a year after the ARA San Juan went missing, Ocean Infinity found the Argentine Navy submarine on Nov. 17 using its AUVs.

According to Ocean Infinity, the submarine was found in a ravine in 920 meters of water, approximately 600 kilometers east of Comodoro Rivadavia in the Atlantic Ocean.

“Our thoughts are with the many families affected by this terrible tragedy. We sincerely hope that locating the resting place of the ARA San Juan will be of some comfort to them at what must be a profoundly difficult time,” Ocean Infinity’s CEO Oliver Plunkett said after the ARA San Juan was found.

“Furthermore, we hope our work will lead to their questions being answered and lessons learned which help to prevent anything similar from happening again.”

The search was conducted by a team made up of approximately 60 crew members on board the Seabed Constructor offshore vessel. The search operation was observed by three officers of the Argentine Navy and four family members of the crew of the ARA San Juan.

“We are particularly grateful to the Argentinian Navy whose constant support and encouragement was invaluable,” Plunkett added.

Ocean Infinity says that it located the wreckage of the ARA San Juan after two months of seabed search. The company notes that it had committed to conduct the search operation for up to sixty days, while taking on the economic risk of the search, as it was only going to receive payment if the submarine was found.

Ocean Infinity’s AUVs are built for these types of complex operations, as they can operate in water depths from five meters to 6,000 meters, covering wide areas of the seabed at “unparalleled” speed, the company says. Since they are not tethered to their host vessel during operations, the AUVs can go deeper and collect higher quality data for the search.

The AUVs can conduct successful operations thanks to being equipped with a variety of tools, including side scan sonar, a multi-beam echo-sounder HD camera, and synthetic aperture sonar.

Ocean Infinity adds that from the host vessel, it can deploy two work class ROVs and heavy lifting equipment capable of retrieving objects weighing up to 45 tons from 6000 meters.