I’m at work. I’m bored. Make me laugh.

Trawl Rockall for:

Argie boffins in fruitless search for Belgrano

A scientific expedition searching for the wreck of Argentine cruiser General Belgrano has still had no success, we can reveal.

A team of Argentinian scientists have taken time out from searching through bins in Buenos Aires for scraps of food to locate the ship off the southern coast of Argentina.

In conjunction with National Geographic, the Argentine navy and with maps detailing its exact position provided by the British navy, the scientists had hoped to find the wreck within two weeks using its unmanned sub.

So far though, there has been no appearance of the vessel, sunk in May 1982 by British forces protecting the Falklands Islands. Despite the fact the cruiser is thought to be 4km underwater, 180km off the coast of Argentina and in notoriously rough seas, the team hoped its equipment — the same used to locate Titanic — would quickly find the wreck.

"I don't understand it," said lead researcher Miquel Paradiso. "The British told us exactly where she was — 310km from the Malvinas along a straight line from her home port to the islands. Even accounting for the fact that she may have moved forward a bit while sinking to the inky depths, she couldn't be more than 300km from Port Stanley, and we have covered every inch."

The team is especially upset since it thought it had found the Belgrano just two days into the expedition. "Ah yes," says Miquel. "We thought we had her but then realised we were 350km from the islands and outside the total exclusion zone. Besides, the scans show the ship was clearly pointing towards Argentina, so she couldn't be Belgrano."

Asked about frantic activity near the spot of the unidentified ship just months previously, Brigadier General John Curruthers of the British Navy turned the hoses on any rumours that the navy may be attempting to conceal something.

"That is absolutely preposterous," he told reporters. "We were trying to move a wreck out of shipping lanes. And as for these claims that it is the Belgrano, well, we can tell you categorically that it is in fact an American cruiser called the Phoenix. She saw action at Pearl Harbour, you know, so it can't be the same vessel. Only a complete idiot would send out a 40-year-old second-hand tub against a nuclear hunter-killer submarine. Do me a favour."

Margaret Thatcher was unavailable yesterday for barracking by irate satirists still banging on about the Falklands' conflict.

 Email an enemy  Pub-friendly printable version  ‘Science’ index page