The most mysterious mystery submarine cases in the world

Submarine INS Dakar of Israel brought with the crew 69 people suddenly disappeared when on duty in 1968. More than 30 years later, people accidentally discovered the ship.

is a very unique underwater war machine. It was designed to operate secretly underwater to carry out reconnaissance, reconnaissance missions, deploy commandos and fight. People equipped submarines with sophisticated technology to 'bypass' the enemy's sensor systems, turning it into an invisible killer under the water.

Thanks to the invisibility, submarines can operate secretly that the enemy is difficult to detect. However, the submarine's invisibility becomes 'double-edged sword'. Every time the ship crashed, its stealth feature prevented rescue teams from finding ships quickly.

Many times are diving under water and disappear in a confusing way. Even after finding the ship, one could not give an appropriate answer to the accident. Sputnik listed the most mysterious submarine accidents in history, so far the cause of the accident remains a mystery to humanity.

Submarine INS Dakar of Israel

The INS Dakar is a T-class electric-diesel submarine built by HM Dockyard Devonport for the Royal Navy. The ship was commissioned in the Royal Navy since 1943 under the name HMS Totem. In 1965, the Israeli Navy acquired the ship and renamed it INS Dakar.

Part of the submarine INS Dakar was salvaged and built into a memorial at the Haifa Naval Museum, Israel.(Photo: Wikipedia).

After upgrading, the ship left the shipyard in Scotland to conduct sea trials. After two months of successful testing, on January 9, 1968, the ship set sail for Israel with a crew of 69 people. On January 24, the submarine INS Dakar entered the Mediterranean and disappeared from there.

On January 26, the Royal Navy reported that the Dakar submarine was missing. The international search campaign with the participation of the Israeli, US, Greek, Turkish, British and Lebanese Navy but found no trace.

In 1999, 31 years after the accident, a joint search group between the United States and Israel discovered a suspiciously submerged object at a depth of 3,000 meters between Crete and Cyprus. Suspicious objects identified as Dakar submarines, the ship exploded due to sinking to a depth beyond the stamina of the hull.

The cause of the accident is still a mystery. The Dakar submarine accident kicked off a dark year for submarines with a series of mysterious accidents in 1968.

Minerve submarine accident (S647), France

On January 27, 1968, a few days after the puzzling disappearance of the submarine INS Dakar, the French submarine Minerve (S647) was conducting a training operation off the Toulon coast. The boat dives underwater just a few meters and uses a snorkel to run a diesel engine. The ship carries 52 crew.

The S647 submarine is operating about 46 km from the shore and is expected to arrive in about an hour later. However, the S647 suddenly disappeared when it was tens of kilometers away from the shore. The French Navy immediately conducted a large-scale search campaign, including the aircraft carrier Clemenceau and the SP-350 Denise, but found nothing.

The S647 was captured by the aircraft a few hours before disappearing.(Photo: Naval.com).

In 1969, the French Navy conducted another search campaign with the participation of the Archimède deep-sea research vessel that could dive to a depth of 10,000 meters, with the help of the US Navy. However, S647 is still useless. 49 years have passed since the missing date, S647 has not been found.

Submarine K-129, Soviet Union

K-129 is a ballistic diesel-electric submarine under Project 629A built by the Soviet Union. On February 24, 1968, K-129 received regular patrol duty after completing two 70-day patrols in 1967.

The mission of the K-129 was quite secret so the ship was ordered to limit contact with the headquarters to avoid revealing the position. In mid-March 1968, Soviet Navy officials at Kamchatka base began to worry when K-129 missed two times of periodic radio communications.

The Soviet Navy ordered an emergency contact ship with the headquarters but received no response. The Soviet Navy headquarters declared K-129 missing in early March with 83-man crew and conducted a search campaign. Soviet search activity hid under a sea training campaign to cover the US Navy's eyes on a submarine accident.

Special rescue equipment manufactured by the US to salvage K-129 during the Azorian Project Intelligence campaign.(Photo: Wikipedia).

Meanwhile, the US Underwater Sound Monitoring System (SOSUS) recorded a strange sound explosion at 40 degrees north latitude, 180 degrees east longitude. The Soviet Union could not find the K-129 and canceled the search campaign.

The cause of the accident of the K-129 is still not adequately explained, many conspiracy theories are given to explain the incident. In August 1968, the US Navy based on the position provided by SOSUS found the K-129 sinking to a depth of 4,900 m.

The discovery of the submarine that the Soviet Union did not find prompted the US to conduct a secret campaign to salvage the K-129 in order to gather information about Moscow's ballistic missiles. K-129 salvage campaign was codenamed 'Azorian Project'. This is the most costly Cold War intelligence campaign.

USS Scorpion submarine accident, USA

USS Scorpion (SSN-589) is a US Navy Skipjack class nuclear submarine. The ship was put into operation in 1960. On May 20, 1968, SSN-589 carrying a crew of 99 people on duty in the Mediterranean suddenly disappeared.

SSN-589 submarine in a sea mission before disappearing.(Photo: Wikipedia).

The US Navy conducted a large-scale search campaign but did not find anything in the first weeks after the accident. In late October 1968, five months after the disappearance, the oceanic research vessel USNS Mizar (T-AGOR-11) discovered SSN-589 sinking at a depth of 3,000 meters, 740 kilometers southwest of the Azores Islands, belonging to Portugal.

The cause of the accident was still a mystery, many hypotheses were made, including the ship being attacked by the Soviet Union but all were unconvincing. The US Navy did not make a final conclusion about the accident.

In 2012, 13,800 former US Navy sailors signed a petition requesting a naval investigation of the submarine accident 589.