£2 billion Spanish navy submarine will sink to bottom of seaA new submarine commissioned by the Spanish navy at a cost of 2.2 billion euros (£1.9billion) has been discovered to contain a serious design flaw – it is too heavy and will sink like a stone.
One of the new S-80 subs by Navantia Photo: Navantia
By Fiona Govan, Madrid
4:51PM BST 22 May 2013
Miscalculations at the engineering stage have been blamed for a two-year delay in delivery of the first of four submarines commissioned from Spain's state-owned shipbuilder Navantia.
Last month it emerged that the Isaac Peral sub – part of the new S-80 series and named in honour of the Spanish man credited by some as the inventor of the underwater vessel – was at least 75 tons overweight, an excess that could compromise its ability to surface after submerging.
Navantia admitted the existence of "deviations related to the balance of weight" in the vessel and estimated it would take up to two years more to correct the problem.
The 233ft vessel may have to be lengthened to compensate for the excess weight, a redesign that comes with an estimated cost of 7.5 million euros per extra metre.
The shipbuilders based in Cartagena, southern Spain, are now seeking "technical experts from abroad" to advise in the redesign of what was billed as the "most modern conventional submarine".
The original date for delivery was scheduled for March 2015 but it is now expected to be delayed by up to two years.
The Spanish navy commissioned four of the submarines at a cost of 2.2 billion, one of the most expensive contracts in Spain's military history, but will now be facing a much larger bill.
In the meantime they will also have to pay costs of keeping the current ageing submarine fleet in operation at an estimated 15 million euros per year.
Spain's Ministry of Defence has seen its budget cut by some 30 per cent since the start of the economic crisis in 2008 in an austerity drive aimed at reducing the nation's public deficit.
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