The Ministry of Defense announced that it has suspended the auction of the warship ARA "Aviso Alférez Sobral" , which was used during the Malvinas War. The decision was made by the head of the portfolio, Luis Petri , and in a brief statement it was indicated that the ship will be donated to be transformed into a museum.
At the beginning of this week, the Argentine Navy had announced through the Official Bulletin that on Friday, September 13, they would auction off four ships that are stranded in Mar del Plata. These were going to be sold as scrap metal. Specifically, the Aviso Alférez Sobral was going to have a base value of 14.2 million pesos.
In response to the criticism that this decision aroused in public opinion, Petri decided to withdraw the ship from the auction and determined that it would be donated so that the successful bidder could transform it into a museum. For his part, The other three ships, the hydrographic ship ARA Comodoro Rivadavia and the corvettes ARA Drummond and ARA Guerrico, are still being auctioned off.
The Argentine Navy said in a statement that "public organizations or private institutions legally constituted in the country interested in receiving it as a donation to convert it exclusively into a museum ship" must submit their formal request before December 16, accompanied by a "viable project."
The force also indicated that the bell, a cannon and the furniture of the ARA Aviso Alférez Sobral had already been donated previously, items that must be restored.
The auction date for the donation of the ARA Aviso Alférez Sobral was extended in response to the decision of the Ministry of Defense and the Navy to give more time to interested parties to prepare and present projects to enhance the value of the ship as a museum.
The history of the ship ARA "Alférez Sobral"
On March 27, 1982, it was decided that the ship would set sail for the South Atlantic and position itself between the continent and the Malvina Islands, seeking to locate itself in a key point for possible search and rescue missions, a task that was entrusted to it on May 1 when a Sidewinder missile hit the right turbine of an Argentine Canberra MK-62 bomber.
The pilots, Eduardo de Ibáñez and Mario González, were ejected and the ship was tasked with tracking them down at a point less than 200 kilometres north of the Strait of San Carlos, the space that divides the two islands of the archipelago, where the British fleet was located.
Later, on the night of 2 May, two missiles from an English helicopter hit the ship . As a result, eight sailors were killed in combat and the ship suffered damage to its bridge and navigation systems , rendering it unusable.
Ships of the Argentine Navy
The victims of the English attack were the ship's commander, Sergio Gómez Roca, the midshipman Claudio Olivieri, the chief corporal, Mario Alancay, the second corporals Sergio Medina, Elvio Tonina and Ernesto Del Monte, the sailor Héctor Dufrechou and the conscript Roberto D'Errico.
On the night of the attack, the ship was initially overflown by a British Sea King helicopter . A second Sea Lynx helicopter then appeared, which was targeted with the ship's 20-millimeter ammunition cannon and the ship withdrew.
However, shortly afterwards one of the two helicopters fired a Sea Skua missile which hit the ship's bow . A second missile then destroyed the command bridge and radio station, killing eight of the ship's crew.
In any case, the ship continued to function despite the damage, so it sailed for three days without a mast until the crew sighted the coast of Río Deseado, Santa Cruz, where the ship was partially repaired so that it could continue sailing towards Puerto Belgrano.
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