Commodore Enrique BALBI entered the Naval Military School in 1984, graduating in 1988 (35 years of service), and received his diploma as a submariner in 1991. During his career he was Second Commander of the ARA Submarines \u201cSANTA CRUZ\u201d and \u201cSAN JUAN\u201d. , and Commander of the ARA Patrol Boat \u201cMURATURE\u201d and the ARA Submarine \u201cSALTA\u201d. He completed a postgraduate seminar in Disaster Risk Management at the Universidad El Salvador, a Master's Degree in Institutional Communication at the Universidad Austral and was Head of the Institutional Communication Department and spokesperson for the Argentine Navy for five years and particularly during the ARA Submarine tragedy. "San Juan". He currently serves as Defense and Naval Attach\u00e9 in the United States of America.<\/p>\n
Commodore Balbi, of the Argentine Navy, was invited by the Inter-American Defense Board (IADB) to make a presentation on the search for the ARA San Juan. Below is a brief summary of the largest joint search and rescue operation ever conducted for a submarine.<\/p>\n
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How was the chain of command established? What role did that chain of command play? Was a crisis committee established? How did that committee function?<\/strong><\/p>\n As soon as the search for the submarine was declared, a crisis cabinet was created made up of members of the Navy responsible for institutional communication and authorities from the Ministry of Defense.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u00a0<\/em>Is there a possibility of salvaging the parts of the submarine so that, if necessary; correct procedures in submarines of the same class in service? <\/strong><\/p>\n I am not an expert in refloating shipwrecks, but until now in history a wrecked submarine has never been refloated. There have been attempts but they have failed, except for some loose remains that will depend on its size and weight, and of course having the technology that arrives. at 900 meters deep. It should be noted that the main structure of the San Juan submarine, its resistant hull, has been imploded, and consequently its structure is deformed and greatly damaged and weakened. <\/em><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n What was the help received from other countries?<\/strong><\/p>\n Many countries showed solidarity by making material or personnel available, unconditionally, in case of need. For reasons of time and opportunity, aircraft, ships, personnel, expertise and search and rescue equipment were received, among others, from Chile, Brazil, the United States, Russia, the United Kingdom, Spain and Canada. <\/em><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n What was the experience of working with other countries in the search for the submarine?<\/strong><\/p>\n Excellent. Fully integrated work teams were assembled with translators, both on land and on board the deployed ships, exchanging experiences and always as advisors to the responsible Argentine authority. There was no mutual interference. <\/em><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n What were the measures taken after the submarine was found?<\/strong><\/p>\n All the photographic and film material of his positive identification by the company hired by the Argentine Navy to locate him was made available to the Justice Department, responsible for the official investigation not yet completed. It should be noted that, at least for now while the investigation continues, no remains of the wreck can be moved or extracted, except with express authorization from the Judge in charge of the investigation.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n What measures were adopted with family members?<\/strong><\/p>\n They were provided with permanent accompaniment with up to two submariners to each family, accommodation and food at the Mar del Plata Naval Base and the Ant\u00e1rtida Hotel, medical, psychological, spiritual and legal assistance, daily updates on search and rescue operations in personally and before the media, financial aid apart from the corresponding mandatory insurance and jobs for needy relatives. <\/em><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/em>Two visits to the search coordination center at the Puerto Belgrano Naval Base and three boardings in deployed units were also planned, in order to perceive the magnitude of the search operation.<\/em><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n What role did you occupy while the Salvage case regarding the ARA Submarine \u201cSan Juan\u201d was developing between November 17 and 30, 2017?<\/strong><\/p>\n He was the Head of the Department <\/em>Institutional communication and spokesperson <\/em>of the Argentine Navy.<\/em><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n What were the characteristics of the institutional communication carried out?<\/strong><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/strong>Family members were taken into account as a priority in learning about daily events. <\/em><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/em>The strategy of informing the Community from a single official source was adopted, with transparency, according to concrete facts reliably confirmed, without conjectures and safeguarding sensitive information with prudence. <\/em><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/em>The dissemination of information from unqualified sources that could be unfounded or that would lead to erroneous conclusions was avoided, and explanations of the case were provided as new incidents arose. <\/em><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n What difficulties did you have to face from the point of view of institutional communication in the initial moments of the crisis?<\/strong><\/p>\n The surprising and unexpected crisis of the \u201cSan Juan\u201d had enormous social repercussions as an extraordinary circumstance, and forced us to simultaneously attend to the conduct of the search operations and their public information, trying to synergize the actions of both areas, preserving the family members. of premature anguish while prudence advises.<\/em><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/em>Once the crisis was unleashed, events took place at a rapid pace in a growing and increasingly accelerated escalation, with a dominant sense of urgency. On the other hand, a lot of adrenaline and few hours of sleep.<\/em><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/em>Another no less incident were those press conferences not scheduled to provide official information only to clarify the numerous inaccurate or false versions of the events that circulated on social networks, and that led public opinion and family members to incorrect conclusions that confused, worried , generated false expectations and hurt sensitivities.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n How were the problems presented corrected?<\/strong><\/p>\n With unscheduled press conferences, with official written statements, answering the phone 24 hours a day, answering emails, making infographics and posting the information on the social networks managed by the Navy.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n How was the relationship with the media? What difficulties did you have to face in this regard?<\/strong><\/p>\n The institutional communication of the search for the submarine to the Community through the media was accompanied by a very good relationship with them, but the prolongation of the actions in time and the prevailing uncertainty generated non-specialized opinions appearing, which gave priority to the raw facts, seeking more news without serious analysis of them.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/em>It was appropriate to have set the time of the press conferences ten minutes past the full hour so as not to interfere with the headlines on the TV channels.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/em>In coordination with journalists, infographics were created for a better technical understanding of the facts. Unfortunately, from the audiovisual point of view, and given the remoteness of the area of operations, there were few films provided to the media of the units in operation, which would have allowed a better understanding of the complexity of the search.\u00a0\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n At a certain moment it was possible to see that there were two spokespersons. One established at the headquarters of the General Staff of the Navy in the Libertad Building in the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires and another at the Mar del Plata Naval Base. Why was that decision made? <\/strong><\/p>\n As a lesson learned, it emerges that from the beginning there must have been a single spokesperson, or perhaps the crisis committee had been established in Mar del Plata, as it was the usual station for the submarine with family members present, and that it is for that reason that there was another spokesperson at the Mar del Plata Naval Base.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n What was the process of the information from obtaining it until it was disseminated to the media?<\/strong><\/p>\n At first there was a lot of uncertainty. Information was received by telephone and in writing by naval messages. Sometimes it was scarce and at the last minute. Since it was very technical and difficult to understand, it had to be expressed in other terms, and that process took time.\u00a0 <\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n How were press conferences organized? How often were they carried out?<\/strong><\/p>\n The press releases were provided for 26 consecutive days and up to four times per day, with the modality of "Journalistic Assault" on the steps of the Libertad Building the first 5 days, and then with press conferences in the entrance hall of the building. Libertad, headquarters of the General Staff of the Navy, supplemented daily with written reports.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n What lessons can be drawn from the point of view of institutional communication from the SAR case regarding the Submarine \u201cARA San Juan\u201d between November 17 and 30, 2017?<\/strong><\/p>\n The Navy faced the most difficult situation experienced since the Malvinas War, directing the resources deployed, mile by mile, at all hours, without rest and using the best technologies that exist in the world, in a search that was developed with the conviction of dispel the uncertainties that mostly afflicted and did not give comfort, both to the families of the crew members and to all members of the Navy.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/em>The management of institutional communication and professionalism in conducting search operations consolidated the internal culture of the Institution, increased its pride of belonging and strengthened its image despite certain inevitable criticisms that cannot cease to exist given the complexity of the facts, the framework of tragedy and the conflicting interests.<\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Commodore Enrique BALBI entered the Naval Military School in 1984, graduating in 1988 (35 years of service), and received his diploma as a submariner in 1991. During his career he was Second Commander of the ARA Submarines \u201cSANTA CRUZ\u201d and \u201cSAN JUAN\u201d. , and Commander of the ARA Patrol Boat \u201cMURATURE\u201d and the ARA Submarine \u201cSALTA\u201d. He held a seminar [\u2026]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":4997,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"destacado":[],"class_list":["post-4996","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-noticias"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jid.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4996","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jid.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jid.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jid.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/28"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jid.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4996"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jid.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4996\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jid.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4997"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jid.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4996"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jid.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4996"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jid.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4996"},{"taxonomy":"destacado","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jid.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/destacado?post=4996"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}