LONDON -- An Argentine submarine scored four direct hits with torpedoes on a British aircraft carrier during last year's Falklands war but the warship escaped unharmed because the weapons never exploded, the Sunday Times reported.
The carrier was believed to be HMS Invincible, which carried 1,100 crewmen, eight Sea Harrier jets and eight Sea King helicopters, the newspaper said.
British defense officials already have said the loss of an aircraft carrier during last year's 74-day war in the South Atlantic would have devastated attempts to recapture the islands from the Argentine invasion force.
The report of the 20,000-ton carrier's escape was revealed in a secret Argentine naval inquiry being held in Buenos Aires, the Sunday Times said.
The inquiry also has been told of two other submarine-launched torpedo attacks -- against a Royal Navy submarine and a task force auxiliary ship -- but those torpedoes were said to have missed, the newspaper said.
Defense sources in Britain tend to believe the reports, even though they have no direct evidence. Experts said even traveling at 30 mph, the torpedoes would have left little more than scratches and minor dents on the Invincible's hull.
But the reports were indirectly confirmed by separate defense sources who say Argentina alerted other South American countries that use the same German-built SST4 torpedoes that the devices had failed to explode on contact.
Argentine Capt. Fernando Azcueta, who the Sunday Times said was widely described as a brilliant officer, told the inquiry the four torpedoes were fired from his Type 209 submarine, the San Luis.
He said he had shadowed the aircraft carrier for six days before launching the torpedoes and that all four hit the ship below the waterline.
Azcueta is the main subject of the inquiry, which is trying to determine whether human error or mechanical malfunction was responsible for the torpedoes' failure to detonate, the newspaper said.
The inquiry believes the torpedoes failed to explode because of inadequate adjustments to their detonation and directional homing devices. Azcueta has said his crew was not to blame for the inadequate adjustments, the newspaper said.
