Missing Titanic submersible: Long shot to find these people alive, says former Navy submariner as clock ticks
By Sunita Iyer | First Published Jun 20, 2023, 3:23 PM ISTSearch teams are racing against time to find a tourist submersible that went missing during a dive to the Titanic's wreck on Sunday in the Atlantic Ocean. As the clock ticks, former Royal Australian Navy submariner has revealed what could be really going on in the vessel.
The search for a tourist submersible that vanished on Sunday during a dive to the Titanic's wreck in the Atlantic Ocean is in a race against time. Five people were onboard the OceanGate expedition vessel when contact with the small sub was lost about an hour and 45 minutes into its dive. In the middle of the Atlantic, the rescue effort is still going strong, but the Titanic submersible has not yet been located. The rescue effort is being supported by warships, commercial deep-sea companies, and US and Canadian agencies. The crew members were estimated to have, at most, four days of oxygen as of Monday afternoon.
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Amid the ongoing search operations, former Royal Australian Navy submariner, Rex Patrick, gets honest about what could really be going on after the Titanic submersible went missing. In an interview to 2GB Sydney, Patrick said, "It feels like a long shot finding these people alive. Look, it doesn't sound very hopeful. The best we can hope for is that the sea conditions have prevented communications with the vessel. But when you go underwater, it's dangerous. You never know what can happen. You can end up with a situation where a seal fails or something like that. You can have a flood, you can have a fire on board. They're normally quite catastrophic. You can have power failures, you can lose control surfaces."
"There could be many different things that may have gone wrong, and particularly in a circumstance like this. This is not a military submarine, so it doesn't have a lot of escape options, really. The only option is to recover the vessel. One would normally have, on a vessel like this, some ballast that can simply be detached from the submarine to get it back to the surface. The fact that that hasn't occurred is quite worrying," Patrick added.
A former Navy submariner gets honest about what could really be going on after a Titanic sub went missing. 👇
MORE: https://t.co/K2s2lQvXWb pic.twitter.com/xVt88tM69C
British millionaire businessman and explorer Hamish Harding is among the five onboard. According to a statement from their family, Pakistani billionaire Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman were also in the missing Titanic submersible. Paul-Henry Nargeolet, a French explorer, is reportedly on board, according to a Facebook post made by Harding before the dive. It is also reported that Stockton Rush, the main executive of OceanGate, the company that organised the dive, is on the vessel.
Also read: Missing Titanic submarine: 2 Pakistanis, founder of OceanGate onboard; search intensifies
"Right now, our focus is on getting as much capability into the area as we can," Rear Adm John Mauger of the US Coast Guard told a press conference.
The Titanic's wreck is located around 435 miles (700 km) south of St. John's, Newfoundland, though Boston, Massachusetts, is in charge of the rescue effort. Sonar buoys, a submarine, and military aircraft have all been utilised in the hunt for the ship thus far. The Polar Prince, a research vessel, carried out a surface search for the sub on Monday night, according to the US Coast Guard. It served as the support ship for the tourist mission on Sunday and is used to transfer submersibles to the wreckage site.
The Titan submarine owned by tour company OceanGate, which CBS writer David Pogue used to reach the Titanic site last year, is thought to be the missing vessel. Short text messages can be transferred between the support ship and the sub, he told the BBC, when it is directly above the latter. Otherwise, radio or GPS systems cannot be used for communication because neither function underwater. Pogue claims that because bolts fastened from the outside have sealed the sub's interior, those within are unable to leave on their own.
Y’all please watch this. It’s a CBS story that aired a while back about that submarine that is now missing. The creators of that missing submarine are DEEPLY unserious. pic.twitter.com/B6JriITyZj
— Marie, MSN, APRN, FNP-C (@FnpMarieOH)A submarine is distinct from a submersible vessel. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration states that a submersible requires a mother ship that can launch and recover it, whereas a submarine may propel itself into the water from a port independently.
Only the Titan's ability to dive deep enough to reach the Titanic debris is listed among OceanGate's three submersibles on its website. According to the website, the ship weights 23,000 lbs (10,432 kg) and can travel as deep as 13,100 ft. Tickets for an eight-day tour that includes dives to the wreck at a depth of 3,800m (12,500ft) cost $250,000 (£195,000).
The eight-day journey on the carbon-fibre submersible is described by the firm as a "chance to step outside of everyday life and discover something truly extraordinary." Each whole dive to the wreck, including the descent and ascent, is said to take about eight hours and departs from St. John's in Newfoundland. One trip is still in progress, and two more have been scheduled for June 2024, according to the website.
On its inaugural voyage from Southampton to New York in 1912, the Titanic, the largest ship at the time, collided with an iceberg. More than 1,500 of the 2,200 passengers and workers on board died. Since it was found in 1985, the wreckage has been thoroughly investigated. The bow and stern of the wreck are separated from one another by around 2,600 feet. The wrecked vessel is surrounded by a vast field of wreckage. Deep-sea mapping was used to produce the first complete digital scan of the disaster last month. The scan reveals the size of the ship in addition to a few other specifics, such the serial number on one of the propellers.
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