Missing Titanic submarine

[Twinklesgolden]

How horrifying that a submarine carrying 5 people has gone missing. Apparently there’s only 96 hours of air on the submarine when it sets off.

The people on board must be terrified!

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-65953872.amp

Different situation to this. Explosive decompression happens on airplanes because they're highly pressurised and at high altitudes where the air is thinner, this submersible has a similar pressure inside to sea level, (like a plane) but it's under immense pressure from the sea. If the structure was compromised, it would be a horrific for the people on board. Doesn't bear thinking about. 😟

I hope that somehow they have managed to survive and can be rescued.

There should be no more tourist trips. It is horrendous enough that so many people died in 1912 because of the Titanic. There is no need to put even more people at risk by visiting it. Leave it in peace to degrade.

No idea where, but I've read an overview with the CEO (one of the people on board this particular time too) and the company isn't making money. They're sampling water, bacteria etc and checking the degredation of the wreck, and basically charge "tourists" 250k to cover some of their costs. The "tourist" are usually people very involved in marine research, who have studied the subject for years, (but who aren't employees/owners of the company) who will also get involved in taking samples etc. Its not one pilot and Dave from Essex who won a million on a scratchcard and fancied treating his mates to a day out.

I know I’m thick and naive, I don’t think I truly grasped a concept of how deep the Atlantic Ocean actually is.

If the submersible is at the bottom, why can’t a rescue team get to them using specialist transport equipment? I understand that it’s deep, but surely there is a way to rescue them if it is the case that they’re stuck at the bottom?

I think you’ve said it in your own post — not that you’re thick — but you aren’t really grasping just how deep it is.

And there isn’t a way to get them out down there. The craft would need to be brought up.

It's not thick. Few of us are experts. I've only read a bit of info but it seems that crafts like that just don't exist. I guess because there's no need/£££££.

The company involved has other mini submersibles but they don't dive as deep as the one that is missing. Put simply there isn't another craft that can dive down and find them.

There are only a tiny number of submersibles in the world that are capable of going to those depths even if one was conveniently to hand there isn't much they could do in the way of helping because they are completely sealed - they can't open a door and get the other crew to jump in with them.

So it seems we're back to the giant magnet approach 😜

I'm joking but this situation is horrific. Maybe there will never be any answers to what has happened to them.

That’s absolutely terrifying. I hope they will be OK

Well I read an interview with the CEO, and he specifically mentioned one of his customers was literally someone who won the lottery. And most of the tourists are rich Titanic enthusiasts who just want to see the ship. They also chartered an oil tanker to take them out to the site, it wasn't a research vessel.

The Royal Navy is in charge of a vessel called an NSRS. Basically, a rescue submarine for extracting personnel from stricke subs, shared by NATO. It's about as good as it gets. But even this can't operate at the tremendous depths likely to be involved. It's a horrific situation.

Yep, I think that the NSRS is only able to operate to a depth of 610 meters.

Well I’m staying optimistic and am hoping for the best.

No other (not many) vehicle(s) can go that deep and any buoyancy aid would have to withstand the 6000psi pressure at that depth. It’s the nautical equivalent of a moon landing. You go there and back under your own steam and no rescue is possible.

If the hull suffers even the tiniest breach, they are instantly dead. The titanic is 2.4 miles down.

This really is the stuff of nightmares. It sounds so incredibly dangerous I don’t understand how this company has been allowed to operate. I read about this earlier today and I wish I had not. 😫

Reading that article posted earlier though, the author says they went down and couldn’t find the Titanic on the first dive, so then they tried again the next day and they seemed really excited to happen upon the wreck. It sounds like they didn’t really know what they were doing or their coordinates.

@Iridescentsy It(titanic) is 2.5 miles under the surface…how big a magnet do you think they’d need?

Actually, I was suggesting a magnet to pick up the submersible (which is relatively small), not the Titanic itself!

Or did you mean the required cable length was too long? 2.5 miles is very long...but they lay cables across the Atlantic, so fairly long ones must exist.

But first they have to actually locate the sub.

My worst nightmare 😫

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/titanic-visiting-the-most-famous-shipwreck-in-the-world/

That was the article I was referring to.

In the Apollo 13 mission, the three men used their knowledge to jury rig the scrubbers and save their lives. I am hoping for something along these lines.
No they didn't - mission control figured it out and sent them instructions.

All the people talking about crush depth - presumably since the wreck is on the seabed the design strength of the sub must be strong enough to get there and they wouldn't be able to go any deeper.

I think it's a case of visibility being piss poor, having a view from a fixed point rather panoramic views and limited ability to control the path of the submersible so if you aren't lucky enough to get to exactly the right spot you wouldn't see anything even if you were very close to the wreak but it happened to be in the wrong direction for the lights, camera and tiny window. Being carried a few meters by the current would be the difference between seeing something and seeing nothing.

I'm a bit lost in comments with jargon and science.

But is the prevailing thought that these people are not going to survive this?

Not unless they're found on the surface somewhere, which is possible.