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

There have been some pretty huge pieces of titanic ‘salavaged’ over the last couple
pf decades to be shown in museums and the like.

So in theory, it should be possible to extract the stricken vessel even if it’s l’a-t-on on the sea floor.

However - the equipment, support vessels and expertise is not going to just be sat there ready to go. If the equipment is even still in use, it would need to be checked over, tested for depth (4000m is no joke, and even if a vessel was certified for that depth when it was new, that doesn’t mean it would still cope with that pressure after a decade of operation, degradation, wear and tear, all have an impact). There would need to be a huge amount of planning and preparation for that kind of salvage mission, and then of course you’d also have to wait for the weather to cooperate - which is never a given in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.

None of that is going to happen in the 70hr window these people have. Not least because they haven’t even located it yet.

Sadly, I don’t see a good outcome at all. If it’s sitting at the bottom it’s essentially become their tomb. Then the question becomes do you try and recover it at all, with all the dangers and millions/billions it would cost to do that, or just allow them to rest in peace.

You can see from the video posted upthread how passionate the CEO is about exploration and the unique opportunity the Titanic presents to study something totally unknown. Some people have that desire to explore, just because. In the past we supported and celebrated those people. Explorers always relied on wealthy benefactors and it's the same today.

I really hope that they're found. From the video tour it looks pretty spartan inside the sub. I would hope that they've got enough to work with that they can try and get themselves to safety.

Are they actively looking underwater just now? I assumed they were but when I read a news article last night it sounded like they were only searching the surface and using sonar from the surface to hear if it was underneath. If it was my dad/brother on board I would hope they were doing every possible thing to find them, regardless of who was paying. Just so hope they are found. Would the lights still work? That’s one thing I was wondering about

Useful website for facts on the submersible and what could have gone wrong:

"Although submersibles are often connected to a surface vessel by a tether, video and photos suggest the Titan was likely operating independently of the surface ship."

theconversation.com/missing-titanic-sub-what-are-submersibles-how-do-they-communicate-and-what-may-have-gone-wrong-208100

@BalanceMeHumours - yes, these were my thoughts regarding the 19 year old 😢

They do. It's called philanthropy. Look at the Gates Foundation.

Yeh I imagine the 19ur old went along for a jolly with his father. His father has given him a death sentence unfortunately.

Its just awful.

There was a few posts stating a woman who had saved her whole life not got married etc to go on the expedition - was that just nonsense then?

So the CEO is reported to be on board too?

• From BBC news:
• "Those missing include Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood and his son, Suleman as well as Hamish Harding, a 59-year-old British billionaire businessman and explorer
• French explorer Paul-Henry Nargeolet is also thought to be on board, and Stockton Rush, chief executive of OceanGate, the firm behind the dive, is widely reported to be on board too.

There is no other submersible in the world that can reach those depths. The would need to first locate it underwater, which is challenging enough - and if it is found to be on the seabed there is literally nothing that can reach it.

Potentially a different passenger awaiting her ‘turn’ aboard the ship. They can only take 4 at a time but more will have paid. It does say in the article that some of people who buy tickets are just bucket list titanic fanatics that have made huge sacrifices to afford it.

I imagine it is because it’s so small, being able to spot it in such a vast area if if has no comms or location devices would be like looking for a needle in a haystack.

It does seem a very simple design flaw that the craft is dull grey, rather than bright red/yellow/orange - might at least give a smidgen more chance of spotting it.

Horrific situation.

Not the point, I know, but I can’t help wondering who on earth wants to go and look at what amounts to a tragic, mass ocean-bottom grave - never mind paying an absolute fortune to do so. Even if £250k is relative peanuts to some of them.

So if the pings have stopped being sent back every 15 mins, what has likely to have happened ?

My ds loves the titanic, he knows everything about it, he is autistic and it is one of his special interests. Unfortunately I think he would be the type of person who would do this

The woman who had saved for ever to go on the submersible went on a previous trip down. It was on a bbc documentary about it

I think we can all hold two thoughts in our head at the same time - it’s absolutely horrifying to think these men might be alive awaiting almost impossible rescue or facing death, not something I’d wish on anyone - it’s also a reckless and macabre thing to have done.

Its horrific. It's a massive search effort, with the only realistic hope being that it's bobbed to the surface somewhere and that one of the aircraft flying the area spots it. If it's underwater its a nightmare to rescue it.

There is no way I would have got into that. They steer it with an X box controller!

Looks like it's been thrown together

I don't feel like I understand Why the submersible needed to be bolted shut from the outside?

I can see obviously the seal and outer side of the door would have to be wider than the inner, but it would make more sense to me to then be able to open it from inside.

Re water, you'd hope that given they fit a 4 day emergency air supply and the whole thing weighs tonnes, that they would pop a couple of 5L containers of potable water in their emergency supplies. You wouldn't need much to match the 4L supplies and people can manage (if not be comfortable/healthy) on a good chunk less than 2L a day - you'd only need 20L to supply 1L per day for each person for 4 days.

I hope they are bobbing somewhere on the surface but even then it doesn't look like the sub is dayglo orange or whatever colour would be best to aid its location.

Was reading up on deep sea exploration - James Cameron is a leading expert in this area (yes the film director!) and went to the bottom of the Mariana Trench in 2012 in the Deep Sea Challenger.

I wonder if the he is helping with the search . I also wonder if Challenger is still is use and still seaworthy to that depth as a potential option?

“Cameron is an expert on deep-sea exploration, in part because of his work on The Abyss and Titanic,[121] and his childhood fascination with shipwrecks. He has contributed to advancements in underwater filming and remotely operated vehicles, and helped develop the 3D Fusion Camera System.[129][130][131] In 2011, Cameron became a National Geographic explorer-in-residence.[132] In his role on March 7, 2012, he dived five miles deep to the bottom of the New Britain Trench with the Deepsea Challenger.[133]19 days later, Cameron reached the Challenger Deep, the deepest part of the Mariana Trench.[134][135][136] He spent more than three hours exploring the ocean floor, becoming the first to accomplish the trip alone.[134][137] During his dive to the Challenger Deep, he discovered new species of sea cucumber, squid worm and a giant single-celled amoeba.[138] He was preceded by unmanned dives in 1995 and 2009, as well as by Jacques Piccard and Don Walsh, the first men to reach the bottom of the Mariana Trench aboard the Bathyscaphe Trieste in 1960.[139]”

I don't feel like I understand Why the submersible needed to be bolted shut from the outside?

I wondered if they perceived the greatest risk to be someone panicking and trying to open it when it wasn't safe to do so? If you can only open from the outside, the unit must be at sea level to do so.

Absolutely. It’s tragic loss, and it’s even more tragic because it could have easily been avoided.
The titanic, and the souls on board, should be left in peace now. I wonder how these men would feel about their own watery grave becoming a tourist attraction…

Really? You can’t think of anything that would be more important?
The rescue mission could literally cost limitless amounts of money, what else do you want them to do?

Ok scrap the Deepsea Challenger idea - it’s sat in a museum and was damaged in a fire!