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

I thought the report said it was just crew on board which is still horrific but maybe they're slightly better at keeping calm than random passengers? And hopefully between them can figure out how to get back?

They're in a 7m long tin can in a vast ocean and cannot resurface of their own accord. The likelihood of them being found in good time is slim. And that is assuming they have not dropped to a higher pressure than the submersible can handle. If one system has failed then others quite possibly have too, such as the piloting system so they will likely be drifting. If they do come back alive it will indeed make for wonderful news.

What a terrible thought.
I don’t really understand why people want to view somewhere where do many lost their lives though, a bit ghoulish.
I hope they are found in time though.

They refer to passengers as crew. There’s 1 staff member and 4 passengers allegedly. The news have reported that there may well be a British billionaire on board

Article here from last year. Nothing about this article makes me think I would want to do this. Hopefully they will surface and be found. Seems like the external crew are needed to release them even if they do surface.

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

That’s a really chilling read. Especially the signing of the disclaimer and the 17 bolts!!!

Disclaimers are usually an unnerving read, that's why so few people read 'em!

There's no GPS underwater, so the surface ship is supposed to guide the sub to the shipwreck by sending text messages.

From the above article. So when they are talking about not getting pings back do they mean text messages?

Also. Yikes!

And yet, I couldn't help noticing how many pieces of this sub seemed improvised, with off-the-shelf components. Piloting the craft is run with a video game controller.

This is nightmarish. I do hope that they can be found and brought to the surface in time. Somehow!

I do have some doubts as to how ethical this type of "tourism" is. I'm quite interested in the Titanic and its story, and think that submersibles going down to it for the sake of preserving or documenting an important piece of maritime history is a good thing, but just taking members of the public (albeit pretty wealthy ones) who just want to go sightseeing should perhaps be reconsidered. Someone called it ghoulish. Perhaps. I'd certainly call it voyeuristic and verging on disrespectful to those who died.

Absoloutley insane that there is only one method of controlling an ascent. Ship controls sub. Why not equip both to control it? What if there was an elec failure on the ship, or a hurricane or capsized?

It's such a gruesome type of "tourism" anyways, so this may put the breaks on future trips.

Apparently it’s not tethered to the mother ship so it must be capable of re surfacing itself.

Lets hope so, and that there hasn't been some sort of catastrophic electrical failure meaning that it can't.

@Topseyt123 i looked at OceanGate's website when the story broke and they very much sell it as a chance to be a scientific explorer and contribute to an important expedition...it's blatantly dressing it up 1) to make it seem less ghoulish and more ethical and 2) probably to bolster the ego or sense of purpose of the tourists who do go. It's like years ago when I "taught" English to poorer students in an economically developing country. Looking back, i was no teacher nor charity worker, i was a kid on an expensive safe(ish) trip getting the chance to see a different world and stick something good on my cv. It's like the current trend for conservation holidays, "pay a whack into the charity and we'll let you count turtles and call yourself an eco warrior."

Interestingly, scuba divers are subject to rules about disturbing grave sites. I suppose they can still sometimes dive around the outside though. Wreck diving is also popular (wrecks don't always mean graveyards).

None of this negates how bloody sad the (likely) loss of life is.

I do wonder if some body will step in to regulate the industry? There are some manned research submersibles and probably a few tourist ones. Should probably be regulated sooner rather than later.

@OvaHere
And yet, I couldn't help noticing how many pieces of this sub seemed improvised, with off-the-shelf components. Piloting the craft is run with a video game controller.
To be fair all American naval submarines are now controlled with Xbox hand sets !! 😬. Seems unbelievable but it’s true !! They had used handsets that cost $75,000 until it was pointed out that $20 Xbox handsets worked just as well !!

This missing submersible does sounds absolutely terrifying though, hope they are found safe and well.

It's like the script to a bad B movie. I hope they'll find them in time.

UK billionaire Hamish Harding is one of those on board

https://news.sky.com/story/uk-billionaire-hamish-harding-on-board-missing-titanic-submersible-family-confirms-12905616

Fair enough. I don't know about these things. 😀

From what I've read the only crew member on board is the pilot. I hope this isn't the case because that allows for no redundancy. On airplanes you have 2 pilots so at least if one were to suffer a sudden incapacity there's a back up.

What if something happened to the pilot and there's just the tourists left on the sea bed wondering how to bring it back up?

Hideous - it's the stuff of nightmares.

I too would hope that it can at least be regulated somehow.

I wonder if the problem could be that the Titanic is, I believe, in international waters? So probably not under the jurisdiction of any one country or government.

I believe too that it is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site, which I thought was supposed to protect things as much as possible. Not sure if it could be used to regulate this grotesque sort of "tourism" though.

Completely agree.

You would think it would have some form of gps and they’d be able to locate it and get another submarine to pull it up.

Surely they have contingencies for the worst case scenario (especially at that price).

One would certainly hope so.

Titanic carried insufficient lifeboat space, which contributed greatly to the death toll. Surely the moral of the story is that a contingency should always be available. If it can't be then the tourist trips at least should not be allowed.

One of the passengers will have been trained as copilot.

GPS doesn’t work under water, but I presume there will have been an acoustic ping.

I would be astounded if they can be recovered if they have not surfaced. Too hard to locate.

If they surface then I assume they will have GPS.

Poor souls.

From that article, it sounds as if the submersible is capable of reaching the surface, but has to be retrieved by the mothership, as there would be no way for crew/passengers to open the (17 bolted) hatch.

And it sounds like the submersible pings the mothership whilst it's at great depth, and ship/submersible can exchange messages when it's nearer the surface (eg confirming locations and RV arrangements).

<awaits arrival of a MNetter who is expert in this field, who will say - hopefully trenchantly - if I've understood correctly, or if the post is fluent bollocks>

Even if I had the money, there is no way I would ever consider going on one those things. Not worth the risk.

I hope the people onboard are OK and are rescued soon.

Also, not sure how going to see the titanic wreckage is ghoulish? It’s historical. That’s like saying going to see Auschwitz is ghoulish

Submarines can’t get down that deep. Most submarines can go a few hundred metres down. Titanic is thousands of metres down.
They’re basically in a capsule that can withstand intense pressure, not a traditional submarine.