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

It won't just be money (but my god that will involve a lot won't it), but the difficulty, and unlikelihood, of locating them and then extracting in such an environment.

More money than sense. That said, it's not a fate I would wish on anyone except maybe Trump.

I’m fed up of hearing about Titanic.

Yes, and other peoples lives at risk

Kim Wall's murder is one of the most horrifying news stories I've ever read about. Even having purposely avoided any of the gorier details of the case, it still pops into my mind more often than I'd like. Unimaginable horror.

No money could get me on a submarine.

Oh, I agree

My point wasn't meant to be about why they arrived in these circumstances. Rather that it's the unusual that get the headlines.

So if the Thai footballers had got on a bus which had skidded off the road in the downpour, there wouldn't have been international coverage.

And the numbers who die annually in mining accidents never gets reported, and neither do other industrial fatalities, unless there are unusual circumstances, especially those that play to our fears

True @berksandbeyond

The World was gripped in the early 1980's by a Six year old boy, Alfredo Rampi who fell down a terribly deep and narrow {30cms} artesian well.

In those far off days when no internet was invented, people waited for radio and TV updates.

There were huge rescue missions, including a circus contortionist who was lowered to try to reach Alfredo.

His youth, his innocence, what happened to him caused an outpouring of empathy, because of the awfulness of his situation.

He was such a sweet boy.

these are very experienced people, researchers, who done similar adventures many, many times before.
They probably were not nervous to step in, they were not ordinary people from crowds who received the journey down as gift.
I didn’t even know something like this existed, to dive down to Titanic as sightseeing and I must say I’m pretty much very interested in Titanic, I remember before it was discovered in 1985 I read a book about it and it always attracted me so I even I made project work about it in secondary school, but I never heard of options or trips down there..

@Florissante It doesn't matter how old my children get they will still be my children. And I've had 19-year-olds and have been 19. That's are still pretty close to being a child, and are certainly highly influenced by others.

Interesting read from 2019,

Also, a few points about Titan:

• It is made from Carbon Fiber, not meant to withstand pressure that deep
• While game controllers are commonly used up to military level, using them wireless under the sea can be an issue, if only for battery potential issues
• Titan had seven methods for emergency surfacing, none of which worked
• There were no other emergency plans, no GPS and it is not sufficient for sonar
• The only method of communication was Starlink Satelite which can only reach about 200ft down into the ocean
• Vessel cannot be opened from the inside and has no bathroom which would be fine if it had another vessel to dock on to
• Titan has only had two prior expeditions and guess what? It got lost for 5+ hours in the one they did in 2022

In this article it clearly states that they forwent Classing safety assessments because, and I quote:

"The vast majority of marine (and aviation) accidents are a result of operator error, not mechanical failure. As a result, simply focusing on classing the vessel does not address the operational risks. Maintaining high-level operational safety requires constant, committed effort and a focused corporate culture"

Focused corporate culture....?

In short, it is highly unlikely these people are alive and it is shit, because whatever has happened is 100% avoidable if they had even just had the vessel classed and tested properly.

But you know, profit focused corporate culture over safety I guess.

https://oceangate.com/news-and-media/blog/2019-0221-why-titan-is-not-classed.html

People won't be going down after them.

If they are rescued, it'll be from the surface. So the risk to rescuers is much the same as for any rescue from any small vessel.

Looking underwater is a difficult thing to do.

It's two miles down and they could be in any of that depth. It's very dark, when you see pictures of the wreck they are usually of the bow and you can't see much further, it's like when you drive in thick fog, you can't see far ahead even though every car on the road has its lights on.

Yeah I agree, I think a lot underestimate the challenge of searching bodies of water, let alone at this depth and in a body of water this vast. The pressure, the temp along with little to no visibility and the lack of tech or equipment that can operate at those depths then sadly unless it's managed to surface it would take a ridiculous amount of luck.

Even with the search for NB her body was missed in a slow moving, fairly shallow stretch using modern top of the range equipment.

I remember watching them coming out one by one, I was supposed to be on my way to work but hung on as long as I could to watch Miner 27 make it out safely! It was one of those moments when you felt as though despite national differences, conflicting beliefs and old enmities we managed to express a collective humanity and desperation for a good resolution across the globe. It was very humbling.

Of course all that dissipated within days of the rescue, but for a little while it showed what we could be as a species.

Hohohogreenjennie · Yesterday 18:04
Utterly horrifying. Hope they are found safe and soon.”

It is. So do I. Then I hope that these inappropriate tourist trips to a mass grave are stopped.

Yes quite. It's pitch black where they are. If they have lost power they will be in total darkness unless they have some other battery source of light.

They'll almost certainly have their phones with them, so a source of light for at least a little while.

You'd imagine there'd be a torch onboard as well.

James Cameron's submersible 'Mir' was Russian and that is now in a museum.
It looked far more suited to abyssal exploration than the ra2

Mir also had incredibly powerful lighting to see where it was going {To avoid entanglements} and experienced support from the mother ship.

They used robotic cameras to 'Explore' the Titanic which is also a Grave site {as are so many Wreck sites}.

The top point seems particularly problematic

A pp mentioned a very experienced sub diver joining, maybe those issues not picked up on

Yes, it is a story which haunts me. Even without any gory detail, knowing that she must have had a moment of realisation that he was going to harm her and that she was trapped and completely helpless is so upsetting. I can’t bear to think about what Kim went through.

Every year 10+ people die climbing mount everest. They chose to spend the money and they take the risk.

I get that GPS doesn't work under water - but why isn't the thing fitted with a tracker that can go off once it surfaces (in the event of emergency/uncontrolled surfacing)?

Is there a reason why all submersibles are not tethered? Is it because there's a danger of snagging around a wreck? It would drastically reduce the area to be searched.

I hope they get found and rescued. The drive to explore and push the boundaries of what's possible is a key trait that has led humans to dominate the planet and the passengers on this vessel presumably have the same impulse of adventure that led people to climb Everest, land on the moon, lap the Isle of Man TT course at 136mph, build the Pyramids and plenty of other things.

Personally I fundamentally distrust the ocean and you'd be unlikely to get me in a submarine or submersible unless it was in a swimming pool or maybe a river. I'm too lazy to climb Everest, too cowardly to race a motorbike and don't have access to the money or slaves needed to embark on a massive construction project. I'd go into space though, in the unlikely event I was the best candidate available, despite the risk. The sense of adventure is in most of us to some degree.

To the people who say a 19 year old is too easily influenced or not mature enough to decide to take the risk, I disagree. People of this age fight and die in wars, are allowed to drink and to gamble and can rack up huge debts they will be paying back for decades. If the argument is that a 19yo shouldn't have access to $250,000 for a trip like this, that carries more weight.