Titanic tourist submersible goes missing

[EnterpriseSovereign]

Search and rescue mission underway after Titanic tourist submersible goes missing

A submersible taking tourists to view the wreck of the Titanic has gone missing, sparking a search and rescue mission.

The underwater vessel disappeared off the coast of southeast Canada on Monday, having set off to explore the infamous ship's wreckage, which is located about 370 miles away from Newfoundland.

It is believed a British businessman named Hamish Harding is on the missing submersible, but it is unclear how many other passengers are on board the missing watercraft. According to the website of OceanGate Expedition, the company behind the trip, all its submersibles carry five people.

A submersible is an underwater craft that has very limited power reserves and therefore needs a mother ship to launch and recover it. A submarine has enough power to transport itself.

Lt. Jordan Hart of the US Coast Guard told CBS News personnel were "currently undergoing a search and rescue operation".

OceanGate Expeditions said it is "exploring and mobilising all options to bring the crew back safely".

"Our entire focus is on crew members in the submersible and their families," OceanGate said in a statement to CBS.

The spokesperson added: "We are deeply thankful for the extensive assistance we have received from several government agencies and deep sea companies in our efforts to reestablish contact with the submersible.

"We are working toward the safe return of the crew members."

Three tug boats - Polar Prince, Kopit Hobson 1752, Horizon Arctic - are near the Titanic site from the port of St Johns, in Canada, according to boat monitoring site Marine Traffic.

Polar Prince was hired to ferry around forty people and the submersible to the wreckage, according to court documents submitted by OceanGate.

On Thursday (June 15), OceanGate said on its website and social media feeds that an expedition to the wreckage of the HMS Titanic, was "underway".

A day earlier on Wednesday, the company, said on Twitter, that there was no mobile phone reception out at sea and that it was using Elon Musk's satellite company Starlink to help maintain communications with its expedition.

In 2021, OceanGate Expeditions began what it hoped would become an annual trip to record the deterioration of the wreck of the Titanic.

Initially the tourists' fee was funding the expedition - they paid anywhere from $100,000 (£77255.45) to $150,000 (£117,393) each.

OceanGate’s 2023 expedition is believed to have set off in early May and was due to get back to shore by the end of June, according to a court documents filed by the company in April with a US District Court in Virginia which presides over the Titanic.

The company hired tug boat Polar Prince, which is believed to be at the site of the Titanic wreckage, to ferry dozens of people and the submersible craft to the North Atlantic site.

The submersible is named Titan according to the court documents.

It carries five people and is capable of diving 4,000 metres or 13,120 ft. “with a comfortable safety margin,” OceanGate said on its website.

[Broomstick]

Honestly, this is not looking good for those aboard.

It is now confirmed there were five people aboard on this dive.

Adventure tourism to brink of the known world has real hazards. I hope these people can return to shore safe and sound but, like space, this sort of deep sea travel carries serious risks.

[Lord Revan]

Yeah people aren't suppose to go that deep so if something goes bad it typically goes bad in a catastrophic way.

[LadyTevar]

The best option here is the Submersible "Titan", was able to blow the ballast and is now floating on the surface, without power or with power but no communication. US and Canadian forces are using helicopters to search a wide area in hopes this is the case.

The worst option, the Titan reached the Titanic at ~2.3miles down, and was unable to blow the ballast. There are very, very few subs that can reach that depth, so the chance of sending a rescue vessel that deep is slim. Human divers are right out, the pressure is too much.

At this point, all we can do is wait and see. They have 70hrs of air... so if they're not found today, this goes from Rescue to Recovery.

The cynical part of me is thinking the Titanic has once again caused the death of three rich men who paid top dollar for the trip.

[EnterpriseSovereign]

Apparently Harding has been to space aboard Blue Origin, and interestingly also the Challenger Deep, which itself is nearly three times the depth of the Titanic.

[Broomstick]

At this point I think they have something like 36 hours of air left IF they are alive, which simply isn't known.

Best case they're floating on the surface - but the clock is still ticking. If they aren't found soon they could suffocate, or suffer hypothermia, or a combination.

Down deep the submersible might have imploded - which would be instant death.

Or it could have sprung a leak, though doing so without imploding or otherwise suffering catastrophic damage would be a trick, and interior of the vessel flooded. That would not be instant death, but it would be quicker than some alternatives. A pretty quick death, with the final moments very cold and wet.

Or they could be alive down there, and still healthy and whole (though perhaps justifiably frightened) and unable to rise again because they're snagged/trapped in the wreckage. Or the ballast release system malfunctioned (although there are supposed to be multiple ballast-dropping systems, including one that is automated and requires no human intervention to operate).

If they are alive down there rescue is extremely unlikely - there are very few vehicles that can dive that deep. For those that can carry humans there would be absolutely no way to transfer anyone from one vehicle to another, and in any case, most of them are unmanned. And none are nearby. It is unlikely that one could be obtained, dive, and effect any sort of repairs or rescue in the time left.

[bilateralrope]

Apparently there is only one other manned vessel that can get down that far: The only manned submersible that could reach the missing Titan is owned by Steam’s Gabe Newell
Quoting the relevant bit of the article:

Sadly, even if Limiting Factor did reach Titan, it’s unlikely to be able to rescue those on board. There is no feasible way to transfer anyone from one craft to another that depth without destroying both. Even so, simply locating Titan in order to work out what might have happened to it would be useful information and provide some closure to the passengers’ families if the worst has indeed happened.

Here’s hoping Newell is on the case and getting Limiting Factor to the site as quickly as possible. Meanwhile, a pipe-laying ship with an ROV (remotely operated underwater vehicle) is on the scene, so let’s hope for news soon.

If they have sunk, the best anyone can hope for is that the wreck gets located.

[LadyTevar]

There's a small bit of hope.

Sonar Picks Up Sounds of Life

News that noises have been picked up in the hunt for a missing submersible has offered a glimmer of hope that the five men on board are alive.

The sounds were recorded by sonar buoys in a massive rescue operation, which is racing against time to find the Titan in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. It was lost on a deep-sea voyage to the Titanic wreck three days ago.

Underwater operations have been relocated to investigate the noises, the US Coast Guard has said, but so far they haven't found anything.

And with oxygen supplies expected to run out at around 11:00 GMT on Thursday, the next few hours are critical.

Frank Owen, from the Submarine Institute of Australia, says he is confident - based on the information available - the sounds are coming from inside the vessel.

"If there was a 30-minute interval, it's very unlikely to be anything but human related," he told the BBC.

The men on board include British businessman Hamish Harding, 58, British-Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood, 48, his son Suleman, 19, and Stockton Rush, 61, the chief executive of OceanGate, which runs the voyages at a cost of $250,000 (£195,270) per head.

But Mr Owen says the noises "smack of advice" coming from the fifth man on board - 77-year-old Paul-Henry Nargeolet, a former French navy diver and renowned explorer.

"He would know the protocol for trying to alert searching forces… on the hour and the half hour you bang like hell for three minutes," Mr Owen said.

Now... the problem is triangulating and finding the exact location merely by SOUND... assuming those within the sub continue to make sounds every half-hour on the hour.

[Broomstick]

That, and even if they're found there's the problem of getting them off the bottom (if that's where they are) before their air runs out. The US Navy has equipment on the way that could lift the sub off the bottom, but time is running out for this as a rescue operation. I'm sure, if found after the air runs out, there will be a salvage operation if that is at all feasible but a recovery is never as happy as a rescue.

Even if they're at the surface (which is also possible at this point) they still need be found in less than 24 hours to survive as there is no means to open this vessel from the inside.

[LadyTevar]

That, and even if they're found there's the problem of getting them off the bottom (if that's where they are) before their air runs out. The US Navy has equipment on the way that could lift the sub off the bottom, but time is running out for this as a rescue operation. I'm sure, if found after the air runs out, there will be a salvage operation if that is at all feasible but a recovery is never as happy as a rescue.

Even if they're at the surface (which is also possible at this point) they still need be found in less than 24 hours to survive as there is no means to open this vessel from the inside.

Frank Owens did offer more hope, I just didn't quote it.

The Titanic lays 12,500ft (3,800m) beneath the ocean surface, where the sonar buoys sit.
While sounds from deep ocean layers could get through to them, it is more likely that the sounds are coming from the same ocean layer, Mr Owen says.

"It is very difficult to hear noise below the [top] layer because the sound gets refracted by this drop in temperature."
"But when it's in that isothermal layer... between the surface and 180 metres... the sound behaves really quite straight."

[bobalot]

It would be quite the miracle if they managed it.

[EnterpriseSovereign]

Apparently there were longstanding safety concerns over the Titan's design:

OceanGate, whose tourist submersible is currently the centre of a large-scale search and rescue operation in the North Atlantic, was repeatedly warned there might be catastrophic safety problems posed by the way it was developed.

Documents show an ex-director of marine operations at OceanGate, David Lochridge, wrote an engineering report in 2018 that the craft under development needed more testing.

Passengers might be endangered when it reached "extreme depths," the report also said.

OceanGate sued Mr Lochridge that year, accusing him of breaching a non-disclosure agreement, and he filed a counterclaim alleging that he was wrongfully fired for raising questions about testing and safety.

[bilateralrope]

Don't forget this worrying bit from the end of the article:

In a 2019 interview with Smithsonian magazine, the OceanGate founder complained that the industry’s approach was stifling innovation.

"There hasn’t been an injury in the commercial sub industry in over 35 years," Mr Rush said.

"It’s obscenely safe because they have all these regulations... But it also hasn’t innovated or grown - because they have all these regulations."

[Crazedwraith]

Latest news seems to be the wreckage they found earlier os from the Titan sub, so barring mistakes that sounds like that's that.

[bilateralrope]

Yeah. A debris field with identifiable parts of the sub is not a good sign.

Though we will have to wait for the Coast Guard press conference to know more.

Though their air supply would have run out over 6 hours ago. So they are dead even if the sub is intact.

[Solauren]

Don't forget this worrying bit from the end of the article:

In a 2019 interview with Smithsonian magazine, the OceanGate founder complained that the industry’s approach was stifling innovation.

"There hasn’t been an injury in the commercial sub industry in over 35 years," Mr Rush said.

"It’s obscenely safe because they have all these regulations... But it also hasn’t innovated or grown - because they have all these regulations."

That sounds more like "It safe, so let me do it my way that's not safe!"

[Broomstick]

Coast Guard press conference started off with the news that a debris field was found about 1600 feet (480 meters) from the bow of the Titantic. The debris were described as consistent with a "catastrophic" failure of the pressure vessel (implosion, presumably). Other parts that were not pressurized, like the tail cone, were more intact and I assume assisted identification.

They are all deceased.

At least it was quick and they are no longer suffering.

The ROV's will remain on site to "gather information".

The families were officially notified prior to the press briefing.

[EnterpriseSovereign]

Two parts of the article I feel are worth highlighting:

Further, the craft was designed to reach depths of 4,000 meters (13,123 feet), where the Titanic rested.

But, according to Mr Lochridge, the passenger viewport was only certified for depths of up to 1,300 meters (4,265 feet), and OceanGate would not pay for the manufacturer to build a viewport certified for 4,000 meters.

OceanGate Chief Executive Stockton Rush defended the approach in a speech to a conference in Seattle last year hosted by the tech news site GeekWire.

He described how he had taken a prototype down to 4,000 meters: “It made a lot of noise,” he said.

So he brought the vessel back up, and on a second dive it made the same troubling noises, even though it should have been dramatically quieter.

The company scrapped that hull, which had been constructed by a marine manufacturer, and built another one with an aerospace supplier, Mr Rush said.

A couple of big design flaws right there.

[Solauren]

Wow. OceanGate is now open for major, major lawsuits

[Broomstick]

During the questions from the audience part of the Coast Guard briefing there were reporters shouting about body retrieval.

Methinks those people don't really have a clue about the physical forces involved....

[Batman]

While I think I'm vaguely familiar with the physical forces involved I'm pretty certain I don't really know what those forces will do to a human body beyond 'The remains aren't going to look much like an ordinary corpse'.

[Zaune]

Put it this way: If they're still in what's left of the submarine, which is doubtful, then there won't be much point in using body bags. Some large buckets would be more suitable.

[Broomstick]

The Byford Dolphin accidents involved someone going from 9 atmospheres of pressure to 1 more or less instantaneously. He was, as it is usually described, "extruded" through a small opening. I usually seen further descriptions of his internal organs being "ejected" from his body. Part of his spine wound up on a piece of platform 10 meters above the accident site. I'll just point out that the hatch he was "extruded" and "ejected" through was on the bottom of a vessel and facing downward when that bit of body was sent upward 10 meters. Just 8 atmospheres of differential.

At the depth of the Titanic the water is at the equivalent of 375 atmospheres of pressure.

The other measure I have at hand is in Imperial units, but I think the size comparisons are sufficient to carry the meaning here regardless of the exact units involved:

1 atmosphere pressure at sea level is roughly 15 pounds per square inch.

At Titanic depths it's roughly 25,000 pounds per square inch.

I believe the word "paste" would be appropriate here.

[The_Saint]

Depending on how the pressure vessel ruptured/collapsed body retrieval might be retrieving the biggest part of the hull and then use a paint scraper to peel the red pasty smear off of it.

Mercifully it was almost assuredly quick.

[EnterpriseSovereign]

It's the exact opposite of what happened on the Byford Dolphin since they're not going to be blown outwards but rather crushed inwards. Which somehow seems worse.

Titanic Five died instantly when craft suffered 'catastrophic implosion' 1,600ft from the bow of the wrecked liner: Coastguard has found multiple parts of the destroyed sub but CANNOT say if bodies can be recovered

It depends on the depth that implosion occurred since the further from the seabed it happens, the more spread out the debris field becomes and the likelihood of human remains being within diminishes.