dr Dale Molé, former director of underwater medicine and radiation health for the US Navy, said the implosion was instantaneous
A distinguished former naval doctor has revealed what would have happened in the Titanic Five’s tragic final moments before their ship suffered a ‘catastrophic implosion’.
dr Dale Molé, the US Navy’s former director of underwater medicine and radiation health, told the deaths were quick and painless, with deaths almost instantaneous from the extraordinary forces exerted by the ocean at depth.
Molé said: “It would have come on so suddenly that they wouldn’t even have known there was a problem or what had happened to them.”
“It’s like being here a minute and then the switch goes off.” One millisecond you’re alive and the next millisecond you’re dead.”
US Coast Guard Rear Admiral John Mauger confirmed in a news conference Thursday that the search for Titan had turned up debris “consistent with catastrophic loss of the hyperbaric chamber.”
Five people were on board, including British billionaire adventurer Hamish Harding and Shahzada Dawood and his 19-year-old son Suleman
French Navy veteran PH Nargeolet (left) was in the submarine with Stockton Rush (right), CEO of OceanGate Expedition
An aerial view of the US Coast Guard searching for the missing Titan at the wreck of the Titanic. According to experts, the submarine imploded, instantly killing all five crew members
The crew was more than 2 miles below the sea surface which would have generated pressures in excess of 5,500 pounds per square inch (PSI).
Aboard the ship were OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush, 61; Paul-Henri (PH) Nargeolet, French Navy veteran, 77; British billionaire Hamish Harding, 58; Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood, 41; and his son Suleman, who was just 19 years old.
The tiny ship that carried the crew was protected by a hyperbaric chamber, a sealed capsule whose internal pressure is well above ambient pressure, a pressurized gas system to control the internal pressure, and a breathing gas supply for the occupants.
Molé said, “The pressure hull is the chamber that the occupants stay in.” It sounds like they hit the ground when the pressure vessel imploded, and usually when it gives way, it gives all at once.
“It sounds like it was the carbon fiber cylinder that gave way and led to the implosion.”
How the pressure chamber was breached remains unclear. However, such an implosion could be due to a leak, a power outage, or a small fire due to an electrical short.
The result would have been a violent and instantaneous implosion as the highly pressurized water rushed in from outside, ripping away the rear cover and landing frame, ripping apart the submarine’s hull and crushing those inside.
Molé said: “They would have been torn to pieces.”
“An implosion is when the pressure wave is directed inward, whereas an explosion is when the pressure wave or shock wave emanates from whatever source arises.”
He explained it like over-inflating a balloon — the balloon will eventually burst if too much pressure is applied.
The opposite happens in an implosion: if there is more pressure on the outside than the container can handle, the inside collapses.
Molé said, “If someone stood on an empty soda can, it would support your weight, but if you then pressed on the sides, the can would immediately collapse.”
He added, “It’s just where the debris and fragments and everything else is rushing inward due to some strong external force.” In this case, it was the sea.
“At least at Titanic’s depth, which is 12,500 feet, the external pressure would be 6,000 pounds per square inch. It is this pressure that, if there were a weak point in the hull, would cause the hull to collapse and suddenly create a shock wave. “An implosion can be just as destructive as an explosion.”
According to Scientific American, had the submersible been near the Titanic, it would have been subjected to more pressure than a great white shark bite.
Nicolai Roterman, a deep-sea ecologist at the University of Portsmouth, UK, agreed that if such an implosion had occurred, the pressure would have killed the occupants almost instantly.
“If there were any hull breach, the occupants would succumb to the sea almost instantly.”
According to the US Coast Guard, the company’s Titan submarine submerged about 400 miles southeast of St. John’s, Newfoundland at 8 a.m. EST Sunday morning. It lost contact at 9.45am but was not reported to the Coast Guard until 5.40pm
The Viking 6000 ROV was able to reach the depth of the Titanic site, locating debris from the imploded ship
Tributes were released and posted after Thursday’s announcement of the Titanic Five’s deaths.
Paul-Henri Nargeolet, 77 – commonly known as PH – was part of the first human expedition to visit the Titanic wreck in 1987 and had visited the site at least 35 times. His family said they were heartbroken at his death.
“He is a man who will be remembered as one of the greatest deep-sea explorers in modern history.” When you think of the Titanic and everything we know about the ship today, you think of Paul-Henri Nargeolet and his legendary work think.
“But what will remind us of him most is his big heart, his incredible sense of humor and how much he loved his family.” “We will miss him today and every day for the rest of our lives.”
Harding’s company, Action Aviation, also released a statement following the news of his death.
“Hamish Harding was a loving husband to his wife and a devoted father to his two sons, whom he loved dearly. “To his team at Action Aviation, he has been a leader, an inspiration, a support and a living legend,” the statement said.
The Dawood family said they are grateful to those who took part in the international rescue effort. Their works are a “source of strength,” Hussain and the Kulsum Dawood family said in a statement.
“We are also indebted to our friends, family, colleagues and well-wishers from around the world who have stood by us in our hour of need,” the statement said. “The immense love and support we receive continues to help us bear this unimaginable loss.”
One of OceanGate Expeditions’ final images of the Titan submarine before it began its fateful descent to the Titanic wreck
Although the US Navy heard the sound of the implosion on Sunday morning, massive rescue efforts continued.
The OceanGate submarine began its descent toward the Titanic wreck site in the deep Atlantic around 8 a.m. Sunday. About an hour and 45 minutes later, the ship lost contact with the surface.
A new report found the US Navy may have still heard the sound of the implosion Sunday morning, but massive rescue efforts continued.
“The US Navy was conducting an analysis of the acoustic data and discovered an anomaly attributable to an implosion or explosion in the general vicinity of the Titan submersible operating site when communications were lost,” said a senior US Navy official. Marine.
Earlier Thursday, Coast Guard Rear Admiral John Mauger said it was too early to say if the implosion occurred at the time of last communication.
The implosion was not detected by the search parties’ sonar buoys, he said, suggesting it happened before they arrived – and was indeed heard by the US Navy.
“We had listening devices in the water the entire time and couldn’t hear any sign of a catastrophic failure from them,” Mauger said.
“The implosion would have produced a distinct, broadband noise that the sonar buoys would have picked up.”
It is not known why the US Navy did not disclose the information about the probable implosion. It is also not known if they informed the families or emergency services about their analysis.
One reason could be that they wanted to start a search and rescue mission, hoping their information was wrong and didn’t want to give a reason why they should be put off from the search.
A glimmer of hope came earlier in the week when the Coast Guard confirmed that P-3 aircraft had consistently picked up “popping” sounds, but search teams could neither find the source of the noise nor confirm that they were SOS signals the world had hoped .
Instead, on Thursday, a French Viking removed 6,000 debris from the imploded ship near the Titanic site.
In addition to the ship’s landing frame and rear cover, which were the first pieces of debris to be discovered, the ROV submarine also found fragments of the pressure hull – the main body of the submersible.