The search and rescue operation to locate the Titan submersible reached its final, final stage on Thursday with the discovery of five large pieces of debris about 500 meters from Titanic’s bow, the target of the submersible when it lost contact last Sunday. The small ship had a 96-hour supply of oxygen, prompting an intensified international search operation in North Atlantic waters on Wednesday, where an armada of vessels and remote-controlled devices searched the area, including three robots, which combed the zone on Tuesday and Wednesday noises of unknown origin were detected. Another ship designed to lift heavy loads was used to refloat the Titan if found. Rescuers have now confirmed that it previously disintegrated on the seabed, taking the lives of its five occupants. One of the robots, remotely operated by the Canadian ship Horizon Arctic, located the wreck at a depth of 3,800 meters on Thursday.
The Titan shattered a cylindrical cabin just over 6.5 meters long, 2.8 meters wide and 2.5 meters high due to a “catastrophic implosion” caused by external pressure on the ship. Its size allowed for underwater expeditions at a relatively low cost, despite the structural and certification risks some experts had previously warned about. An expensive toy that cost $250,000 per passenger was eventually turned into a floating coffin.
The five “major” pieces of Titan’s hull that were found, according to US Coast Guard Rear Admiral John Mauger, included the nose cone, the stern cone, the pressure hull’s forward bell and its aft end. This was confirmed by Paul Hankins, a US Navy salvage expert, who last Sunday spotted what was believed to be an implosion without linking it to the missing device.
“This was a catastrophic ship implosion that would have created a significant broadband noise down there that would have been picked up by the sonar buoys,” said Mauger, who did not provide time data on the event. Listening devices in the area previously reported found no evidence of such a catastrophic failure, while underwater noise recorded by Canadian reconnaissance planes Tuesday and Wednesday appears unrelated to Titan’s collapse. “As we continued the search, we had listening devices in the water throughout and heard no sign of catastrophic failure from them,” Mauger added at Thursday’s news conference. “It’s an incredibly unforgiving environment down there on the sea floor. The overwhelming support in this extremely complex search operation was greatly appreciated. Our heartfelt condolences to the friends and family of the crew.”
OceanGate co-founder Guillermo Söhnlein told the BBC there was likely an “instantaneous implosion” of the submersible, which was carrying OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush. “If that had happened, it would have happened four days ago,” he added. The priority of the search operation is now to find and recover the bodies of the passengers – Stockton; Paul-Henry Nargeolet, a renowned Titanic expert; Hamish Harding, a world-record-breaking adventurer, and Shahzada and Suleman Dawood, two members of one of Pakistan’s wealthiest families — as they determine the sequence of events that led to the deadly outcome.
The Titan was reported overdue Sunday afternoon about 435 miles (700 kilometers) south of St. John’s, Newfoundland, as it was en route to where the famous ocean liner sank more than a century ago. OceanGate Expeditions has been charting the decay of Titanic and the underwater ecosystem surrounding her on annual voyages since 2021.
“A needle in a haystack”
dr Rob Larter, marine geophysicist at British Antarctic Survey, stressed the difficulty of finding anything the size of Titan. “You’re talking about completely dark environments,” he said, where an object could be missed several dozen feet away. “It’s just a needle in a haystack unless you have a pretty accurate location.”
Newly uncovered allegations suggest significant ship safety warnings were issued during the development of the submersible.
At least 46 people successfully traveled to the Titanic wreck site on OceanGate’s submersible in 2021 and 2022. This is according to letters the company has filed in a US district court in Norfolk, Virginia, regarding overseas matters related to the Titanic shipwreck.
However, one of the company’s early customers referred to a dive he made on site two years ago as a “kamikaze operation”.
“Imagine a metal tube a few meters long with a metal sheet for the bottom. You can’t take it you can’t kneel Everyone sits close together or on top of each other,” said Arthur Loibl, a retired businessman and adventurer from Germany. “You can’t be claustrophobic.”
During the two and a half hour descent and ascent, the lights were turned off to conserve energy and the only illumination came from a fluorescent lightstick.
The dive was repeatedly postponed to fix an issue with the battery and balance weights. The journey took ten and a half hours in total. The submersible had seven backup systems to return to the surface, including sandbags and lead pipes that fall down, and an inflatable balloon.
Nicolai Roterman, deep-sea ecologist and lecturer in marine biology at the University of Portsmouth, England, said Titan’s disappearance highlights the dangers and unknowns of deep-sea tourism. “Even the most reliable technology can fail and this can lead to accidents. With the increase in deep-sea tourism, we must expect more such incidents.”
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