Sounds heard in the search for the Titanic submersible
But it’s not known whether those sounds are coming from the vehicle. Time is running out, and the obstacles to rescue are daunting:
Experts have not yet identified the source of these noises, and officials have warned the sounds may not have originated from the missing vessel. Analysis of the noises has been “inconclusive”, Coast Guard Capt Jamie Frederick said. Remotely operated vehicle (ROV) searches have been deployed in the area where the P-3 aircraft recorded the noises, US Coast Guard officials said.
The five passengers on board the missing Titan sub had 96 hours of breathable air, according to its operator OceanGate’s specifications. This would mean oxygen could run out by Thursday morning, but experts say the air supply depends on a range of factors…
Documents show that the sub’s operator, OceanGate, had been warned there might be catastrophic safety problems posed by the way the experimental vessel was developed. David Lochridge, OceanGate’s director of marine operations, said in a 2018 lawsuit that the company’s testing and certification was insufficient and would “subject passengers to potential extreme danger in an experimental submersible”…
Even if Titan is located, a successful rescue would require remote-controlled vehicles (ROVs) capable of allowing operators on the surface a clear view of the submersible’s location, any obstacles that may be present and where to attach cables capable of lifting it thousands of metres through the water.
If the Titan and its five-person crew did arrive at the Titanic wreck, they will be located 3,800 metres (12,500ft) below the surface on the seabed – too deep for most ROVs to reach. Only a “tiny percentage of the world’s submarines operate that deeply”, David Marquet, a former US Navy submarine commander, told CBC.
Were the passengers fully aware of the risk?
NOTE: When I chose the category “disaster” for this post, it occurred to me that it could potentially apply to the submersible but also of course applies to the original Titanic sinking.
If they haven’t located them and prepped another sub to extract them by now, then I expect it to be too late.
Some commenter expressed dismay that new sub technology was used, and this extremely novel adventure tourism went ahead without any locator beacons or similar distress paraphernalia that’s become widely used at sea, these days. But maybe it has?
First the Titanic sinks. Then the little Titan goes down. In the same place. The ironies.
I spent many years in my Navy career listening to the sounds of the sea through sonobouys. The sea is very noisy; like insects on land, many living things chirp or squeal or make noise. Without listening to the sounds, I can’t express any opinion about whether the noises are biologics or trapped people.
The Titan submerges with a couple of very heavy ballast weights, held on by electromagnetic clamps. If they lose power, the electromagnets fail, the weights fall free, and the Titan would pop to the surface like a cork. Since that didn’t happen, the most probable failure was a leak or implosion, and at that depth it’s the same thing; instant death.
The passengers in the submersible certainly didn’t get luxury accommodations for their $250,000 tickets. A German adventurer who took the trip in August 2021 described it as a “suicide mission”: “Loibl explained that they ended up launching five hours late due to electrical issues — which he suspects is to blame for the Titan crews’ current predicament. Not only that but right before the voyage, the bracket of the stabilization tube — which balances the sub — tore and had to be ‘reattached with zip ties,’ he said.”
The cabin is so cramped that the five people inside must sit on the floor barefoot with crossed legs. They must take turns stretching their legs fully. There is a toilet– separated from the main cabin by a flimsy curtain. As others have noted, the “pilot” steers the Titan with a $40 video game controller. Cross-section of the Titan at the link:
https://nypost.com/2023/06/21/former-titanic-sub-passenger-dubs-dive-a-suicide-mission/
Making the rounds of the Internet at the moment is MetaBall Studio’s animation of the average depth of different parts of the world’s oceans, using landmarks like the Eiffel Tower, the Statue of Liberty, and Mount Everest for illustration. The location of RMS Titanic on a shelf in the Atlantic Ocean appears at 3:27 in the video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5C7sqVe2Vg&ab_channel=MetaBallStudios
The whole unfortunate thing stinks.
Hoping for good news…
Related:
“OceanGate faced ‘quality and safety’ allegations about its Titanic sub as far back as 2018”—
https://nypost.com/2023/06/20/oceangate-faced-allegations-over-hull-safety-on-its-titanic-sub-in-2018/
Opening grafs:
‘ A former employee at OceanGate Expeditions, the private company whose submersible vanished on a trip to the wreck of the Titanic, had warned of “quality control and safety” problems that could affect customers as far back as 2018 – the same year diving experts warned the company about similar issues.
‘ David Lochridge, OceanGate’s former director of marine operations, claimed that he had raised alarms about the company’s handling of the Titan sub…
‘ Lochridge said he found a “lack of non-destructive testing performed on the hull of the Titan,” and when he raised the issues with OceanGate founder and CEO Stockton Rush, he was wrongfully terminated, according to a lawsuit….’ [Emphasis mine; Barry M.]
“Thrill-seeker pulled out of missing Titanic sub trip over fears it was ‘cutting too many corners’ “—
https://nypost.com/2023/06/21/thrill-seeker-quit-titanic-trip-over-corner-cutting-fears/
On Larry Kudlow, Fox Business, this afternoon, there was a comment that indeed, if the electrical system failed, the sub would have dropped its ballast and might be floating on the surface somewhere out there. It would be hard to spot, as it would be low in the water, and apparently outside help might be required to open the hatch.
The fascination with the Titanic has led people to take tremendous risks by getting into this probably unsafe vessel. They’re lucky there wasn’t an accident before.
The hatch is bolted shut from the outside, with 17 bolts. It cannot be opened by those inside. A questionable engineering decision at best.
More…
https://theothermccain.com/2023/06/21/as-a-commentary-on-our-decadent-elite-the-missing-luxury-sub-is-near-perfect/
German language news shows a Tweet, or possibly a news post, from the US Coast Guard — Northeast. Crucially, they mention that attempts to retrace and rehear the possible soundings from Titan were unsuccessful.
But on the surface radar from AIS locator beacons (at sea, like aircraft transponders) shows three ships or craft headed fast South from extreme East Nova Scotia to the site. And also two ships East of the site steaming more slowly West to the site.
Distances involved? Several hundred miles. The craft from the North might be Coast Guard, while the more mid-Atlantic origins of the latter two ships and their sluggishness suggest that these are freighter ships already doing a trans-Atlantic crossing but diverting to render aid while at sea.
cb:
Your Other McCain article has the Sub Brief The Titan Tragedy YouTube video that I posted yesterday in its . I wasn’t aware of the Ocean Quest founder’s elite pedigree. Sad, but the oceans don’t care about such things. cdrsalamander routinely says “the sea is always trying to kill you.”
There is an even deeper irony in the fact that both the Titanic and this submersible were done in by the same thing: an owner who valued money over safety of the passengers and crew.
Yahoo News confirms my prior posts and adds details. But the headline of this story contradicts mine, saying that more soundings from the presumed Titan have been heard.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/titanic-submersible-ships-and-experts-from-across-the-world-now-helping-with-search-efforts-210720240.html
CORRECTION: Newfoundland, Canada (NOT Nova Scotia as I had identified it above).
“The U.S. Air Force and Navy have joined the Coast Guard in the rescue mission for the Titan. Three Air Force cargo planes delivered winches, cables and unmanned vehicles capable of going 19,000 feet underwater to the airport in St. John’s.
The military has sent aircraft, salvage equipment and ships to the remote part of the Atlantic Ocean. The Air National Guard has assisted as well.”
Canada has also sent a Coast Guard research vessel named John Cabot.
I think they died when communications stopped.
SHIREHOME–
That seems to be a growing consensus. I came across a link (HT: a commenter over at Legal Insurrection) to a 20-minute video by a subject matter expert in submarines– a 20-year veteran USN submariner. He has lots of photos of the submersible and a very clear explanation of the engineering problems involved in the vessel’s air supply system as well as its overall structure:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4dka29FSZac&ab_channel=SubBrief
Stockton Rush should have consulted this 50-year-old white guy.
The case for not ever finding this Titan sub? is not directly made in this very knowledgeable Prof Sal Mercoguano interview from Fox News (late night? Over night?). But the implication is there, as he gets into the details of the jet stream steering the sub and sorting out one specific sonic wave from obstacles at enormous depths.
Prof Sal says finding a sounding from the sub is like listening in on a bird at the bottom of the Grand Canyon from the top. Not his words exactly, but the same analogy.
This puts the tasks ahead in perspective. The odds of failure remain very high.
A MOST ENLIGHTENING INTERVIEW — less than 13m.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9Q_0AqPQJk
CORRECTION FOR CLARITY “… sorting out one specific sonic wave from REFRACTORY obstacles at enormous depths.”
SOMETHING I had net at all stopped to consider!
“Were the passengers fully aware of the risk?”
Human beings (myself included) have an uncanny ability to dismiss risks: “it will never happen to me”.
I’m sure they all signed a document listing all the possible risks, but did they really read it? Pay attention to the risks? Put any serious thought into what those risks really mean?
You can’t fill a prescription these days without signing on the dotted line saying that you’re aware of the 17 pages of possible side effects of taking this drug.
Every day people get behind the wheel of a 2 ton lethal weapon, operate it at speeds capable of turning them into humpty dumpty should they crash…and then talk on the phone, eat their meals, do their makeup, compose e-mails and text messages. Do we really appreciate the risks of our activities? I’d say no.
“it’ll never happen to me” Until it does. Then it’s someone else’s fault and someone else’s responsibility to rescue me from my own irresponsible actions.
I have no problem with people undertaking risks. Want to climb K2 during a blizzard? Knock yourself out. Want to build a rocketship in your back yard and fly into low earth orbit? More power to you. Want to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to climb into a jury rigged submersible and sink yourself into the ocean? You do you.
But when it all goes wrong, don’t expect any one else to risk their lives, spend their money, invest their time into saving you from your own stupidity.
That’s the problem I have with these types of things: Not that the people involved chose to put themselves at risk. That’s their decision to make: part of the equation with living in a free society is the freedom to make dumb decisions. The problem I have is with the rest of us being expected to jump through our collective butts to save their idiot lives: another part of the equation with living in a free society is accepting the consequences for the decisions you make…dumb or otherwise. That’s the part that we seem to be missing as a society.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/06/22/missing-titanic-sub-live-oceangate-rescue-search-latest/
Dispatcher;
Right. Except… I found out, when I was in the Army, that even arranging a pass in review for a departing post commander is an opportunity to, at least, find out who can handle a minor contingency. Or not.
Consider this a huge surprise, ad hoc exercise generating endless lessons learned about putting together a Big operation, for whatever reason.
According to reports the air supply on the Titan
has likely been exhausted.
Saw a laughing, wiseass clip of the founder of the company —who is one of the passengers on the Titan— reading the waiver the passengers had to sign, which outlined all of the chances for serious injury or death, and this waiver noted that the Titan had not been certified by anyone or any agency as being capable of and suitably equipped for the dive down to the Titanic.
From the descriptions this was an incredibly shoddy, slapped together cludge of a machine, with none of the safety features you might reasonably expect such a vehicle to have, for instance, redundant transponders.
This was a death trap, and just a very expensive ,uncomfortable and ultimately horrific way to kill yourself.
OceanGate? Really?? Seems like the disaster/scandal was baked into the name…
Those poor people.
A remotely operated vehicle has found a debris field in the search for the missing sub.
https://www.foxnews.com/live-news/missing-oceangate-titanic-tourist-submarine-search-is-underway
I hope it was fast.
This does bring up the subject of why such inherently, extremely risky enterprises aren’t overseen and vetted by some international organization or other.
Why you shouldn’t just be able to slap some Rube Goldberg contraption together and take off into the unknown, with no real regard for what someone of average intelligence would see as the essential, reasonable, and necessary safety precautions.
Freedom is all well and good, and putting yourself at risk is one thing, but when you are also putting other people at risk, it seems to me that there should be some sort of standards demanded and enforced.
Or, is just caveat emptor sufficient.
For instance, what about the teenage son of one of the passengers who was also onboard, was he able to consent to taking this very risky and dangerous trip, free of any familial or other pressures to participate?
Snow on Pine, the other side of this is the huge international rescue effort underway for an extremely risky private venture.
P.S.–How about, at least, requiring that such craft–I guess we could term them “experimental” craft–have the equivalent of the “blackbox” that all aircraft are required to have so that, at least if this craft comes to harm, you have an idea of what happened, and you can try to fix that defect, and make subsequent craft better and safer.
Who’s going to “require” doings on the high seas outside any international boundaries?
I guess I’m the cold hearted SOB here. Anyone who would pay that amount of money and not thoroughly research the charlatan who put this piece of crap together is, and now was, a fool. The depth of the Titanic is a much more dangerous environment than going to space; not something to have a sightseeing trip. In a spacecraft the pressure differential is just between atmospheric pressure and the vacuum; about 15lbs/sq in. At the depth of the Titanic the pressure differential is around 6000lb/sq in…ie 3 tons for every inch!
What makes me mad is the millions of dollars spent to rescue fools. The Darwin award committee needs to be notified.
Kate:
According to Sub Brief (retired sonar man) The Titan Tragedy on YouTube the hull of the submersible was 5 in. thick carbon fiber composite with steel or titanium domes on each end of the carbon fiber composite cylindrical hull. Carbon fiber composites fail catostrophically, all at once, so it would have been a near instant death. Incredible forces involved. Sad, RIP.
I don’t disagree, physicsguy. This vessel was of questionable engineering and manufacture.
Kate–Now, that’s the question, isn’t it?
So, I guess we have to balance creating another likely power-hungry, officious, and meddling, international agency against the possibility of preventing disasters like the voyage of the Titan from ending in tragedy and death.
Snow on Pine, I think we have way too many international agencies as it is. I agree with physicsguy that deaths from risky undersea ventures are the responsibility of those who undertake them.
Speaking of oversight bodies, perhaps we should have the Department of Transportation oversee and license all future deep sea expeditions. After all, Buttigieg has demonstrated his leadership qualities during numerous emergencies.
Physicsguy is right to consider comparison to manned spacecraft. I don’t know anything about the deep ocean submersible industry. By my armchair look says this craft may have had less than 50 trips. For some number of staff and more recently paying adventure customers.
Multiply these numbers together and you have total man-trips.
My comparison with space exploration history suggests these numbers would equate to human space travel sometime in the 1970s.
The early NASA space effort took a few lives, and the Soviets, at least double.
Therefore if 5 people are lost with the Titan, the safety and death-rates then and now, May well be comparable.
Yes, the character of OceanGate founder may strike some as questionable. Yet, it’s clear that he quite ambitiously hoped to do for deep water tourism what Elon Musk is doing for space travel.
Namely, use off-the-shelf components to lower the costs of such endeavours, and thereby open new low cost markets.
It hardly needs saying that Musk was already entrepreneurially experienced as well having top level skills and incredible ambition.
Zero death outcomes are not possible to succeed this way. Not even until the Challenger and Columbia space shuttles were lost did this death rate in space travel get addressed.
The same may happen in deep water exploration-style tourism, now.
Yesterday I had read that the rescue efforts were for Theater and Training. Normally, I would be against such expensive rescue efforts for a private, poorly thought out event, but the training aspect is really important.
not with this propeller head secretary though,
For completion of this story:
https://notthebee.com/article/the-titan-submersible-suffered-a-catastrophic-implosion-while-visiting-the-titanic-the-coast-guard-says
RIP.