The Bathyscaphe could get stuck in the wreckage of the liner
The Joint Rescue Coordination Center in Halifax, Canada, reported that communication with the vessel was lost approximately 700 kilometers south of St. John’s in Newfoundland, Canada, after 1 hour and 45 minutes of immersion. “Titan” normally communicates every 15 minutes, sending a signal to the mothership “Polar Prince”, which launched it into the water. The last message was received as the submarine floated above the wreckage of the Titanic. After that, the connection stopped, “Titan” did not make contact several times. That’s when the chaos began to surface.
A distress call was sent to the US Coast Guard, whose Boston branch led the operation in conducting the deepest rescue operation in history. According to experts, the Titan could have become entangled in the wreckage of the Titanic, which means that it can only come to the surface using an offshore vehicle because it is several kilometers deep. . The head of the operation, US Navy Admiral Mauger, acknowledged that the ship could be stuck in the wreckage of the Titanic, and said that in this case the rescue mission would be “very difficult”. “We are working as hard as we can, using all resources to try to find the submersible,” he added.
Sitting close together
The submarine, owned and operated by operator OceanGate Expeditions, has five crew members, including CEO Stockton Rush, French military veteran and deep-sea diver Paul-Henri Nargeole, and British billionaire Hamish Harding, according to the Daily Mail. People, judging by the photo on the operator’s website, are inside a six-meter-long boat end to end in a seated position.
The Polar Prince reportedly left St. John’s, Newfoundland on Saturday, and the submarine, made of 13cm-thick carbon fiber with a titanium dome on each end, lifted off around 4 a.m. ET on Sunday. Titan-class mini-submarines do not have the ability to navigate underwater. Instead, they rely on text messages from the mothership to tell them where to go. The missing tourist submarine is classified as a bathyscaphe and not a submarine because it does not operate as an autonomous vessel but relies on a support platform, in this case the Polar Prince.
$250,000 ticket to the Titanic
Action Aviation, a Dubai-based aircraft sales and operating company, confirmed that its chairman, Hamish Harding, was one of the tourists on board the Titan. He posted on social media that he took an exhilarating dip on Sunday and posted a photo with the Atlantic waves as a backdrop. Harding is known for his longtime love of extreme travel: He notably participated in a direct flight around the world around the Earth by plane in 2019 over the two geographical poles.
Frenchman Nargeole has gained worldwide recognition as the leading expert on the sinking of the Titanic and is most likely the one who piloted the submersible during the four-passenger dive. Nargeole led several expeditions on the Titanic and oversaw the extraction of five thousand artifacts, including a 20-ton section of the liner’s hull. On Tuesday June 20, the Irish newspaper Irish Sun reported that one of the five members of the Titanic expedition, Rory Golden, had made contact with the missing bathyscaphe and wrote on social networks that he was fine. According to him, the members of the expedition are waiting for the rescuers, communication in the device is limited. In fact, it turned out that Golden was assisting in the salvage operation and not aboard the Titan.
The Daily Mail reported Shahzada Dawood, 48, a board member of Britain’s Prince’s Trust charity, and her 19-year-old son Suleiman Dawood were on board the Titan. Their desperate family, including Shahzada’s English-born wife Christina and daughter Alina, now hope they can be found underwater before the oxygen on board runs out. The newspaper calls Dawood one of the richest people in Pakistan. Shahzada is vice chairman of Engro Corporation, which makes fertilizers, food and energy, and Dawood Hercules Corporation, which makes chemicals. He was born in Pakistan but moved to the UK where he studied law at the University of Buckingham. The father-of-two is also a board member of the California-based SETI Institute, which researches extraterrestrial intelligence.
Two years ago, operator OceanGate began running mini-submarine tours of the Titanic at a cost of $125,000 per person. The cost of the trip this year is estimated at $250,000. The eight-day trip includes a two-hour dive on the Titanic wreck and the same amount during the ascent. In total, the dive, the excursion around the wreck and the resurfacing take eight to ten hours.
The “Titans” rarely reach the “Titanic”
OceanGate, whose website says customers don’t need any prior diving experience but have “several physical requirements such as being able to board small boats in active seas”, said it was getting help government agencies and deep sea companies.
Meanwhile, CBS TV correspondent David Pogue said it was not the first time the OceanGate submersible had been lost. Last summer, Pogue took part in the OceanGate expedition to see the Titanic, recalling that the control room was unable to help the submersible find the sunken liner for about three hours due to technical problems. Deep seas are difficult to navigate because there are no GPS or radio signals underwater, he said. The submersible relies on text instructions sent from the control center. “All those submersibles were pretty nervous,” the reporter noted. He added that factors such as bad weather and technical issues could hamper the shipment. In fact, according to Pogue, ships rarely make it to the Titanic, despite OceanGate’s high ticket prices.
Meanwhile, Alistair Greig, professor of marine engineering at University College London, warned of the challenges rescuers would face, according to The Associated Press. “If there was a power outage and/or a communication failure, that would happen, and then the submarine would rock to the surface, waiting to be found,” Greig explained. However, this did not happen and the device, for a number of reasons, remains in depth. “If it’s sunk to the bottom of the sea and can’t come up on its own, there are very few options,” Greig said, adding that the Titan could have collided with the wreckage of the Titanic.
Submarine experts also fear that the only way to reach the Titan may involve the assistance of a remote-controlled craft. They can reach a maximum depth of 20,000 feet (6,000 meters). Former Coast Guard officer John Mixon told Fox News it was “an extremely serious and horrific situation”, adding: “It’s hard to tell when you’ve just lost all communication in a situation like this, what really happened until you found the ship.” “It’s not a common occurrence at all. Obviously, something very quick and very tragic happened,” he said.
The oxygen supply on board the ship is designed for 96 hours, which means it will run out by noon on Thursday. If the submarine is undamaged, all five people aboard will face reduced oxygen levels as well as cold and hypothermia, David Gallo, senior strategic initiatives adviser at CNN, told CNN. RMS Titanic, which holds the disposal rights for the wreckage of the Titanic. . Hypothermia would pose the greatest risk, he said, “if the submarine is still at the bottom, because the temperature in the deep ocean is just above freezing.” Gallo said even if the submersible is discovered, it will be difficult for the team to rescue those on board. “The water is very deep – over two miles (almost four kilometres). It’s like visiting another planet, it’s not what people think. It’s a dark, cold environment where atmospheric pressure is high,” he added.
The desperate families of those on board – Shahzad Dawood and his son Suleiman, Harding, Nargeola and Rush – are now in desperate need of news from their loved ones.
In the meantime
When the ‘unsinkable’ Titanic sank in the North Atlantic in 1912, more than 1,500 people died and thousands of treasures were lost at sea. The world’s wealthiest people were on board at the time, including Isidor Strauss, co-owner of the famous Macy’s department store. Although 111 years have passed, Titanic researchers continue to find new objects today – whether it’s a necklace of megalodon shark teeth or 1,200 teapots.
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