Global Courant
A growing number of planes and ships from the United States and Canada were searching Wednesday for the submarine lost Sunday in the Atlantic while carrying five people to the wreckage of the Titanic. The search took a turn in the last hours with the detection of noises such as “blows” in the sea, while the clock is ticking: on Thursday morning the oxygen on board would run out.
The US Coast Guard is leading the search for the small vessel, called the Titan, in a remote area of the North Atlantic Ocean.
Since 2001, OceanGate Expeditions, an underwater exploration company, has traced the decline of the Titanic and the surrounding underwater ecosystem through annual voyages.
What is known about the search?
A Canadian plane detected underwater noises during the search for the submersible. The US Coast Guard reported via Twitter early Wednesday that as a result of noises detected by the Canadian P-3 patrol aircraft, search efforts have been relocated and the data is being used to help guide the ongoing effort.
How can the submarine be brought to the surface?
Experts the BBC spoke to say that if there was no catastrophic event that damaged the vessel, such as a hull fracture or fire, it is likely to be on the surface or on the seabed.
The control room of a robot submersible. Photo: Reuters
If it’s deep, you may be stuck. One concern is that undercurrents may have swept it onto some of the Titanic’s wreckage.
Any robotic vehicles that are deployed would have to help unlock the sub, allowing it to float to the surface. Or it might be necessary to cut through any obstacles that have trapped you.
But the search and rescue team will have to locate Titan before they can plan it.
Any robotic vehicles that are deployed would have to help unlock the sub. Photo: Reuters
When did the Titan disappear and how much oxygen does it have left?
The vessel submerged Sunday morning and its support vessel lost contact with it an hour and 45 minutes later, according to the Coast Guard.
The ship was declared delayed in contact about 700 kilometers south of St. John’s, Newfoundland, according to Canada’s Joint Rescue Coordination Center in Halifax, Nova Scotia.
The Titan was launched from an icebreaker leased by OceanGate and previously operated by the Canadian Coast Guard. The ship has transported dozens of people and the submersible craft to the wreck site in the North Atlantic, where the Titan made multiple dives.
The US Coast Guard reported Tuesday afternoon that the submersible had about 40 hours of oxygen left, meaning the supply could run out around 7 a.m. Argentine time on Thursday.
What kind of deep sea ship is it?
OceanGate has called the Titan “the largest of all deep-submersible submersibles,” with an “unprecedented safety feature” that assesses hull integrity on every dive.
Made of titanium and filamentary carbon fiber, the Titan weighs 20,000 pounds in air, but is ballasted to maintain neutral buoyancy when it hits the seafloor, according to the company.
OceanGate has defined the Titan as “the largest of all deep-immersion submersibles.” Photo: OceanGate Expeditions / AFP
Titan is capable of submerging 4 kilometers “with a comfortable margin of safety,” according to documents filed by the company in April with the Virginia District Court that oversees Titanic matters.
At the time of the filing, Titan had made more than 50 test dives, including to the depth equivalent to that of Titanic, in deep waters off the Bahamas and in a pressure chamber, according to the company.
During its 2022 expedition, OceanGate reported that the submersible had a battery problem on its first dive and had to be manually attached to the lifting platform.
Greg Stone, a California-based ocean scientist who has been aboard similar submersibles, explained that the craft work like hot air balloons, with weights pulling them down. According to Stone, the crew would have received instructions on how to return the submersible to the surface.
“It all depends on the buoyancy,” he explained. “They are usually switches that are activated and that release the counterweights on the outside of the submarine and it goes up again.”
What could have happened to the submarine?
Eric Fusil, associate professor and director of the shipbuilding center at the University of Adelaide, listed several possible scenarios, such as a power outage, fire, ingress of water or entanglement.
According to him, a fire could disable the ship’s systems or generate toxic gases that could render the crew unconscious. An ingress of water would be even more dramatic, causing an almost instantaneous implosion.
Currents may have pushed the submarine toward the wreckage of the Titanic, trapping it there. Photo: AP
The most optimistic scenario would be a loss of power that would allow the spacecraft to return to the surface, where it would wait for search teams to find it, Fusil said.
“The bottom line is that it’s easier to go rescue people in space than it is to dive that deep and rescue them, because we can’t communicate easily,” he explained. “It’s still a very, very risky undertaking, even with today’s technology.”
What is being done to find the submarine?
At least 10,000 square miles have been searched, according to the US Coast Guard.
The Canadian research icebreaker Polar Prince, supporting Titan, was conducting surface searches with the help of the Canadian Boeing P-8 Poseidon reconnaissance aircraft (which detected the noises), and the Canadian military dropped sonar buoys to record any possible sounds from the Titan.
An underwater robot had also begun searching the vicinity of the Titanic, and efforts were underway to get rescue teams to the scene if the submersible was found, said Jamie Frederick of Boston’s First Coast Guard District.
Two US Lockheed C-130 Hercules aircraft were conducting flyovers and three US Air Mobility Command C-17s have also been used to fly the submersible and support equipment from another commercial company from Buffalo, New York to St. John’s to assist in the search.
A Royal Canadian Navy ship carrying a medical team specializing in dive medicine and a six-person mobile hyperbaric recompression chamber was also en route to the area on Tuesday, according to the Canadian military.
Clarín writing with information from Associated Press and BBC News
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