Time has run out in the search for a missing submarine lost near the wreckage of the Titanic – with the five people on board now dead.
The 21ft Titan lost contact with its mother ship on Sunday as it descended about 12,500 feet to the ocean floor – where pieces of the ship were found Thursday by a remotely operated rescue submarine.
The discovery was extremely disheartening, as many hoped that the nerve-racking search for the potentially trapped passengers would result in a rescue.
However, those hopes have since been dashed – as the rescue operation shifts to that of a less time-sensitive search.
However, that effort could still prove cumbersome – given the ocean’s unforgiving environment and the increasing likelihood that the ship itself is probably no more.
A breach in the Titan’s hull at that depth would also mean instant death, because of the high pressure levels at the site of the historic wreck, experts say.
Time has passed in the search for a missing submarine lost near the wreckage of the Titanic – and the five people on board are now presumably lost too
The 21ft Titan lost contact with its mothership on Sunday as it descended about 12,500 feet to the ocean floor – where pieces of the ship were found Thursday by a remotely operated rescue submarine
Where is the Titanic wreck?
The wreck of the Titanic (12,500 feet) is well below the level of water pressure that humans can withstand without the protection of a submarine. Experts say if the Titan’s hull was breached, experts say the chance of survival is close to zero
Long lost in an area of the Atlantic Ocean near Newfoundland called “Iceberg Alley,” much of the ship’s hull was found in 1985 on the ocean floor near where it sank more than 70 years earlier.
The barnacle-covered boat was found about 400 miles off the Canadian coast and more than two miles below the sea’s surface — where pressure levels become problematic.
That said, nearly 40 years after its discovery, only a handful have seen the lost ship, which sailed from Southampton to New York City in April 1912 before it sank.
In addition, the wreckage still lies at the site due to the difficulties of a retrieval operation at such depths – where the pressure is more than 10 times what the most seasoned deep-sea divers could endure.
What is the pressure at the location in PSI?
While some animals can survive at extreme depths thanks to extreme adaptations, humans can only go down about 400 feet without the help of modern technology
Following Thursday’s discovery, it is believed a crack in the hull caused the small five-person craft to implode on itself with the occupants still aboard.
Now that the ship is in pieces, the passengers probably suffered the same fate. Fortunately, experts say they died as a result of the intense pressure recorded at 12,500 feet — or 3,800 meters — below sea level.
In terms of atmosphere — a unit of measurement used to quantify pressure by comparing it to sea level pressure (1 atmosphere) — the water pressure at the Titanic wreck site is about 400 atmospheres, or 400 times that of what most are accustomed to.
In terms of pounds per square inch (PSI), another more popular unit of pressure, the pressure at those depths is about 6,000 PSI. For reference, the pressure at sea level is about 14.7 psi.
Dr. Nicolai Roterman, a deep-sea ecologist at the University of Portsmouth, said that if such an accident happened, the pressure would have killed the occupants instantly — a theory that has been repeated several times by scientists versed in such subjects.
“If there were a rupture in the hull, the occupants would succumb to the ocean in an instant, given the more than 5,500 pounds per square inch of pressure exerted by the ocean at a depth of 12,000 feet,” Roterman said. .
Florida-based senior investigator Steve Somlyody had an almost identical assessment on Thursday, telling Fox News that the passengers “wouldn’t even know it happened.”
“The pressure down there at 4,000 meters is pretty high. About 5,800 PSI at Titanic depth,” he said. “If they had a leak, it would lead to an implosion and it would happen in the blink of an eye, very instantaneously.”
Greg Stone, a California-based oceanographer who has served on similar submarines, added, “When there’s a pressure failure, it moves very quickly and is over in under a second.”
Will they ever be able to recover the bodies?
Shahzada Dawood and his 19-year-old son Suleman were aboard the ill-fated Titan, along with British billionaire Hamish Harding. All three are presumed dead after the ship imploded nearly 12,500 feet below the surface
French explorer PH Nargeolet and OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush are among those trapped on the submarine
With the fate of the five souls more than likely sealed, search officials now face the looming task of locating – and possibly retrieving – what may be left.
However, that could be a silly message – considering that the intense pressure at such a depth would make a retrieval operation a slow, tedious process, and most likely wouldn’t have much left to bring back to the surface.
Compounding these problems is the fact that the Titanic’s debris is scattered over a mile, and the underwater currents that can move the crew’s remains from their submerged resting place.
Jeff Karson, professor emeritus of earth and environmental sciences at Syracuse University, said the submarine, if intact, is essentially “another clump down there.” find.
Lawrence Brennan, a professor at Fordham University’s School of Law, described the situation to PBS as one of the worst-case scenarios.
With the fate of the five souls more than likely sealed, search officials now face the looming task of locating – and possibly retrieving – what may be left. However, that could be a silly message – considering that the intense pressure at such a depth would make a retrieval operation a slow, tedious process, and more than likely there wouldn’t be much left to bring back
To even make an effort, Brennan said, rescuers would need equipment “that is not currently available” and extremely expensive — which, even then, would leave a slim chance of finding anything of note, aside from more debris.
“Equipment used for deep-water oil drilling could work, but that equipment is probably nowhere near the search site,” he said.
Their search continues from Thursday.
