Greetings, people ! June 18, 2023, at 9:30 am. Titan, a submarine that embarked on a daring mission, carried five individuals who fearlessly plunged into the depths of the ocean. Their mission was no ordinary one. They set out to witness the remnants of a historic tragedy, the Titanic wreckage.
A famous ship, the Titanic, went down in the ocean about a century ago. This is an expensive and intense kind of adventure travel. Over ₹20 million was spent by every individual seated in the submarine during the brief visit. The Titanic’s ruin is buried deep beneath the ocean, so this journey is pricey.
At a staggering depth of 3,810 meters, the Titanic’s ruin lies buried beneath the ocean’s surface, a testament to the vastness and mystery of the deep sea. The voyage of this submarine began underwater. A trip down to 3,810 meters takes around two hours. Every 15 minutes, the submarine sends a signal to the Polar Prince, a surface support ship.
This was their only means of communication with the outside world. On June 18, just 1 hour and 45 minutes after diving into the sea, the submarine lost touch with its support ship. At 4.30 pm the submarine did not return after its voyage, as expected.
At 7.10 pm, the Polar Prince crew notified the US Coast Guard. A 4-day multinational search began. As news of the submarine’s disappearance spread, a massive search and rescue operation was launched. Aircraft, ships, and robotic vehicles were deployed, each with the hope of finding the lost submersible.
Aircraft, ships, and robotic vehicles were also utilized. Everyone had just one question on their minds. What happened to the passengers? The US Coast Guard says that ”the debris from the Titan has been brought to the surface from the ocean floor.” “The debris is consistent with a catastrophic loss of the pressure chamber.”
“The arrogance and the hubris that sent that ship to its doom is the same thing that sent those people in the sub to their fate.” Let us now learn the entire narrative of The Titan Submersible. The submarine was lost in the Atlantic Ocean near Canada. Look at the map.
It is located 600 kilometres from the Canadian island of Newfoundland.
This is where the two-part Titanic wreck can be found, deep below the ocean’s surface. The distance between the bow and the stern is approximately 800 meters. The Titan submarine, a unique submersible, was not your typical vessel.
It was a submersible, not a submarine, designed to descend to a staggering depth of 4,000 meters. There are many similarities between these two terms. Thus, up until now, I’ve been simplifying things by using the term “submarine,” but there is these two terms differ significantly from one another.
Submarines are powerful. They can enter the sea through a port and leave on their own. However, submersibles aren’t able to do that.
It takes a support ship to submerge a submersible and return it to the surface. A ship that is in charge of everything and is present on the water’s surface. For us, this support vessel he was the Prince of Polarization.
Do you know? What happened to COSTA CONCORDIA CRUISE SHIP?
Stockton Rush, the CEO of OceanGate, oversaw the entire operation. Because they are so crucial to the plot, remember their name. He had been an aircraft engineer by trade. He started the OceanGate business in 2009, a private business that offered wealthy individuals deep-sea tourism excursions. “So, walk us through how it’s gonna work.”
“The mission is to survey the wreck. It’s a highly active experience because the tourists who come out will participate in the dives to run sonar communication devices (take) images, and we’ll find data.” In July 2021, this firm began providing tours of the Titanic. They used to provide excursions to different shipwrecks and locations. As their website still displays, There were voyages to the Bahamas, the Azores, and the Titanic.
This business produced several submersibles besides Titan. Other than this, Ocean Gate possessed two further submersibles: Cyclops and Antipodes. Cyclops could descend up to 500 meters and Antipodes up to 304 meters. However, Titan was built to descend 4,000 meters. Four kilometres below the surface. For this reason, this one was the only submersible to visit the Titanic.
Check out this chart by The Washington Post to get a sense of the terrifying depth of 3,800 meters. Here, measurements are given in feet.
A man’s typical height is six feet. One hundred feet above the water’s surface was the iceberg that struck the Titanic. And more than that, underwater.
While diving, the deepest recreational scuba diver may go is one hundred thirty feet. A twilight zone begins about 650 feet below the surface, where very little light can reach the bottom of the water. The most excellent underwater rescue operation to date was placed at 1,666 feet. Swimming at a depth of 2,600 feet is home to enormous squids. Massive squids are so terrifying that they appear to be from another planet. Examine the pictures. As you descend farther, 3,800 feet marks the beginning of a midnight zone. Sunlight doesn’t penetrate below this point. After this, everything becomes pitch-black. Here, the water’s temperature is about 4°C.
Subsequently, descending to 5,000 feet, 6,000 feet, 8,000 feet, 10,000 feet, and ultimately 12,500 feet, you will eventually reach the ocean floor, the location of the Titanic wreck. The pressure is over 400 times greater at this depth than the surface. Therefore, the design of any submersible that descends to this level must be carefully considered. There was only so much space in the window for the viewing glass to gaze outside.
Furthermore, the Titan submarine’s viewport—a window—was the largest viewport ever placed in a private submersible. The submersible Titan was a little too tiny. There were just five seats available. Its principal structure, known as the Hull, composed of carbon fibre. There were two titanium caps fastened at the end. In total, it was about 6.7 meters in length. Furthermore, its weight exceeded 10,400 kg. Its design had four electric thrusters outside, as you can see. The device can be operated by two vertical and two horizontal lines.
Now, here’s a noteworthy statistic to remember: A game ( X-box) controller operated this sub. “You run the whole thing with this game controller.” “Come on!”
It seems weird, but this is weird.
Additionally, the US Navy oversees its submarines, periscopes, and viewports for external viewing. They use Xbox controllers to operate them. Yes, a video game controller was used to operate the Titan submarine. This indicates that the pilot who was controlling the submersible underwater simultaneously used this game controller.
There are no seats inside.
However, a tiny restroom was available next to the viewpoint. However, they added that if someone needed to use the restroom, others would have to look in the opposite direction because there was no barrier to it.
To remain staring at a TV screen while using the restroom. This is the only restroom on the submersible deep diver.
That is internal. Through the viewport, you can gaze. Draw the privacy screen in. Amplify the music.” The GPS is inoperable in this area due to the depths these submersibles descend. They were able to communicate with their support ship via text messaging. Which internet connection was available on the boat is still a mystery.
In a previous tweet, OceanGate stated they were communicating over Starlink’s satellite internet service. When we go back to the events of June 18, there were five persons on board this submersible.
The first was British billionaire Hamish Harding, who was 58 years old. He was an explorer and the holder of three Guinness World Records. In 2016, he visited the South Pole alongside astronaut Buzz Aldrin. He once underwent a 4-hour dive into the Mariana Trench, the lowest point in the ocean. He participated in the Blue Origin suborbital mission last year, which was initiated by Jeff Bezos, the founder of the space exploration corporation. The second traveller was 77-year-old Paul Henri Nargeolet. A former French Navy commander. He had made 37 trips to the Titanic wreck. He oversaw RMS Titanic’s underwater research department.
A businessman from Pakistan who was British, Shahzada Dawood and his 19-year-old son Suleman were the third and fourth passengers. He was the proprietor of one of Pakistan’s most prominent businesses. Suleman was afraid to go, according to Suleman’s aunt. However, he accompanied his father on this journey to appease him and keep him company.
As I previously stated, the submersible communicated with the support ship every fifteen minutes that day. At 11:15 am, this contact came to an end. There is no more signal or communication after this. All the same, the Titan was supposed to reappear at 4:30 pm. There was a mechanism for the passengers to tilt the submersible from within and push it back and forth to raise it if it became trapped in the water.
Ballasts are removed to do this. Large ships and submarines require ballasts to maintain stability. They are just heavyweights, nothing more. Submarines can descend into the water with their assistance. Sandbags and stones were utilized as ballasts in the past. But water ballasts are used by submarines nowadays.
The submarines sink into the ocean due to the water-filled ballast tanks. When the Titan failed to resurface at 4:30 pm, those aboard the support ship waited for some time before notifying the US Coast Guard at 7:10 pm. The epic race then started. They sprint against the clock. Titan had only four days’ worth of oxygen supply available out of 96 hours.
Therefore, they had just four days to locate the passengers who were still alive if a rescue effort was necessary. A device called an Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacon, or EPIRB in short is a type of locator frequently mounted on ships. This allows for the location of these vessels. However, Titan did not have it installed.
Another issue was that the oxygen shortage would have killed everyone on board, even if Titan had sunk back to the ocean’s surface. Since this submersible could not be opened from the inside. You’re correct. It was only possible to lock and open this submersible’s door from the exterior.
So those four days were crucial regardless of whether the submersible was submerged in water.” The team shuts the hatch from the outside using 17 bolts. There isn’t an alternative.” Furthermore, the search area encompassed 25,000 km. Consider how challenging it would be to locate a van-sized submersible in such a vast area. The territory was seven times larger than the Goa state.
The most profound underwater rescue carried out to date, in 1973, was carried out at a depth of only 480 meters below the surface. Nevertheless, the rescue crews risked their lives to save others. This mission was initially initiated by two American and two Canadian planes. To pick up communications even from underwater, they used sonar. After a while, additional ships began to join the surface search, initially consisting of just three. A few remotely operated vehicles, or ROVs, were employed here. They are vehicles like robots; although no one sits inside, they can dive into the water to locate objects.
Additionally, they are managed from the water’s surface. Three ROVs were searching for Titan. On the third day of the search, following three days of looking, several loud noises were detected by a Canadian aircraft’s sonar. Every 30 minutes, there were occasional noises, like a knock on the door.
The US Coast Guard later heard the sounds as well. Finally, some wreckage was found on June 22 by a ROV exploring the ocean floor. It is approximately 490 meters from the bow of the Titanic. Upon examining the wreckage, it was verified that the submersible had fractured. The individuals seated therein had perished.
Following additional searches, A total of five debris fragments were discovered. In a news conference that same day, the US Coast Guard stated that the loud noises they had heard were unrelated to this Titan submarine. It was concluded that high pressure was the cause of Titan’s implosion. It may occur to you that the word “implosion” means “bursting.” However, it is not the same as an explosion.
When something like a bomb explosion occurs, we refer to it as an explosion. The force expands outside. However, an implosion’s force is internal. It is being compressed to the point of breaking apart. Implosion is that. Furthermore, a catastrophic collapse is one in which the structure is completely demolished due to the rapidity of the collapse.
However, it took less than a millisecond. This indicates that the individuals seated within were instantly and without warning executed, but they were oblivious to it. Here, the question is: Why did this implosion occur? The Titan was mostly made of carbon fibre, as I mentioned.
However, submarines are typically constructed out of aluminium, titanium, or steel. Titan’s carbon fibre design was an experimental one. Carbon fibre characteristics had never been previously studied in such deep waters. Furthermore, considering this catastrophe, carbon fibre is inappropriate for this use case.
Ocean explorer Robert Ballard made this observation—he was the person who, in 1985, found the Titanic wreckage. He claimed they have thousands of dives under their belts in various cars. To reach the ocean’s bottom. However, they have always kept a car. This was the first time that a submersible or submarine had collapsed in this manner. “If you look at our history, it’s safer to be in a submarine-like Alvin and that I spent many years in than driving on I-95.”
James Cameron, the filmmaker of blockbuster movies like Titanic and Avatar, has made numerous trips to the deep sea on different ventures. He made the same statement. The titanium caps were undamaged and still whole on the sea floor. However, the carbon fibre’s basic structure is now broken into bits.
He chastised Titan severely, stating that Safety guidelines must have been adhered to. The CEO of OceanGate says the same thing repeatedly if you watch the previous interviews.
In 2019, the CEO discussed OceanGate in a lengthy piece in Smithsonian Magazine. He stated that “the (US) PVSA (Passenger Vessel Safety Act) of 1993 was needlessly prioritizing passenger’s safety over the commercial innovation.” He believed that there was no need to give safety such a high priority and that this gesture was pointless. In another interview from the previous year, he stated, “At some point, safety is just pure waste.” To put it another way, if you want to be secure, stay in bed, stay in your car, and do nothing.
“Safety is eventually just a waste of time. In other words, if you want to be secure, stay in bed, stay in your car, and do nothing.” He then declares, “I’ve broken some rules to become Titan.” With sound engineering and reasoning on my side, I’ve destroyed them.”To do this, I broke a few rules.
With reason and sound engineering on my side, together with titanium and carbon fibre, I’ve shattered them. Titanium and carbon fibre were prohibited from usage, according to the rule. However, he purposefully disregarded the law and used it. Stockton Rush knew that the experiment he was carrying out might be hazardous.
January 2018, the Director of Marine Operations of OceanGate, David Lochridge had brought up safety worries regarding the Titan Submersible. And OceanGate took it to court with him after he disregarded the advice. He declared in court that this submersible must be certified and its safety evaluated.
However, OceanGate declined. He said that this company had interests beyond shelling out cash for security. Later, in 2018, the court case was resolved. However, thirty-six people wrote Stockton Rush a letter on March 27, 2018. Oceanographers, deep water explorers, and other professionals wrote the letter. They warned that experimenting without quality control could one day result in a catastrophic mishap.
A different expert in deep-sea exploration emailed the CEO in March 2018, advising him to exercise some caution regarding safety. Rush was endangering himself and his clients, he had written. Rush was accused of using the same statement more than once during the rush to board the Titanic. “She is unsinkable.”
As you may remember, I mentioned in the Titanic film that there was a time when people unquestioningly believed the ship was so magnificent that it could never sink. That it could not sink. But the ship sank that fateful day. And now the Titan experienced the same thing. The name Stockton Rush has appeared historically.
Read the similar story of Concordia Cruise Ship, where eccentric captain drowned billions of dollars.
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