Thread: Submarine on trip to explore Titanic wreck goes missing

I'm surprised Musk hasn't piped up and offered a solution...

Have the Americans refused as it ran into one of their subs ...?

Originally Posted by Joe 90

The pilot steers with a modified video game controller

Wow, really?
Just imagine spending a quarter of a million$$ to play sardines in a tin can squeezed between 2 Pakistanis and a Frenchman when for just one $ same available on BTS with hotty totty and in addition to Nana sandwiches chance of an encounter with "sausages" !!

Originally Posted by david44

Wow, really?

Yes, really.

From their Facebook page.

^Oh, my. That is some dodgy stuff there.

^ I have never, in over 30 years of working offshore on ROV vessels, seen anyone using a toy gaming controller to fly the vehicle.

There's a reason why deep sea sat diving is rarely used these days in oil and gas... to take out the risk. Pretty much everything is done by ROV these days and even where lives aren't at stake, professional equipment is used.

Redundancy is built into every system to avoid down time and protect the ROV, although maybe I'm being unfair... maybe they had a spare toy gaming controller in case of emergencies?

Did they forget to take a spare set of batteries for their game controller?

What I don't get is that if they haven't got anything that can go to that depth, what could they actually do even if they are alive and they found them?

Send them a text message with Super Mario Brothers embedded in it?

Originally Posted by Backspin

Imagine being a billionaire with all the money in the world and spending 250K to just drown in some Eco-Scientists bootleg submarine.

It wouldn't suit me but they all must have realized the inherent risks involved. I hope a miracle happens and they're rescued and not recovered.

Just saw on CNN that there were banging noises heard earlier today.

Originally Posted by harrybarracuda

What I don't get is that if they haven't got anything that can go to that depth, what could they actually do even if they are alive and they found them?

If they are snagged somehow down on the seabed then I guess their only hope would be for an ROV to dive down and free them. The big problem of course... well, the first big problem, would be to get a suitable spread on location within the limited time frame. The ROV on the vessel I usually work on is rated to 3000m, however to achieve that depth rating, all equipment bolted on would also need the same depth rating. Most oil and gas work is carried out in less than 100m, maybe up to 600m in Norway but no-where near the 3800m of water the Titanic lays in. To prepare for a deep water job takes a lot of time... for example before our job in the Black Sea a couple of years ago, weeks of preparation went into getting the ROV ready to work in 2200m of water. Why keep expensive, deep-water equipment on an ROV if you don't need it?

If spread was found, then it has to get on site in the next few hours.

And then the submersible would have to be located... Side scan sonar is the typical equipment to find debris on the seabed, but a search takes time. Low frequency equipment with long range can be used to find a wreck or airplane but to find such a small target, high frequency equipment with much shorter range would have be used, thus vastly increasing the number of survey lines required and therefore vastly increasing the time needed for the search.

Oh yeah, side scan sonar is great for finding hard objects, rock outcrops or metallic debris as they give a good return ping. This sub, to my knowledge, is made of fibreglass... pretty neutral and very hard to detect due to the poor returns it would give. If the long axis of the sub is perpendicular to the survey sensors then it would offer a small area to image as well.

Oh, and all among the debris field that surrounds the Titanic as well. Someone would have to look through the side scan sonar data and come up with a list of suitable targets to visually investigate... which all takes a lot of time of course.

It's pretty hopeless really. I think their only chance is if the sub is on the surface and is found by the search planes before the oxygen runs out (as the occupants are bolted in). I believe they are searching an area the size of Wales.

There was a radio story today on the Beeb about a time when on one dive the controls wouldn't response and left them only able to go in circles. The bloke said the resolved it by turning the controller 180 dogs. Fing madness imo.

Telegraph is saying banging and underwater noises have been picked up. They have c24 hours to rescue them

Anyone got the phone number of a Chinese salvage ship?

I heard a journalist on the news who had done 4 dives with the company and comms problems occurred on each of them.

I hope somehow they get out of this 'pickle'.
What a fucken horrible way to go if the vessel is still intact...tho' perhaps if there was a pressure failure it might have been over in a sec.

Originally Posted by pickel

Just saw on CNN that there were banging noises heard earlier today.

That would be the hull turning inside out.

Originally Posted by Ukan Kizmiaz

I heard a journalist on the news who had done 4 dives with the company and comms problems occurred on each of them.

I hope somehow they get out of this 'pickle'.
What a fucken horrible way to go if the vessel is still intact...tho' perhaps if there was a pressure failure it might have been over in a sec.

It is a 2 hour trip to the bottom and contact was lost an hour and a half in. So they were getting awfully deep. At that depth , there is no water leaks like in the movies. It would be crushed like dropping an anvil on an empty beer can

Damn skiddy stop it. Number one a submarine and a submersible vehicle are two different things. I am enjoying following Mendip's posts as he is a marine geologist and works in this field, and we have all seen his thread on it. You on the other hand are simply blabbering on. Your experience in marine geology consists of playing with a rubber ducky in your bathtub. Give us a break and go back to your motorcycle thread where you are failing just as miserably.

^ More whining from Queen America.

Originally Posted by Ukan Kizmiaz

What a fucken horrible way to go if the vessel is still intact.

Depends on how it's setup.

Could just be a quick painless drift into unconsciousness, or could be a hot, gasping to breath, clawing at the walls for air kinda death.

Originally Posted by Ukan Kizmiaz

if there was a pressure failure it might have been over in a sec.

A lot less than that.


Happened to watch 2 videos a few months ago, after watching a doco on the Kursk.

The creaking sounds as the pressure starts to break it would be the worst.

The actual death is pretty much being killed in a dozen different ways in a millisecond.

Banging sounds' heard in 30-minute intervals - US media

Shortly after midnight local time in Newfoundland, Canada, the first reports emerged of potential signs of hope.
Two US media outlets reported a leaked internal memo sent to the US Deparment of Homeland Security.
This said a Canadian aircraft had detected underwater "banging sounds" in 30-minute intervals coming from the search area.
"The P8 [seacraft] heard banging sounds in the area every 30 minutes. Four hours later additional sonar was deployed and banging was still heard," Rolling Stone magazine reported the email as saying.
CNN also reported an internal update sent Tuesday night, which suggested more sounds were picked up.
“Additional acoustic feedback was heard and will assist in vectoring surface assets and also indicating continued hope of survivors,” said the second memo according to CNN's report.
An hour after the media reports, the US Coast Guard confirmed that a Canadian search aircraft had picked up "underwater noises".

https://www.bbc.com/news/live/world-us-canada-65967464

Retired sub captains across the planet are being interviewed on TV.
But it's a submersible !

A sub can leave port on its own power and dive. A submersible gets towed out to location and dives with a mother ship above.