Titanic tourist submersible goes missing with search under way

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So a submersible filled with people with so much time and money that they can just casually sight see the Titanic in person are lost at sea?

I want to drum up some concern, but if you're down there for no reason other than to rubberneck an old wreck/mass grave I can't really seem to find any.
 
I can't imagine paying $250k to get shoved in a small tube that could be crushed at any moment just to look out a tiny window at something that's one of the most recorded objects in the world.

They're probably dead, this sub is more of a "cheap and cheerful" submersible that's driven with a 3rd party Xbox controller.
 
So either the crew got instantly crushed by 6,500 psi of water or are stranded under 12,500 feet of water in a cold tin can. Honestly I would prefer to be instantly crushed instead of slowly dying to oxygen depredation and hypothermia.
 
We already have really great images of the wreck. So why would anyone want to risk crushing water pressure and risk of being lost forever just to go gawk at it for a few hours?
 
FamicomGorby dijo:
I can't imagine paying $250k to get shoved in a small tube that could be crushed at any moment just to look out a tiny window at something that's one of the most recorded objects in the world.

They're probably dead, this sub is more of a "cheap and cheerful" submersible that's driven with a 3rd party Xbox controller.
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I'm surprised the "sub" isn't just a stupid box that goes about 400 feet down with the "porthole" just being a HDTV lol
 
Xanax and Wine dijo:
Now they can send down subs to visit the wreck of the Titanic AND that of the Titan! They can even charge double.

Really, naming the thing Titan was bound to be bad luck at some point
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Isn't there a lot of superstition involved with naming ships? Like I'm assuming no one wants to go near any name remotely resembling Titanic.

The article just claims the crew is lost. So maybe they were doing a test run without passengers.
 
BikeLock dijo:
So a submersible filled with people with so much time and money that they can just casually sight see the Titanic in person are lost at sea?

I want to drum up some concern, but if you're down there for no reason other than to rubberneck an old wreck/mass grave I can't really seem to find any.
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I don't want to side with this weird operation or the thoughts and prayers crowd, but the two employees were just doing their very shitty jobs.
 
indigoisviolet dijo:
How do you get lost underwater? Just head up.

If it's the same sub that Cameron made his documentary series with, it was tethered to a boat too...
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Both of these are actually surprisingly fallible, and it is worth remembering that exploration at depths like this is only slightly less dangerous than space travel, mostly because you don't use a rocket to get there which can explode.

Part of how we know where to go is reference points, and in open blue water there's a pretty serious phenomena which mostly impacts scuba divers which is getting disoriented because there are no reference points, just blue in every direction. This is compounded at night where the potential reference point of "it's lighter up there" is also gone. I say "potential" because it's very possible to get lost at depth even with light penetrating.

Down at the depths they're going to, there is no light anymore, and there is also basically no reference points until you hit bottom...but the abyssal plain is almost like a desert of silt usually, and you still have shit visibility due to the no light problem. Oh, and another fun detail is that anything disturbing the silt such as thrusters can cause a cloud of impenetrable murk that can last for a long time down there even with light to see with...

So you lose your navigation systems and lights due to a power failure and a redundant system also fails...you can be in a world of shit down there really fast without a breach.

The tether is also surprisingly fallible: strong underwater currents as well as the weak points such as where that tether attaches have all kinds of points of failure due to the deceptively strong force currents exert on something that long. The other issue is having enough cable strong enough to withstand all the shit to go down that deep.

Now, assuming a perfectly functioning emergency system to return bouyancy to the sub, that could take the issue of reference points out of the equation...but what if it's not perfect and there's a problem there and no way to fix it? If something external gets jammed (a nontrivial issue at those pressures) and that is required to resurface, you're fucked. Let's assume for the sake of argument NOTHING goes wrong and the sub pops up...but well away from where they expect to due to those currents I mentioned earlier, navigation is down, and so are communications.

Now you need to find a tiny dot in an often turbulent sea, and at this point they don't know if they should be looking on the surface or down below. They have a fighting chance on the surface at least, but ocean currents can take things places nobody expects with a quickness.
 
I'm surprised they only have one crew member on board. You'd think they'd be required to have two in case said crew member gets incapacitated or has a heart attack or something to that effect and can't operate the sub

That said I wouldn't be surprised if one of the passengers is an autistically titanic obsessed nutcase who deliberately did something to keep the sub down there so they can die next to the titanic, not giving a shit if he killed everyone else on board. Kind of like those pilots who suicide by crashing a plane full of people
 
Some updates on passengers, from The Guardian:
A British explorer and a French military veteran and submarine expert are believed to be among those onboard. A spokesman for the Boston coastguard confirmed to the Guardian on Monday morning that “a small submarine with five persons onboard had gone missing in the vicinity of the Titanic wreck”. The craft is the Titan, a deep diving submersible operated by underwater tourism company Oceangate. News of the sub’s disappearance was first reported by the BBC. Rear Admiral John Mauger, first district commander of the US Coast Guard, overseeing the search-and-rescue operation, told a press conference late on Monday afternoon that “we are doing everything we can do” to find the sub and its occupants. Both US and Canadian aircraft were being used to search the “remote” area, as well as large ships, but the hunt was “complex” because crews do not know if the vessel has surfaced, meaning they must scour both the surface and the ocean depths of nearly 13,000 feet, he said. The submersible is believed to have life support capabilities lasting four days, although specifics remain unclear. “We’re making the best use of every moment of that time. What we’re focused on is finding those five people,” Mauger said.
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One of those believed to be on board is Paul Henry Nargeolet, a former French navy commander, a deep diver and a submersible pilot. As director of underwater research for E/M Group and RMS Titanic, Inc, he is widely considered the leading authority on the wreck site and it is possible he was in charge of the submersible on the dive, with four passengers alongside. Nargeolet has led several expeditions to the Titanic site and supervised the recovery of 5,000 artifacts, including the recovery of the “big piece” a 20-ton section of Titanic’s hull. People began offering up prayers for those missing on Monday. The submersible was launched on Sunday morning from the vessel Polar Prince. The Mi’kmaq chief Mi’sel Joe, head of the Indigenous group that owns the Polar Prince, told CBC News that another submersible was being flown in from the US to aid in the search.
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British businessman, Hamish Harding, a well-known aviator as well as an explorer and one of the tiny group of tourists who have already been to space, who is normally based in the United Arab Emirates, was booked on the current trip. Harding is married and Brian Szasz, a stepson, posted on Facebook about “thoughts and prayers” as “his submarine has gone missing” and then later deleted the post. Harding, 58, posted on Instagram on Saturday that: “Due to the worst winter in Newfoundland in 40 years, this mission is likely to be the first and only manned mission to the Titanic in 2023. A weather window has just opened up and we are going to attempt a dive tomorrow. We started steaming from St Johns, Newfoundland, Canada, yesterday and are planning to start dive operations around 4am tomorrow morning.” In a previous post he described himself as “a mission specialist” on the trip.
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