Efforts to search for missing victims on board a submersible, which was exploring the British passenger liner Titanic’s 1912 wreckage, is set to come to an end as the US Coast Guard confirmed on Thursday that a debris field near the location of the vessel was the one which carried the five passengers.
All of them are believed to be dead. A U.S. Coast Guard official stated that the debris was “consistent with a catastrophic implosion of the vessel.”
Titan, which disappeared in the North Atlantic area, carried five individuals on its vessel, namely UK billionaire Hamish Harding, Pakistani-British businessman Shahzada Dawood and his 19-year-old son Suleman, French explorer Paul-Henry Nargeolet and OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush.
The submersible had lost contact on Sunday morning with its support ship an hour and 45 minutes into the beginning of its journey toward the century-old wreck.
Depleting oxygen on the submersible was a major concern
Oceangate, a US company that provides crewed submersibles for tourism, industry, research, and exploration, run by Rush who was part of the crew and served as the vessel’s pilot had earlier said that the submersible departed with 96 hours of air when it dived for the Titanic exploration. Reports suggest that the submersible possibly lost out on whatever emergency oxygen was left on the vessel.
“These men were true explorers who shared a distinct spirit of adventure, and a deep passion for exploring and protecting the world’s oceans," OceanGate Expeditions said in a statement. "Our hearts are with these five souls and every member of their families during this tragic time,” it added as no survivors were found.
Multiple safety violations around ‘Titan’ were flagged
Apart from the fact that submersibles have very limited power reserves and need a mother ship that can launch and recover it, unlike submarines, multiple safety concerns were flagged about Oceangate as far back as 2018.
David Lochridge, OceanGate’s director of marine operations, wrote an engineering report in 2018 that said the craft under development needed more testing and that passengers might be endangered when it reached “extreme depths,” as per a lawsuit filed that year in the US District Court in Seattle.
What went wrong? Indian experts weigh in
Experts believe a couple of things about the exploration seemed off from the get-go, including the number of people onboarding an HOV (Human Occupied Vehicle).
“Normally an HOV can carry two or three people to such deep sea voyages but this one carried five of them maybe because it is a tourist submersible and not one which is used for any research purposes,” said Dr Aninda Mazumdar, Chief Scientist at CSIR-National Institute of Oceanography - Goa.
“Now the carbon dioxide inside the submersible would have been absorbed inside creating problems for the passengers. It also depends if the batteries were drained as due to that the submersible wasn’t able to have any chance to contact the Polar Prince, its mothership on the surface,” added Mazumdar.
Lochridge, who was eventually sued for revealing confidential information when he revealed safety concerns regarding the submersible, had his concerns seconded by the Marine Technology Society (MTS) in March 2018 when it stated that, “the current ‘experimental’ approach adopted by OceanGate... could result in negative outcomes (from minor to catastrophic).”
“The submersible’s hull was made from carbon fibre. The shape of the submersible is also unusual, being tube-shaped as opposed to spherical, which would have ensured it received an equal amount of pressure,” said Dr. G A Ramadass, Director, The National Institute Of Ocean Technology in Chennai.
“Normally certified submersibles get pressure tested, 2.5 times the pressure it will normally be in. We are not even sure if this submersible went through that process,” added Dr. Ramadass.
Though there has been no conclusive investigation or report on ‘banging’ noises detected by rescuers in 30-minute intervals from the search area, experts believe it was difficult for rescuers to narrow down on the exact location of the submersible.
“Localising a sound that deep in the ocean is very difficult as they won’t be able to make out the source if they are only hearing it every half an hour. It should be continuous and would need everybody on the vessel to bang doors or make sounds from the submersible,” asserted Dr. Ramadass.
A common question on the safety of individuals from other marine life is also being debated with an expert pointing out other factors which would have led to them having their lives at risk.
“Animals are not your enemy in the night in the deep ocean, it's hypothermia and trauma shocks to your brain and body,” said an environmental compliance manager, who didn’t wish to be named. She further added that communicating with the people on board is also difficult considering certain crystals, geological structures, etc can cause device malfunction.
Are there chances of recovering remains of five dead on sub?
The chances of recovery of human remains are dim as a US Coast Guard official termed the debris site on the seabed as an "incredibly unforgiving environment.”
"We’ll continue to work and continue to search the area, but I don’t have an answer for prospects at this time,” the official stated on Thursday while addressing a question about the remains.
