Hopes now reduced to a flicker in the increasingly frantic searches for the submarine lost on Sunday after the dive towards the wreck of the Titanic. However, the hours of oxygen available to the five VIP passengers are decreasing more and more, the reserve would be available until 11 today, while the controversy over the safety of an experimental hull is growing.
Submarine noises were picked up on Tuesday but also yesterday morning by a Canadian Lockheed P-3 Orion aircraft with underwater surveillance equipment. According to some US media, which cite internal communications from the US government, it would be pounding sounds at 30 minute intervals. The ocean is full of sounds but the report suggests that the ‘bang’ detected is regular and therefore may be produced by a human source.
Among the occupants of the Titan submarine is a former French diver, Paul-Henri Nargeolet, who should know the protocol for alerting teams: make noise for three minutes every half hour. Rear Admiral John Mauger of the US Coast Guard, who is directing the research, reported that according to experts and equipment, the noise picked up “is potentially generated” by the occupants of the hull but that there is no confirmation of its nature.
“We must remain optimistic,” was the invitation of Captain Jamie Frederick, coordinator of relief. It should be remembered that in previous submarine rescue attempts these noises were found to be ‘false’, particularly in 2017 with the Argentine submarine Ara San Juan: subsequent analysis of the audio ascertained that it was a natural source. So while hopes for a miracle have risen slightly, there are still numerous uncertainties and challenges. Not last the race against time: according to Mauger, passengers only have oxygen until 5 local time on Thursday (11 today in Italy), even if there are some variables, including the rate of consumption per occupant: the less we talk and the less we move, the less it burns. The detection of the sounds led to the movement of the ROVs, the remotely piloted underwater vehicles, in the area, to then sink them in search of the Titan using sonar and video cameras.
So far, 25,900 sq km of ocean have been surveyed, an area the size of Massachusetts or Lebanon. And since Wednesday there is also the French ship Atlante, equipped with a submarine robot, the Victor 6000. If it were possible to locate the Titan in the abyss, recovering it would still be a huge logistical challenge. And it would be even more so if he had run aground in the remains of the Titanic. In any case, special equipment would be needed due to the enormous pressure and total darkness at a depth of 3800 meters.
I five passengers they are the British millionaire Hamish Harding (58), the Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood (48) with his son Suleman (19), the French explorer and submarine pilot Paul-Henri Nargeolet (77) and Stockton Rush (61), the patron of OceanGate, the company that owns the Titan.
Meanwhile, the revelations on the concerns that have emerged in the past regarding the tightness of the hull carbon and titanium. He had raised them, before being fired in 2018, David Lochridge, former director of maritime operations at OceanGate. Ditto another former employee who remained protected by anonymity, who preferred to resign in 2017 when Rush rejected his objections. Even industry leaders, in the same period, had warned the CEO of OceanGate on the risks of “catastrophic” problems for his “experimental approach”.
CNN also revealed that the University of Washington’s applied physics laboratory denied having been involved in testing and designing the submarine, contrary to what OceanGate claimed. Ultimately, the company chose not to grade its Titan through an independent industry group, citing the long approval times for an innovative design and the fact that the process would guarantee the reliability of the construction standards but not against errors in operations. which are the cause of the majority of nautical and aviation accidents.
ANSA.it
The billionaire who went into space and the CEO of OceanGate Expeditions. They are two of the passengers of the bathyscaphe lost on the trail of the Titanic. The Coast Guard of Boston confirms that there were five people on board the submarine, including – according to rumors by Sky News and as stated by Hamish Harding in a post on Facebook – the French pilot Paul-Henry Nargeolet. (HANDLE)
ANSA Agency
Alarm in the Atlantic, 5 on board to visit the wreck at a depth of 3,800 metres. They have 70 to 96 hours of oxygen to be saved (ANSA)
The Titan, capable of descending as much as 4,000 meters below sea level, has in fact a maximum capacity designed precisely for 5 passengers. Visitors willing to pay a very high ticket to be lowered into the abyss for over a week and see with their own eyes the seabed on which the remains of what was once the most famous ship in the world lie at a depth of about 3,800 meters: remains identified in 1985 after decades of feverish exploration.
The adventure, managed by the OceanGate Expeditions company, includes an eight-day mission, at a cost – far from affordable for mere mortals – of 250,000 dollars per person. The price of an experience to be lived in contact with the darkness of the ocean trenches, but above all with the past ghosts of the story of the cursed ocean liner, which has remained linked to the collective memory of entire generations thanks to books, songs or successful films (in primis the blockbuster with Leonardo Di Caprio and Kate Winslet directed by James Cameron winner of 11 Academy Awards in 1997).
Missing tourist submarine visiting the Titanic, the promotional video
Designed in 1908, launched in 1911 from the Belfast shipyard for the White Star Line at a total cost of £1.5 million at the time (about £200 million today) and registered in the port of Liverpool, the Titanic sank with over 1,500 of her approximately 2,200 passengers – despite the advertising reputation of an “unsinkable” ship – on the night of April 15, 1912, after hitting an iceberg on her first crossing between Southampton, England, and America. She disappearing into the waves of the ocean, she 370 nautical miles (600 kilometers) from the Canadian coast of Newfoundland, without ever being able to land in the port of arrival in New York. Epilogue that hasn’t discouraged modern ‘overpriced’ adventure tourists from challenging a fate at the risk of now revealing itself dramatically mocking. While the organizing company can only rely on the research of the rescue teams, limiting itself to ensuring – in a message full of growing anxiety – “thoughts and prayers” for its customers and their families.