Topic: Titanic - missing sub (Read 2677 times)

Colin Bishop · « **on:** June 19, 2023, 06:05:06 pm »

A submersible visiting the Titaiic appears to have gone missing.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news

Colin

TheLongBuild · « **Reply #1 on:** June 19, 2023, 11:10:44 pm »

Sadly no news, not looking good..

Tug Fanatic · « **Reply #2 on:** June 20, 2023, 08:41:44 am »

Even assuming that they are OK in the sub finding it and getting rescue equipment into place & then making a recovery at that depth in 72 hours sounds like a real challenge.

I suspect that they are going to need a whole lot of good luck.

Circlip · « **Reply #3 on:** June 20, 2023, 10:37:07 am »

The ultimate remote controlled submarine. At £198,000 a trip to voluntarily put yourself in harms way, hope the risk assessors have got their sums right.

Regards Ian.

AlexC · « **Reply #4 on:** June 20, 2023, 05:53:51 pm »

US Officials have blocked the UK rescue attempt.
How can they do this when the Titanic wreck is in international waters?
What's it got to do with them who goes to the rescue?
All seems a bit fishy to me.
AlexC

Colin Bishop · « **Reply #5 on:** June 20, 2023, 06:04:40 pm »

Don't rush to judgement, there may be factors involved which are not immediately apparent.

Colin

TheLongBuild · « **Reply #6 on:** June 20, 2023, 06:06:38 pm »

Quote from: AlexC on June 20, 2023, 05:53:51 pm

US Officials have blocked the UK rescue attempt.
How can they do this when the Titanic wreck is in international waters?
What's it got to do with them who goes to the rescue?
All seems a bit fishy to me.
AlexC

have they though, saw that news item this morning and seemed to me just a click bate headline. Also I doubt the UK vessel would get there in time for a rescue with survivors.

Colin Bishop · « **Reply #7 on:** June 22, 2023, 07:40:14 pm »

Latest news suggests that the sub has been found in pieces on the bottom. Very sad.

However a lot of the background detail suggests that it was a bit of a lashup and not properly tested plus lacking safety gear. It had faults on previous dives.

If true then the loss of the crew is tragic but many hundreds of thousands of pounds have been spent on an abortive rescue attempt. On the face of it the company seems to have been irresponsible but no doubt the truth will emerge in due course.

There does seem to be something a bit unhealthy in the willingness of people with money to squander to spend it on diving on a maritime grave which has already been well documented. Just what was giving them the satisfaction? Plus one of the passengers took his teenage son with him.

Colin

Colin Bishop · « **Reply #8 on:** June 22, 2023, 08:59:08 pm »

Now sadly confirmed.

Quite impressive that the authorities have been able to identify the wreckage in the circumstances.

Colin

TheLongBuild · « **Reply #9 on:** June 22, 2023, 10:04:23 pm »

All very sad, one bit of the news I read initially said it that it could be parts from another Titan lost !! ( I assume unmanned) , although the latest does seem to indicate it is the sub they are looking for.

Colin Bishop · « **Reply #10 on:** June 22, 2023, 10:35:11 pm »

Doesn't sound at all credible.

Colin

derekwarner · « **Reply #11 on:** June 23, 2023, 12:15:00 am »

Courtesy Google.......

"The pressure in the bathypelagic zone is extreme and exceeds 5850 pounds per square inch at a depth of 4000 meters (13100 feet)!"

The implosion would be near instantaneous...

Derek

Tug Fanatic · « **Reply #12 on:** June 23, 2023, 08:07:50 am »

Quote from: Colin Bishop on June 22, 2023, 07:40:14 pm

.......................If true then the loss of the crew is tragic but many hundreds of thousands of pounds have been spent on an abortive rescue attempt. On the face of it the company seems to have been irresponsible but no doubt the truth will emerge in due course.

There does seem to be something a bit unhealthy in the willingness of people with money to squander to spend it on diving on a maritime grave which has already been well documented. Just what was giving them the satisfaction? Plus one of the passengers took his teenage son with him.

Colin

If you are on a cruise ship an an air ambulance evac is required you pay for it. Hopefully there was insurance in place to cover the millions spent on the rescue attempt.

I do understand why somebody who was very rich might want to spend their money on something like this. If you deny the desire to do risky things nobody would rock climb, parachute jump, ride motorcycles, dive wrecks etc etc. To me the fact that many people died on the Titanic would not be a factor in deciding whether to visit but the charisma of the ship might well be although I doubt that they would have seen much of the wreck when they hoped to got there. If you deny this and say that because people died there then you must also surely also deny visits to battlefields etc on land. To me the goulish aspect of this is the attention to the rescue atempt and the tension building stories of air running out.

I can well understand the adrenalin rush of a deep see dive.

kinmel · « **Reply #13 on:** June 23, 2023, 09:20:55 am »

The additional costs of the rescue operation are in reality surprisingly low.
The ships, personnel and equipment are maintained 24/7/365 purely for immediate reaction to unscheduled events, be it war or rescue. It was known from the start that there was only 96 hours of air onboard and there was virtually no possibility of saving lives this time.
However, emergency services and the military always react in the same way to such events; spin up the "Play Book" and work the incident through to it's natural conclusion. You may get lucky, or you may not.

Whatever the outcome, the Play Book and all the systems have been tested in real time. Inevitably, there will have been glitches, errors and even things never thought about before, so the next incident gains from those updates to the Play Book.
All the time this operation was in Play, the system remained ready and dealt with other incidents; reality is remorseless and rarely gets these headlines.

The rescue costs won't even appear in any accounts, it is all simply routine operations.

Colin Bishop · « **Reply #14 on:** June 23, 2023, 09:42:47 am »

Yes, each to his/her own I suppose. I like visiting ancient archaeological sites, particularly in Greece. People visit beaches nearby and have no interest whatsoever in the world famous site just down the road. It keeps the crowds away anyway.

What hasn't been mentioned in the press is that the bottom of the North Atlantic is extensively covered by listening devices (SOSUS) as a guard agaist Soviet (now Russian submarines). The US Navy obviously heard the implosion but did not know what it was until the Titan was reported missing. The noise signature would have been unusual. Once they realised what it probably was they were able to help the searchers locate it. I don't think it was any accident that the wreckage was found so quickly once the deep diving ROV was available.

Colin

Baldrick · « **Reply #15 on:** June 23, 2023, 10:51:58 am »

I have an admiration for explorers who wish to go where no person has gone before . But I think that when it became clear that the only system control in the sub was a re-purposed X Box games controller, I would have been out of there faster than a rat up a drainpipe. Sad but at least they did not suffer a slow demise it must have been instantaneous .

Circlip · « **Reply #16 on:** June 23, 2023, 12:17:08 pm »

Not many (any?) of todays aircraft have stranded steel wire to connect the control surfaces so fly by wire is the norm. Standing in some foreign field at a war grave can hardly be drawn as a comparison and sympathy for the families seems misplaced as obviously this wasn't a consideration to the participants who signed their lives away willingly on this expensive jaunt.

Regards Ian.

ColinB · « **Reply #17 on:** June 23, 2023, 12:22:14 pm »

Growing up in Falmouth I was always acutely aware of the dangers of the sea, and I still remember vividly the night in '66 when I was 12 when the MV Darlwyne went down off the Dodman with all 31 lives lost including 8 kids.

Colin Bishop · « **Reply #18 on:** June 23, 2023, 12:36:11 pm »

Scores of people have visited Titanic since it was discovered so in most cases the visitors are well heeled tourists, not explorers.

Looking at the photos, the vessel was literally a lashup with the thrusters strapped on the outside. It has been described as something you would knock up in a garden shed! One specialist made an interesting point that most (if not all) deep diving crewed submersibles have titanium hulls. Titan was a carbon fibre tube with titanium endcaps so there could have been fatigue issues at the joint caused by the differing expansion characteristics of the two materials. Thus, while hull integrity was initially OK, it deteriorated with the effects of subsequent dives.

Colin

warspite · « **Reply #19 on:** June 23, 2023, 12:53:51 pm »

I know this may seem callous - but it annoys me when during the briefing last night at 8pm, a reporter asked about the recovering the bodies - the callous bit - what bodies, have you ever squashed a bug with your foot, that would be the effect - correct?, the recovery of the bits of the sub would yield remnants, correct?

The general feeling seemed that they never even got to see the ship as the implosion appeared to happen about 1600 feet from the bow.

Sorry if I have offended anyone - please moderate if to much - I would understand.

Akira · « **Reply #20 on:** June 23, 2023, 01:36:07 pm »

Warsprite,I do not think that your comment was callous. I think it did highlight the ignorance or the questioner. I think that many of the comments posted here are very valid. This was the ONLY submersible "capable" of descending to 4000 meters that was not certified, nor non-destructively tested by recognized organizations. There was a reason that was so. The CEO stated that it would cost too much and take too long.
A sad ending to a foreseeable outcome.

ballastanksian · « **Reply #21 on:** June 23, 2023, 05:25:04 pm »

I read as well that the window was only just able to withstand the pressure at that depth with little or no safety margin. The owner of the business was described as a bit 'gung ho' engaging young forward thinking people rather than older more cautious people.

How much of this is absolutely accurate, we will find out. Re Journalists, it is a common practice to ask the questions that infuriate those who know. This is to ask the questions for the many who do not.

I am not happy with Titanic or other similar vessels being bothered by visitors, but 1. it is better than them being blown up and salvaged for scrap, and 2. I would like to know that future vessels will be better designed and certified for the customer's benefit of safety.

Colin Bishop · « **Reply #22 on:** June 23, 2023, 05:52:48 pm »

There is a long history of innovative geniuses overstepping the mark. A classic example is HMS Captain (I mentioned on the Queen Mary thread) where the Admiralty were forced by public opinion to indulge Captain Coles in building a turret ship to his own design despite warnings from their own design staff. Although the ship was initially apparently successful her lack of reserve stability was fatally demonstrated during a storm which the other ships of her squadron were abel to ride out safely.

In this instance there will be efforts to recover debris from the Titan to try and find out where the failure occurred.Was the design basically faulty or were the components used not strong enough? In addition to the questions about the porthole pressure rating I have also read that the carbon fibre tube was five inches thick instead of seven inches as originally intended.

Design wise, a spherical crew capsule is inherently stronger than a tubular one when pressure is exerted from all directions. A tube was probably chosen for the Titan as it could accommodate more people.

There is a suggestion that the poor 18 year old kid didn't really like the idea but wanted to please his father who in my view was totally irresponsible in letting his son accompany him on a trip where they were required to sign waivers against risk of death. Lawyers are already saying that those waivers may not stand up in court if the company acted in an irresponsible way as other parties are claiming.

Colin

Martin (Admin) · « **Reply #23 on:** June 23, 2023, 06:01:59 pm »

HMS Captain (1869) - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Captain_%281869%29

roycv · « **Reply #24 on:** June 23, 2023, 06:23:05 pm »

Hi I watched the Channel 5 documentary with live coverage and I thought it a very thoughtful and interesting hour. Dan Walker was very good as the anchor. I do not remember a similar programme where the subject was aired as it was happening and as the programme went out. The live interventions on the latest news emphasizing it's immediacy.

When the 8 o/c briefing was relayed I felt that one of the experts had seen what was down there and had to hold back on perhaps human remains being mentioned. One of the more intelligent questions was when did it happen?

I am not speculating as no doubt experts will analyse what they have found, and I shall be interested to hear their conclusions.
As has been pointed out the rescue services are there ready to go already employed for just such an emergency and this experience will show up any weaknesses, if any, that they can build on for the future. The costs are almost irrelevant as the fact that they are there is good to know.
Regards
Roy

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Author Topic: Titanic - missing sub (Read 2677 times)