Numerous complications could hamper rescue efforts for the five people aboard the diving submersible Titanwhich did not return from a dive on Sunday on the wreck of the titanicat the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean.
For any search and rescue operation at sea, weather conditions, lack of light at night, sea state and water temperature can play a role in the possibility of finding and rescuing sailors. in distress. In the case of a rescue under the sea, the conditions for success are even more numerous and more difficult to take into account.
The first and most important problem to solve is simply to find the Titan.
Many underwater vehicles are equipped with an acoustic device, often called a sonobuoy (“pinger”), which emits sounds that can be detected underwater by rescuers. It is not certain that the Titan be equipped with it.
The submersible reportedly lost contact with its support vessel 1 hour and 45 minutes into a two-and-a-half-hour dive to the bottom, where the titanic.
There could be a problem with the communication equipment of Titan or with the ballast system that controls its descent and ascent by filling the water tanks to dive and pumping the water with air to return to the surface.
Another possible risk for the ship would be fouling, i.e. clinging to a piece of wreckage that could prevent it from rising to the surface.
If the submersible is found at the bottom of the water, the extreme depths limit the possibilities of rescue.
Depth issue
Human divers wearing specialized gear and breathing helium-rich air mixtures can safely reach depths of a few hundred feet below the surface before having to spend a lot of time decompressing to ascend. At a few hundred feet depth, sunlight no longer penetrates the water and darkness reigns.
PHOTO PROVIDED BY AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
The wreckage of titanic in 1986, a year after its discovery at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean
THE titanic rests about 14,000 feet deep in the North Atlantic, a depth humans can only reach inside specialized submersibles that keep their occupants warm, dry, and supplied with breathable air.
The only possible means of rescue would be an unmanned vehicle, i.e. an underwater drone. The US Navy has an underwater rescue vehicle, but it can only go down to 2,000 feet.
To retrieve items from the sea floor in deeper waters, the Navy relies on what it calls remotely operated vehicles, like the one it used to retrieve a crashed F-35 Joint Strike Fighter about 12 400 feet in the South China Sea in early 2022. This vehicle, called CURV-21, can reach depths of 20,000 feet.
Getting the right kind of equipment – such as a remotely operated vehicle like the CURV-21 – to the site takes time, starting with getting it to a vessel capable of transporting it to the site.
The wreckage of titanic is about 370 miles south of Newfoundland, and ships that can carry a vehicle such as the Navy’s deepest diving robot normally travel no more than 20 miles per hour.
According to the OceanGate website, the Titan can keep its five occupants alive for about 96 hours. In many submersibles, the air inside is recycled – carbon dioxide is removed and oxygen is added – but over a long period of time the vessel will not be able to remove enough carbon dioxide, and indoor air will no longer sustain life.
If the batteries of the Titan become exhausted and unable to operate the heaters that keep occupants warm in the freezing depths, those inside can become hypothermic, and the situation becomes insurmountable. If the pressurized hull of the submersible were to give way, the end of those inside would be certain and swift.