Titanic tourist sub missing

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#3093462 22-Jun-2023 14:38

If I was trapped in submarine underwater, especially if I had a limited air supply, I'd be tapping more often than once every 30 minutes.

Canuckabroad

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#3093467 22-Jun-2023 14:51

It doesn't take a huge amount of energy to tap and make a noise, but if they are in oxygen conservation mode they will be asking everyone to try sleep and not be panicking and pounding the walls non-stop. Every 30 minutes does seem very mechanical and I agree I would be trying to get attention more often than that.

Paul1977

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#3093474 22-Jun-2023 15:09

Canuckabroad:

It doesn't take a huge amount of energy to tap and make a noise, but if they are in oxygen conservation mode they will be asking everyone to try sleep and not be panicking and pounding the walls non-stop. Every 30 minutes does seem very mechanical and I agree I would be trying to get attention more often than that.

Presumably if they haven't surfaced and didn't implode, then they are on the ocean floor. I don't know the science, but could a plane really detect someone banging inside a submersible nearly 4km underwater?

frankv

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#3093509 22-Jun-2023 15:13

Paul1977:

If they made it to the wreck and gotten snagged, you wouldn't expect communications to have stopped.

From the Guardian

12pm GMT/7am ET: The submersible starts what should be a two-hour descent to the Titanic wreck, nearly 4,000 metres down, according to the US Coast Guard.

1.45pm GMT/8.45am ET: Communications between the submersible and the surface vessel are lost 1 hour and 45 minutes after starting its descent.

If that's accurate, they were still 15 minutes, maybe 500m, above the Titanic. Mind you, it just needs someone to have added in a 15-minute fudge factor into that 2 hours and they could actually have been on the bottom at 1:45.

However, I'd expect that SOP would be to report when you got to the bottom, and they apparently didn't do that. So I'd say that they lost comms while still descending.

I don't think that losing comms would necessarily be an abort condition... after all, in most emergencies there wouldn't be much the ship could do except say "Come back up", which you would presumably already have figured out. And in a vessel where breakdowns were not uncommon, they may very well have continued descending and then got snagged. After all, there was GBP1,000,000 literally riding on it.

neb

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#3093520 22-Jun-2023 15:14

Batman: I don't think those "tapping" noises are from the sub

Nor do I. They have no buzz track of what was there before the sub was lost at that location, so no idea whether this could have been present for years beforehand.

frankv

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#3093524 22-Jun-2023 15:19

Paul1977:

Canuckabroad:

It doesn't take a huge amount of energy to tap and make a noise, but if they are in oxygen conservation mode they will be asking everyone to try sleep and not be panicking and pounding the walls non-stop. Every 30 minutes does seem very mechanical and I agree I would be trying to get attention more often than that.

Presumably if they haven't surfaced and didn't implode, then they are on the ocean floor. I don't know the science, but could a plane really detect someone banging inside a submersible nearly 4km underwater?

Yes. Sound travels very well under water.

Sonobuoys are used by the air force to track submarines, which are being as stealthy quiet as they can be, and certainly not banging. Also, there's a string of hydrophones across the North Atlantic for tracking Russian subs. They heard the USS Scorpion explode off the Azores

I think if you're wanting to attract attention, you don't want it to be continuous. Otherwise it sounds like an underwater object moving around in a current.

Rikkitic

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#3093536 22-Jun-2023 15:50

I said from the beginning that it was an implosion. I still believe that. Of course they need to operate on the assumption that the people are still alive and do everything possible to rescue them, but all the 'evidence' seems to suggest a sudden and catastrophic failure. hence no comms and no anything else. Considering the probable alternative, if it were me I would vote for the implosion. Too quick for fear or suffering.

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Handsomedan

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#3093552 22-Jun-2023 15:59

I don't understand why a vessel like this is not tethered to a mothership on the surface, for these exact reasons.

It's not a massive vessel - it's not foolproof and it's going super deep.

Quite shocking, really (to a layman).

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mattwnz

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#3093557 22-Jun-2023 16:02

Hopefully it was an implosion. Quick end and no suffering. I think it is time for them to leave the Titanic site alone as is is a graveyard to over 1500. Disaster site tourism and spending half a million to go down there doesn't sit right with me. I get it that that money goes towards research which wouldn't otherwise get received. I have the same issues with space tourism and IMO it is only a matter of time before something like this occurs with space tourism.

networkn

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#3093558 22-Jun-2023 16:03

Handsomedan:

I don't understand why a vessel like this is not tethered to a mothership on the surface, for these exact reasons.

It's not a massive vessel - it's not foolproof and it's going super deep.

Quite shocking, really (to a layman).

Was discussed earlier in the thread. 4KM Tether has a high likelihood of getting snagged or tangled on something.

mkissin

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#3093561 22-Jun-2023 16:07

Handsomedan:

I don't understand why a vessel like this is not tethered to a mothership on the surface, for these exact reasons.

It's not a massive vessel - it's not foolproof and it's going super deep.

Quite shocking, really (to a layman).

Tethering in a case like this is decidedly non-trivial. It's more than 4km of significantly thick cable in potentially strong current and that needs to have no stretch. The tether itself can be dangerous.

Batman

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#3093569 22-Jun-2023 16:30

frankv: A wise pilot will then only fly it to 4G, whereas a bold pilot might (illegally) go to 6G).

So people know what that means,

There are old pilots and there are bold pilots, but there are no old bold pilots.

Canuckabroad

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#3093576 22-Jun-2023 16:43

Handsomedan:

I don't understand why a vessel like this is not tethered to a mothership on the surface, for these exact reasons.

It's not a massive vessel - it's not foolproof and it's going super deep.

Quite shocking, really (to a layman).

Anyone who has taken a dog on a lead for a walk knows that the longer the lead, the more problematic and complicated it becomes as it becomes tangled when the dog moves around. Even though there aren't a lot of people or trees under the ocean, a 4km long lead would be a nightmare where currents could drag the cable and move the vessel, or the cable gets stuck on something.

kingdragonfly

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#3093577 22-Jun-2023 16:44

If I were tapping, I'd tap out "SOS", or a number sequence, 1 pause 2 pause 3 pause 1 pause ...

frankv

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#3093579 22-Jun-2023 16:48

mkissin:

Handsomedan:

I don't understand why a vessel like this is not tethered to a mothership on the surface, for these exact reasons.

Tethering in a case like this is decidedly non-trivial. It's more than 4km of significantly thick cable in potentially strong current and that needs to have no stretch. The tether itself can be dangerous.

I'd add that, unless the tether was neutrally buoyant, you would have to either drag it down or hoist it up. Seawater density varies with depth with salinity, so you may need to manage that varying buoyancy somehow. If the cable is neutrally buoyant, it weighs a lot on the deck of the ship. You also need a powerful winch... probably now you also need a bigger ship and a lot more money. Also there is the sheer mass of the cable to drag sideways to the wreck site, and once moving you might have difficulty stopping it. This cable would also have to be able to withstand huge pressures. I guess the bonus is that you could then add air lines (one up, one down) and power and comms down the cable, but now the cable is getting really thick and draggy and hard to bend into a coil. But you could have more powerful motors on the submersible to drag that huge cable around with, and a heater, and survive for many days if necessary. And, of course, in an emergency the ship could winch the cable back up.

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