What happened?
A submarine used to explore the wreckage of the Titanic – which sank on its maiden voyage between Southampton and New York in April 1912 with 2,224 people on board – lost contact with the research vessel Polar Prince less than two hours after it sank on Sunday the descent had begun in the morning. The dive will have started in Lisbon at 8:00 am.
The Titan, as the 6.7-metre submarine is called, has a capacity of five people for 96 hours – meaning they will likely have air until 8am on Thursday. It can dive to depths of up to 4,000 meters and move at a maximum speed of 5.5 kilometers per hour, controlled in practice by a simple remote control (as a BBC report on board in 2022 tells us).
Who’s on board?
There are five people aboard the Titan, four of whom have been identified so far: British businessman and explorer Hamish Harding, 58, Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood, 48, son Suleman Dawood, 19, and French explorer Paul-Henri (PH ) Nargeolet, 77 years old.
The fifth person on board is reportedly Stockton Rush, the CEO of OceanGate Expeditions, responsible for the trip.
Harding is the CEO of the Action Aviation company, holding three Guinness records – including the longest time spent at the bottom of the deepest place on Earth, the Trench of Marinas, aboard the Challenger Deep. He has also been to space (he was one of the space tourists on the fifth Blue Origins mission) and has visited the South Pole several times.
He was the one who announced on social media that he would be taking part in the expedition, saying that due to the region’s “worst winter in 40 years” it would likely be “the first and only mission to Titanic in 2023”. And who said that PH Nargeolet was also on the same trip – information confirmed by the family to BFMTV.
The French explorer, a former naval officer, is known as “Mister Titanic,” who has led dozens of dives to the wreck of the passenger ship and overseen the recovery of many of its artifacts over the years.
The presence of the Dawoods on board was also confirmed on Tuesday by the family itself, one of the wealthiest in Pakistan. Vice president of the Dawood Hercules Corporation, one of the family-owned Dawood Group, Shahzada is also a trustee of the SETI Institute, a California-based nonprofit that searches for extraterrestrial life, among other things. He lives in the UK and is a member of the Founders’ Circle of the British Asian Trust.
What were you doing?
OceanGate Explorations charges $250,000 (nearly €230,000) for a spot on its eight-day expedition to see the famous shipwreck, which lies 3,800 meters deep in the middle of the North Atlantic Ocean, about 600 kilometers from Earth. Nova (Canada) and nearly 1500 from Cape Cod (USA). Each dive lasts an average of eight hours, with several planned per expedition.
Considered a marvel of the industrial age, the Titanic was marketed as unsinkable, but would not reach its first destination after hitting an iceberg. More than 1500 people died, the wreck was found in 1985. James Cameron’s film, released in 1997, contributed to the fascination with this passenger ship.
Tourists boarding the Titan are aware of the danger they are in and must sign a term of responsibility where the worst case scenario is very clear.
What is being done to find the Titan?
The US and Canadian Coast Guard searches are both on the surface, in case the Titan has surfaced after the release of weight in an emergency, but is only out of range (the scenario that would be most positive), like under water. In that case, the submarine may be intact or may have collapsed under the pressure of the seabed as a result of an incident on board – the pressure at this depth is about 400 times greater than that at the surface.
The North Americans use two Hercules C-130 planes, while the Canadians use a Poseidon P-8 plane and a ship. Sonars are used, with the capacity to monitor underwater up to 13,000 feet, but the search location is extensive and remote. Authorities are also sending an unmanned vehicle, controlled remotely from the surface, to the site as soon as possible to assist in the search.
The French Oceanographic Institute will also send the vessel Atalante, equipped with an underwater robot, to the site, according to the government, and should arrive late afternoon on Wednesday.
Source: DN
