Five people remain missing after a submersible intending to visit the site of the Titanic wreckage did not return as scheduled Sunday evening. Details have continued to emerge about the craft which was attempting to reach the sunken ship nearly 13,000 feet beneath the surface of the North Atlantic Ocean.
About the Titan
According to specs on the OceanGate website, the Titan is 22 feet long (equivalent to the length of a conversion van), nine feet wide and eight feet high, with the expeditions costing up to $250,000 per person. With space for four passengers plus the pilot, the company states there are 96 hours of air while boasting of a real-time system monitoring the health of the hull. The craft features a large domed porthole for observation, as well as external lights and 4K cameras. The interior walls are heated to counter the frigid water temperatures and there is a toilet area that can be curtained off.
While the vehicle has been called a submarine, it’s technically a submersible, as it does not have the ability to launch itself and requires support ships. OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush, who is among those missing, said last year that his Everett, Wash.-based tourism and research company had reached the site of the Titanic a dozen times between 2021 and 2022.
Due to the lack of GPS underwater, the Titan is guided via text messages from the surface ship. According to the Coast Guard, the submersible lost contact with its support vessel, the Canadian research ship Polar Prince, an hour and 45 minutes after it launched. OceanGate said the sub was sealed at 6 a.m. Sunday morning, giving those onboard up to approximately Thursday until they run out of oxygen. During a Tuesday afternoon press conference, Coast Guard Capt. Jamie Frederick would not commit to searchers being able to perform a rescue even if they were able to find the sub.
Details on the expeditions
A 10-minute segment from CBS News Sunday Morning in November provides an in-depth look at the process and at some of the potential issues. Correspondent David Pogue relays some of the paperwork with an almost humorous tone, reading, "This experimental vessel has not been approved or certified by any regulatory body, and could result in physical injury, emotional trauma, or death," before adding, "Where do I sign?"
A former Titan passenger told the BBC on Tuesday that you had to sign a "death waiver" which "lists one way after another that you could die on the trip," including " [mentioning] death three times on page one and so it's never far from your mind."
In the 2022 piece, Pogue notes that while he was on the journey, the submarine never made it to the wreck site because of communications errors, quoting one passenger as saying, "We were lost for two-and-a-half hours."
In a tweet Monday, Pogue said the craft was actually lost for five hours, and that adding an emergency locator beacon was discussed.Pogue added, "They could still send short texts to the sub, but did not know where it was. It was quiet and very tense, and they shut off the ship's internet to prevent us from tweeting," with the company telling them they needed "all channels open" as a reason for cutting off their internet access.
That wasn’t the only issue relayed in the story. Pogue said that while poor weather stopped him from making a dive to the sunken luxury liner, the team offered him a trip to a Continental Shelf that served as shark breeding grounds. However, Pogue only made it 37 feet down before floats came off the launching platform and the mission had to be canceled. Pogue also reported the Titan was sealed from the outside via 17 bolts.
The CBS News piece also shows how the submarine is piloted: Via a computer gaming controller, which is not uncommon. OceanGate CEO Rush notes that he got one piece of equipment used on the craft from "Camper [sic] World," but disagreed with the assessment that his creation "has some elements of MacGyver jerry-riggedness," referring to the 1980s television action star who would craft complicated tools out of ordinary household objects. Rush did note that the vessel had just one button, saying "It should be like an elevator, you know? It shouldn't take a lot of skill."
Along with Rush, the missing include British billionaire and explorer Hamish Harding, Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood, his son Suleman and 77-year-old French explorer Paul-Henri Nargeolet. Authorities from the United States and Canada are continuing to conduct a rescue operation, and France has pledged to send a deep-sea robot to help with the effort.
