Communication with a deep sea submersible carrying 5 people who paid $250,000 each to gawk at the scene of the famous maritime disaster has been lost since sunday.    The submersible’s whereabout is unknown.

A rather impressive array of search and rescue assets, including naval anti submarine warfare assets, have been searching without results since.   It seems to me the array of assets involved is rather larger than one normally see searching for 5 lost mariners. 

it must be because the lives of those who can pay big bucks for delayed disaster tourism must ne worth more.

In reality unless the submersible is able to surface on its own, the chance of rescue would seem to be effectively zero because it would be extremely difficult to locate such a small submersible at this depth amidst the clutter of Titanic’s debris field.   And even if the submersible is located, some other submersible must be on hand to be able to dive to it with a hoist cable in tow, connect the hoisting cable to it to pull it up, because there is no rescue submersible than can reach 1/3 as deep, and in any case there is no possible way of transfers the survivors to a rescuer submersible at this depth.

They were dead Sunday morning.

Some smart ass leading the search has said "the sub is either floating on the surface, sitting on the bottom or somewhere in between" Well that narrows it down a bit!

Even if they find the sub, what then, at those depths you can't get the people out to swim for the surface, the pressure would crush them in a fraction of a second

(June 22, 2023 at 8:39 am)zebo-the-fat Wrote: Some smart ass leading the search has said "the sub is either floating on the surface, sitting on the bottom or somewhere in between"  Well that narrows it down a bit!

Even if they find the sub, what then, at those depths you can't get the people out to swim for the surface, the pressure would crush them in a fraction of a second

i think there are 2 potentially viable ways to rescue if the lost submersible is intact and occupant still alive.

1.  Deep sea submersible surfaces by dropping ballast weight.   If the maroon submersible can still drop its own ballast i5 would have done so already.     But If it can’t,   A rescue submersible may be able to help it loosen the ballast with a manipulator. 

2.  A rescue submersible may trail a hoist cable from a surface ship down 5o the missing submersible, attach the cable to the missing submersible with its menipulator, and then let the surface ship hoist it up. 

Other news said previous employee of the firm that operates the missing submersible was fired for complaining the tubular part of the submersible pressure hull, made od carbon fiber, is 2 inches thinner than expected for operation at titanic depth, that tubular carbon fiber pressure hull has not been tested for deep sea submersible pressure hull, all other manned deep sea submersible uses titanium sphere for pressure hull, and the glass viewing port is certified by its manufacturer for only pressure at 1300m, titanic rests at 4000m.    So it seems implosion around the time of communication loss is a distinct possibility.

(June 22, 2023 at 10:12 am)Anomalocaris Wrote: Other news said previous employee of the firm that operates the missing submersible was fired for complaining the tubular part of the submersible pressure hull, made od carbon fiber, is 2 inches thinner than expected for operation at titanic depth, that tubular carbon fiber pressure hull has not been tested for deep sea submersible pressure hull, all other manned deep sea submersible uses titanium sphere for pressure hull, and the glass viewing port is certified by its manufacturer for only pressure at 1300m, titanic rests at 4000m.    So it seems implosion around the time of communication loss is a distinct possibility.

While I agree that it is likely crushed -- I suspect that was the cause of loss of contact, meaning all these search efforts are useless anyway, the hull you're writing about was a different vessel than this one.

Ocean rescue is usually free to the rescued no matter who they are. Our Coast Guard has a policy of not trying to get reimbursed for rescues. It depends on the country doing the rescuing, to the best of my knowledge, but I am not a maritime lawyer.

(June 22, 2023 at 10:30 am)Mister Agenda Wrote: Ocean rescue is usually free to the rescued no matter who they are. Our Coast Guard has a policy of not trying to get reimbursed for rescues. It depends on the country doing the rescuing, to the best of my knowledge, but I am not a maritime lawyer.

Yes, but the amount of effort and assets devoted to an individual rescue effort does not seems to usually be “everything they got plus what they can corral from the navy as well”.   It seems to be scaled to the number of lives at risk and potential environmental damage involved in the crisis.

This is interesting..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9tmwpE07CFE

apparently a debris field that might have been the submersible has been found.

the tail one of the submersible has been found, indicating implosion before the submersible reached bottom.