All 5 people on the Titanic tour submersible are dead following an implosion

[thewayne]

Very sad. Apparently the pressure vessel, i.e. carbon-fiber tube, suffered a catastrophic implosion, killing everyone pretty much instantly.

Early today an remote-operated vehicle (ROV) spotted a debris field on the ocean floor. Further study showed it to be pieces of the submersible. The Coast Guard Admiral who gave the news at a press conference was asked if the bodies could be recovered, he said he didn't know and that the bottom of the ocean is a very unforgiving place.

As to the banging noises heard on sonobuoys? Might have been man-made, might not have been. Classifying sounds on sonar and via sonobuoys is a very tricky thing. I don't know if they'll be able to determine when the vessel imploded in relation to when the banging noises were heard. Also, sound heard underwater: it's difficult to plot distance and location because thermal and salinity layers can make it a non-linear path.

There was very little hope the people would be found alive, but there was a little. Sadly, this was the likely result.

https://www.npr.org/2023/06/22/1183661199/sub-titan-titanic-missing-search

Comments

[elayna]

That is sad, though I guess it's good closure for the families.

It is sad.

[kathmandu]

I remember when the Kursk submarine sank, people heard noises like banging and hope it was from the crew, trapped and alive. But when the rescue efforts finally made it in, they found everyone had died within minutes of the initial disabling explosion. Not really surprised it turned out the same way in this case.

Re: It is sad.

[thewayne]

The pressure from a hull breech is immense, the water coming through a small leak is like a sword and can cut people literally in half or sever limbs.  When you have a hull implosion, you don't suffer long.

[conuly]

Dead pretty much instantly may be better than slow and lingering death.

[acelightning73]

I heard that the vehicle didn't have an escape hatch nor an emergency radio buoy. Passengers got into the vessel and a heavy top was sealed with a gasket and bolted down with 17 bolts. No spare oxygen, no beacon, no communication devices, and it was probably never tested in a pressure tank. BAD DESIGN KILLS, boys and girls!

[thewayne]

Yep.  Some interesting design elements, seven different ways of forcing it to surface including ropes that dissolve in sea water after a period of time, but it didn't do any good.  Definitely not designed for safety.

[captainsblog]

I've been holding off on the black humor after some complaints about the early ones (Celine Dion playing in the cabin, which it was), but I do wonder if it will eventually turn out that Ron DeSantis just kidnapped them all and they're going to wash ashore on Martha's Vineyard.

[thewayne]

Okay. The Ron Desantis one got a chuckle from me.

I think if they were playing Celine Dion I'd be trying to claw my way out.

[motodraconis]

So many stories of bad design and fuckwittery are surfacing, hard to tell if they are true or made up. So far I've heard...

That only 17 of the 18 bolts on the hatch were secured, as the 18th was hard to reach.
That the carbon fibre of the hull was bought cheap from Boeng for being too old to be used on aeroplanes.

That the US navy detected an acoustic noise that would match an implosion. This noise occurred at the same time communications with the sub were lost, which implies, they have been dead for some time, and had been in the sub for less than 2 hours.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-65934887

[thewayne]

The start of the bad design is the body being a cylinder, not a sphere!  At the tremendous pressures it's operating at, unequal pressure would be applied.  Then add the fact that carbon fiber is very tricky material and when it fails, it fails catastrophically. I hadn't heard about one of the bolts not being put on.  Wow. I did hear about the US Navy hearing a sound 'consistent with an implosion' at about the time the signals were lost.  I didn't realize they were so far deep so quickly.  Yeah, looks like they died last Sunday. The worst part is the 19-y/o son did not want to go on the cruise.  He did it to please his dad for Father's Day.

[silveradept]

It's likely that this was going to be the result from the beginning, as we learn more about what happened, but I am somewhat annoyed that all of these techbros keep re-learning the lesson "Regulations are written in blood" rather than having learned them properly in the first place.

[disneydream06]

Very sad news. :(
Hugs, Jon