News

Titanic sub: Five people on vessel dead after ‘catastrophic
implosion’

Published

2 years ago

June 23, 2023

All five people aboard the Titan submersible are believed to be dead, and debris discovered in the search area was consistent with a “catastrophic implosion,” the U.S. Coast Guard said..

The debris was found off the bow of the sunken Titanic, officials said.

The search for the Titan, which went missing Sunday after it embarked on a mission to survey the wreckage of the Titanic, had been focused on an area where Canadian aircraft detected “underwater noises” Tuesday and again yesterday.

U.S. Coast Guard officials had estimated the five passengers could run out of air just before 7:10 a.m. ET today, and the location of the missing vessel had remained a mystery even as the search intensified.

Paul-Henri Nargeolet, a French diver and Navy veteran who died aboard the Titan, was “fearless” and understood the potential danger of traveling to the Titanic’s wreckage, his stepson said in an interview.

“Anyone who gets into those submersibles knows the risks that could happen,” stepson John Paschall said, adding: “Going into this, he knew the risks that were possible with this expedition.”

Paschall described Nargeolet, who had led several expeditions to the sunken passenger ship and supervised the recovery of at least 5,000 artifacts, as “the world expert on the Titanic.”

The ocean, Paschall said, was Nargeolet’s “home away from home. He was just so comfortable out there and in any ocean and any lake or whatever it was. The water was just so connected to him.”

“And that especially goes for the Titanic,” Paschall said. “He put so much of his life into that ship.”

Paschall also recalled Nargeolet as a “really incredible stepfather” — someone who was respectful, loving and funny.

While Nargeolet knew the risks of traveling in a submersible, Paschall said, he wanted to know more about how the company that operated the boat, OceanGate, had maintained the vessel and whether it had kept passengers properly informed.

“Were all the safety procedures followed as closely as possible?” Paschall said. “Was everyone aware of everything that was going on? Was there anything that was missed during any kind of inspection?”

How pressure kills at such depths
The deeper you go, the more water you have above you pressing down on you.

It’s unclear what caused the Titan sub to implode, but experts say it could have been caused by a small weakening of its outer hull.

The pressure experienced at sea level is referred to as “one atmosphere” or approximately 14.6lb (6.6kg) of pressure per square inch.

That pressure is increased by an entire atmosphere for every 10 metres of water depth. Therefore, at a depth of 3,000 metres – approximately where the sub was when it came apart – the pressure is about 300 times the pressure at the surface.

The Titanic wreck sits in the so-called Midnight Zone, known officially as the bathypelagic zone, which sits at a depth of between 3,300ft and 13,100ft. The temperature down there is approximately 39F (4C) and the pressure is at least 100 times that of sea level.

The very few animals that have adapted to live down there have evolved to survive the extreme pressure, darkness and cold – and die quickly when brought to the surface.