‘Against the clock’: Huge snag in missing submarine rescue mission plans

A pipe-laying vessel has arrived on the scene of the missing Titanic sub. It can work at depths of up to nearly 3048m – around 800m short.

The submersible, dubbed Titan, was reportedly fitted with a 96-hour emergency oxygen supply.

One of the world’s few deep-sea capable vessels just happened to be in the area when contact was lost with a tourist submersible on Sunday.

But the pipe-laying TechnipFMC Deep Energy won’t be able to rescue any survivors if they’re stuck on the bottom.

The research-tourist vessel Polar Prince lost contact with its deep-sea viewing platform late on Sunday. It took five people down to observe the famous White Star liner Titanic wreck.

The submersible, dubbed Titan, was reportedly fitted with a 96-hour emergency oxygen supply.

That supply is due to run out on Thursday.

Now the race is on to determine whether the Titan’s crew and passengers are alive. And whether or not they can be recovered.

US and Canadian ships and aircraft are scouring the Atlantic’s surface in the chance that the Titan may have bobbed to the surface. And sonar buoys have been dropped to listen for – and echo-locate – any underwater trace of the missing craft.

So far, only the TechnipFMC-operated Deep Energy has any chance of doing anything if this hunt succeeds. In a statement to the BBC, TechnipFMC said the ship was assisting efforts “being led by the United States Coast Guard with support from the Canadian Coast Guard”.

Publicly available information says the deep-sea pipe-laying ship carries one remotely-operated vehicle (ROV) capable of operating at extreme depths.

Contact was lost with the Titan submersible on Sunday. Picture: Handout/OceanGate Expeditions/AFP

But that depth is listed as “up to 10,000ft” (3km).

The wreck of the Titanic sits at 3.8km.

And it’s not simply a matter of airlifting an extra kilometre’s worth of cable into the mid Atlantic.

The pressure of air on our bodies at sea level is about 1kg per square centimetre.

For every 10m of depth dived, submersibles experience the equivalent of an extra atmosphere.

Where the Titanic lies, the pressure of the water around it is 380 times greater (40MPa) than on the surface.

That means the hull and fittings of the Deep Energy’s utility submersible would be subject to 80 atmospheres more weight than what it was designed to survive.

Up against the clock

A French vessel, The Atalante, will arrive on the scene later today carrying another deep-sea robot. This AI-controlled exploration submersible is said to survive at depths of up to 6km. But its capacity to do anything once it gets there is minimal.

And the United States navy and US Transportation Command are racing to deploy a deep-sea salvage team to the scene.

PH Nargeolet is among the missing. Picture: Five Deeps Expedition

As is Stockton Rush. Picture: OceanGate

It won’t be a rescue submarine.

Instead, the Flyaway Deep Ocean Salvage System is essentially a mobile crane used to recover sensitive military equipment – such as an F-35C Lightning stealth fighter that toppled off the deck of the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson in the South China Sea.

It came to rest at 3800m.

“It is possible to mix and match the components based on the size and capabilities of the platform which will be mobilised, the depth of the object to be retrieved, the weight of the object, and configuration for running the lift line from the ship to the sea, where fairlead block are used,” the US navy told The War Zone news service.

The associated salvage team and equipment have arrived at St Johns, Newfoundland.

It must now undertake the journey to reach the accident site. Once there, it will take any submersible system about six to eight hours to reach the bottom.

Maritime logistics expert and associate professor of history at Campbell University Sal Mercogliano says there are three likely scenarios surrounding the submersible’s fate.

“This is an insane depth,” says Mercogliano.

“And when something goes wrong, there’s minimal margin of error here.”

It may have used its emergency systems to dump the weights that negate its buoyancy.

That means the Titan could be floating on the surface of the Atlantic, with the crew still trapped inside. They can only be released once 17 high-strength bolts are removed from its hatch from the outside.

And it may have experienced a complete electrical and systems failure, causing it to rest on the sea floor. That, says Mercogliano, makes rescue efforts almost impossible because of its extreme depth and the difficulty in identifying the submersible – which does not appear to be carrying an emergency beacon – among the debris of the Titanic.

The final option, he says, is a catastrophic structural failure. This would cause the mini-van-sized pressure hull to collapse under the massive water pressure around it. Such an event would instantly kill anybody inside.

The submersible was taking tourists to see the wreckage of the Titanic in the North Atlantic. Picture: Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution/AFP

The irony of the Titans

The almost entirely unregulated tourist submersible Titan has come to grief among the wreckage of another high-profile shipping disaster involving the rich and famous – the White Star liner Titanic.

The sequence of compounding failures behind the Titanic disaster triggered extensive reforms to shipping regulations, says Mercogliano.

OceanGate’s Titan submersible, however, is an unclassified vessel. It’s a new concept. And international regulations – or at least their interpretations – are yet to catch up.

But the risks surrounding such craft, says Mercogliano, are well understood.

“When Titanic sank in 1912, everybody knew the issues,” he says.

“Everybody knew that Titanic didn’t have enough lifeboats for everybody on board. That wasn’t a surprise. And understand – it still met the rules.”

The last known picture of the submarine before it vanished exploring Titanic's wreck. Picture: Supplied

But the disaster forced changes.

“After the Titanic, you had to have a 24-hour watch. You had to have an automated system to trigger an alarm. We got a whole series of rules that came out of the Titanic, and they’re known as SOLAS, the Safety of Life at Sea,” he says.

“So Titanic sets the standard by which we operate vessels, everything from the ice patrol to public address systems, to lifeboat designs, immersion suits, evacuation suits, helicopter rescues . you name it, all are all done as a result of what happened with Titanic.”

The loss of the Titan, he says, will likely force international regulations to encompass crewed submersibles. And possibly beyond.

“We’re seeing the same issue right now in space travel with SpaceX and the like accepting tourists. And they’re operating in these new areas where regulations don’t typically exist,” says Mercogliano.

Jamie Seidel is a freelance writer | @JamieSeidel