Expedition has always operated at the risk of being discovered. Whether in outer space or on the frontiers of the deep ocean, people have not stopped probing the unknown. The tragedy of Titan submarine back in June 2023 brought to mind just how deadly those voyages could turn out. Let discuss in the blog of The Article Heaven, what really went wrong with The Titan Submarine and why did things go so horribly wrong?
The Mission: A Deep-Sea Adventure
It was a submarine, made by OceanGate, one of those companies that promise adventure tourists a once-in-a-lifetime possibility to visit the wreck of the RMS Titanic. Only about 12,500 feet below the surface of the North Atlantic, the Titanic wreck is a deeply iconic symbol of maritime history, sitting in a world of cold, dark mystery.
June 18, 2023 Titan made its final dive with aboard-five in total:
- Stockton Rush is the CEO of OceanGate and the man who designed the Titan.
- Hamish Harding-a British billionaire-and it is known that the man who for example beat Tom Cruise to sit inside the first F-16 fighter jet when it was rolled out.
- Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman Dawood members of a very wealthy Pakistani business family
- Frenchman Paul-Henri Nargeolet-one of the world’s leading experts on Titanic.
But, as so often with him, it just so happened to coincide with a journey of a lifetime-to the ultimate lowest of the cycle of rising and falling. It so happened that was just exactly the time to witness history firsthand; instead of a once-in-a-lifetime experience, it turned into a nightmare.
The Catastrophic Dive
Titan’s dive was early that Sunday morning. It was heading down into the ocean’s depths from its support ship, the Polar Prince. Until hour and forty-five minutes, normal communication prevailed between Titan and the surface team. Then, contact was gone without warning.
On board the Polar Prince, the crew first thought it to be nothing but a temporary glitch—a technical problem that could be sorted out. But with hours ticking by and no sign of the vessel, panic started creeping in.
A Desperate Search
This was a multinational rescue involving the US Coast Guard and even the Canadian military into a working alliance with deep-sea exploration teams and even private organizations. Planes combed the top surface of the ocean, ships combed the area, and ROVs, short for remote-operated vehicles, looked around at the bottom of the sea.
Underwater “knocking sounds” briefly revived hope that survivors might be found and called out to the trapped crew. Days passed, and that hope fizzled out.
A submarine with five on board dived down tragically for four long days, but debris near Titanic’s wreck site has been confirmed on June 22. The Coast Guard today also confirmed that the submarine experienced a catastrophic implosion that instantly killed all its five passengers.
What is a Catastrophic Implosion?
For a start, to understand what happened to Titan, it is very much essential to know about the concept of an implosion.
An implosion is when, instead of bursting out from the extreme pressure outside it, it folds inward. Pressure at a depth where the Titanic lies is staggering: 380 times the surface pressure. It’s like having the weight of a fully loaded truck pressing on every square inch of the structure.
In its smallest flaw in the construction of Titan, doom lies. Possibly, upon the giving away of Titan’s structure, implosion came near to milliseconds, killing the submarine and its passengers right away.
Role of Carbon Fiber:
Probably the most controversial feature of the Titan would be that it would be a carbon fibre. The true deep submersible or first submersible from which most, if not all, really deep ocean studies are made is of either steel or titanium material. Both of these materials have records of withstanding crush pressure.
On the other hand, carbon fiber is very hard and light. However, it is unstable under extreme stresses such as pressure or temperature. Further, the material may exhibit small cracks or “delaminate” after a long period if it were exposed to repeated forces of high pressure. It might weaken the material without showing an apparent symptom of degradation, hence it would be a ticking time bomb.
Multiple dives to the Titanic could have caused minute cracks on Titan’s hull and eventually became the reason for the tragic loss of the latter.
Warnings Overlooked
Titanic was no incident that sprouted overnight. For one, there had long been warnings about the design and safety of the submarine years back.
Certification Issues:
One of the very few deep-sea submersibles which is yet to be certified by either of the marine safety organizations is Titan. According to OceanGate, certification only serves to delay innovation, for which its critics have seen as a rather bold bet.
Criticism by Experts
In 2018, a former OceanGate worker has allegedly warned that the deep pressures under which Titan’s hull could implode at design.
The alarms were reportedly dismissed and the worker reportedly fired.
Timeline of Issues
Before the fatal last dive, during previous dives, minor technical malfunctions with Titan had been recorded from time to time. At a point, this vessel had spun out of control as thrusters malfunctioned.
Why People Were on Titan?
It is really amazing that so many people came to Titan not just because of the attraction to adventure but also to the charismatic figure, the CEO of OceanGate, Stockton Rush, an impassioned deep-sea explorer, and to the enthusiastic and optimistic marketing of Titan as a vessel that would make access for the people possible.
It would have been for the first time in human history that anyone on earth had photographed the Titanic this close-up. Sadly, it was just the feeling of adventure which took a horrific cost.
Was This Calamity an Avoidable Accident?
It is now quite evident that the disaster involving Titan could have been averted.
Safety First: If it were to clear, internal experts would have raised the structural issues that could have improved.
Hear the Whistle Blowers: It is high time; warnings from inside sources and industry specialists must be heard.
Know Material Before: There was no compulsion to use the experimental material that is carbon fiber in a mission like this one that required an extreme condition.