Missing Titan Submersible
The world’s attention was gripped by the News Headline OceanGate’s Titan Submersible in its voyage to explore the Titanic shipwreck, has lost contact (Fig 1) with its mothership - The Polar Prince, a Canadian research vessel 1 hour 45 minutes after its descent on Sunday 18 June 2023. (Fig 2)
The enduring allure of the Titanic, the World’s largest luxury Oceanliner
The Titanic, then the world’s largest luxury ocean liner which sank on 14-15 April 1912, lies 400 miles from Newfoundland Canada and 900 miles from Cape Cod in USA and (Fig 3) lies 12,500 ft (3,800 meters) in the Atlantic Ocean) (Fig 4) in which 1500 persons had perished continues to be a subject of fascination to scientists, explorers, film producers. High-network individuals, industry titans and business mavericks.
OceanGate founded in 2009, started expeditions to Titanic wreck only since 2021
Recognising the immense interest of the Titanic shipwreck, Everett. Washington-based OceanGate, though founded in 2009, started offering chartered expeditions on the Titan, since the summer of 2021 to the wreckage of the Titanic, 13,000 feet (4,000 meters) below sea level, at a cost of $250,000 per person.(Fig 5) The dives were part of an eight-day, seven-night package.
OceanGate's Titan submersible, a truck-sized (Fig 5) of 2.5 meter by 6.7 meter sub holds five people and usually dives with a four-day (96 hours) emergency supply of oxygen. Each full dive to the wreck, including the descent and ascent, reportedly takes around eight hours.
Passengers planning to board the Titan signed safety waivers that repeatedly mentioned the possibility of death
But the experimental Titan craft, designed to explore a part of the Earth that few people have ever visited, is subject to little regulatory oversight and made passengers explicitly aware of the mortal risks they would face on board.
Passengers planning to board the Titan signed safety waivers that repeatedly mentioned the possibility of death. The craft, a cylindrical carbon-fiber and titanium tube that operates with a rudimentary video game controller and lacks even a GPS system, has been missing since Sunday.
The five passengers in the Titan submersible include:
OceanGate’s CEO & Founder Stockton Rush, 61-year-old pilot of the Titan, an aerospace engineer with a well-documented love of deep-sea exploration and designing experimental aircraft and modded submersibles,
Hamish Harding, a 58-year-old British billionaire and explorer with a penchant for adventuring to the extremes of the Earth and holds several Guinness World Records, including one for the longest time spent traversing the deepest part of the ocean on a single dive and had previously flown to space on a mission by Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin rocket company,
Paul-Henri Nargeolet, a 77-year-old former commander of the French Navy, was a deep-sea search expert who completed at least 35 dives to the wreck of the Titanic and an authority on the famous shipwreck, Nargeolet was also the director of underwater research at RMS Titanic Inc., an American company which has exclusive rights to salvage artifacts from the famous wreck.
British-Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood, a 48-year-old Pakistani British businessman and philanthropist, 48, who was head of the Engro Corporation, one of the largest conglomerates in Pakistan, which operates in the food and agriculture, energy, and telecommunications sectors. He sat on the board of trustees of his family foundation, which focuses on education in the sciences and technology and was also UK-based board member of the Prince's Trust charity, a Charity founded by then Prince Charles and his son, Suleman Dawood, 19, a business student at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow who are members of one of Pakistan’s wealthiest families whose visit to Singapore exhibition on the Titanic had sparked the father and son’s keen interest in the famous shipwreck.
Titan Submersible requires support or mother ship to launch and recover them
A submersible is an underwater craft that is typically used for scientific analysis.
Unlike submarines that leave and return to port under their own power, submersibles require a ship to launch and recover them. OceanGate had hired Canadian research icebreaker Polar Prince as a support vessel for the expedition.
Additionally, unlike a submarine, a submersible has fewer power reserves and can’t stay underwater as long and in the case of Titan it has 4 days or 96 hours oxygen supply for its 5 passengers.
The OceanGate Expeditions trip began with a 400-nautical-mile journey from St. John’s, Newfoundland, to the Titanic wreck site.
Timeline of Titan descent for its dive and lost of communications with its mother ship
On Friday, June 16, 2023 the Polar Prince, a Canadian icebreaker ship, steamed out from St John’s on the eastern edge of Newfoundland, Canada, towing the experimental Titan submersible and carrying the five-man team headed to explore the iconic ocean liner’s watery gravesite. Three missions involving other teams had been scrapped due to bad weather in the previous four weeks, but the latest OceanGate Expeditions group was hopeful.
When the Polar Prince, the Titan’s mothership, left Newfoundland on 16 June, towing the ill-fated submersible, there were 41 people on board – 17 crew members and 24 others – including the five members of the voyage.
The Polar Prince dropped anchor roughly 900 miles east of Cape Cod the morning of June 18. (Fig 6)
At 7:30am EST, the crew was dropped into the ocean in their 22-foot long submersible vessel.
At 1200 GMT (8 a.m. ET) ( 1pm BST) - Titan submersible starts what should be a two-hour descent to the Titanic wreck, which lies at a depth of 12,500 feet (3,810 meters) in the North Atlantic (see Fig 8)
[Note EST stands for Eastern Standard Time whilst GMT is known is Greenwich Mean time. GMT is 4 hours ahead of EST]
The vessel was programmed to send out a 'ping' every 15 minutes to indicate its location. But communications between the submersible and the surface vessel are lost at 9:45am EST/2.45pm BST: one hour and 45 minutes after starting its descent, according to U.S. Coast Guard.
The Titan typically takes around two hours to reach the Titanic wreckage, located about 4,000m beneath the ocean.
According to the Coast Guard, the sub was meant to surface at 3pm EST (8 pm UK time). (When it failed to resurface, the crew raised the alarm with authorities at 5.40pm EST (10.40 pm BST or UK Time)
At 9.40pm GMT/5.40pm ET/10.40pm BST: US Coast Guard receives report about an overdue submersible from the research vessel Polar Prince about 900 nautical miles east of Cape Cod on the US coast.
[Note Eastern Standard Time (EST) is 5 hours behind British Summer Time (BST)] Source: MSN
After the Polar Prince requested Coast Guard assistance, the US Coast Guard in Boston assumed the responsibility of search-and-rescue mission coordinator and immediately launched search assets.
On Monday, 19 June 2023 morning, authorities revealed the Titan was missing and a large-scale search operation had been launched. (Fig 10)
The vessel was carrying enough oxygen for the crew for 96 hours — making the rescue mission a race against time to reach the vessel
The enduring allure of the sunken Titanic continues to captivate and fascinate
The allure of the Titanic, which sank more than a century ago on 15 April 1912 , four days into her maiden voyage from Southampton to New York, resulting in the loss of lives of more than 1500 out of the 2,240 passengers and crews on board, has and continues to mesmerise and fascinate many including researchers, explorers, filmmakers and successful high net-worth business mavericks and industry titans.
Recognizing this, OceanGate started to offer opportunities for small groups of explorers , researchers and high networth individuals charging a fare of $250,000 ((£195,000) per person to view and explore the Titanic shipwreck in its submissible Titan.
RMS Titanic built in Ireland, registered in Liverpool, England was owned by US tycoon
Although the Royal Mail Ship (RMS) Titanic was registered as a British ship, it was owned by the American tycoon, John Pierpont (J.P.) Morgan, whose company was the controlling trust and retained ownership of the White Star Line! He also owned US Steel, General Electric, as well as global financial services firm JP Morgan Chase & Co.
Read all parts: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8
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