Didn’t know you can do this, but a Canadian group is — or was— offering tours of the Titanic wreckage via a 5 person submarine. Apparently, the submarine has been missing since Sunday, with 5 people onboard. They say the crew/passengers can survive for up to 96 hours. Coast guard is trying to help. Hopefully it has a beacon. A search and rescue operation is underway for a submersible touring the wreckage of the Titanic | CNN
An instant death wouldn’t be bad, you would never know. But if you waited the four days and went out slowly that would be beyond awful.
Even in your best-case scenario, I don’t think there would be anything instant about the death. I think the submarine would just flood very fast, but the drowning would be just as slow. Then again who knows how fast the pressure might kill you at that depth. The worse option, of course, is slowly suffocating as the CO2 levels grow toxic, but at least as long as that is happening you have hope of rescue. Once the flooding starts, nothing can save you.
I have to wonder if the Coast Guard has any way of recovering it even if they could locate it by a beacon or something.
If it’s far enough down the depressurization would kill you almost instantly. At least that’s what I remember for a doc I saw years ago.
I don't think we've quite mastered the deep sea submersible technology as of now. It's still way too dangerous.
In short, no they don’t. Submarine rescue, for what it’s worth, is a Navy capability. Maybe as more commercial submarine vessels proliferate the USCG will need such a capability, but for now if it’s not on the surface I don’t think they can find it.
Summary of what I have dug up so far: The communication that was broken here is important to ensure the surface docking vessel is in place when it surfaces. It also guides the submersible to meet it. The sub loses contact for short intervals when it explores into the wreckage. It has lost contact before for a full 2-3 hours but that time it was piloted out manually. It lost contact 90 minutes in, which is "fast" for having reached the wreck. (It usually takes 2 hours but can reach in 90 minutes if it descends full throttle) There are no NOAA vessels in range bearing "Alvin" like craft that can dive to the wreckage and assist if it is tangled in the wreck itself. (at least not before Thursday when the oxygen runs out) All recovery and detection efforts will be conducted closer to the surface.
Scuba is perfectly safe as long as you upkeep your equipment, follow the safety procedures and dive with a buddy. I've done 130ft myself and it's truly another world down there. That's a "measly" 5 Atm of pressure and anyone who's ever done it will tell you it starts getting more difficult to breathe in. 12k in a submersible is a way different experience (and probably one I wouldn't be willing to try). The pressures at that depth are incredible and it wouldn't take much for something to go horribly wrong. Figure that's around 3700m meaning approximately 370 atm of pressure which is approximately 6000 psi exerted on the bell.
A “Winner” and “Fist Bump Thanks” in the same day. Good thing it was not this weekend… NASA alert! 110-foot asteroid 2023 LV moving at a blazing pace towards Earth today
Had to look up what an Alvin is. I figured the only slim chance they'd have if they were still alive and the craft lost propulsion would be something like an underwater robot that could attach a cable ... like a one in a million chance that they get a robot there, find it, attach to it, and lift it ...
I'm a PADI Assistant Instructor. Back when I taught (just as a hobby,) once or twice a year we'd charter a liveaboard and go over to the Bahamas for a few days just to get away from the students. We would clear customs at West End, there used to be a sprawling resort there, the Jack Tar Harrison Village, with a marina where we could shower and hit their bar. Our favorite dive site was Mount Olympus. The reef was 95 feet deep with a wall that dropped off to 1500 feet. We would pop down the wall to 200 feet, basically just to say we did it as you have next to no bottom time at that depth. That is as deep as I would go on straight compressed air..it becomes toxic at 216 feet. Ran out of air more than once on that reef at 95' chasing grouper, very thankful for Boyle's Law. More than once we encountered a 10-12' hammerhead shark that lived there. You would see him starting to come out of the depth and he just kept getting bigger and bigger. We would flatten down on the reef and just watch him make a circle over us before he went back to where he came from. He was never aggressive, but looking up at him it seemed like he was the size of a school bus....majestic and thoroughly intimidating animal. Those were GREAT days. I would do the submersible in a heartbeat if I had the chance...and the money.
