Submersible Titanic Tourist craft goes missing

Wow! Never had the cojones to go past the 130 mark. I got my cert when I was 18 in Natick, Mass (had to wear a full 1/4" suit with hood as that was a 55 degree dive.)

Did my advanced while at UF (we did our cert at devils sinkhole; zero visibility had to take a line down to about 60-65' and use our second stages to raise a VW bug from the bottom after tying a tarp to it.). That one was high "pucker factor" to me since i couldn't see my hand in front of my face.

Give me 85' off the big island in Hawaii with miles of visibility any day!

 

100%, back in the day we dove 130 routinely, that was before NiTrox. On occasion we would hit 160 on doubles. Always used the Navy tables and did good deco stops.
Lots of good spear fishing down there.

 

That’s always dicey coming off the bottom from 100ft on “one breath”. …

 

That's another thing I have yet to try myself is Nitrox. I understand the theory of course, but just don't dive often enough anymore to have tried it yet. My wife and I were going to do the Vandenburg wreck before she tore her shoulder last year. As I understand it that one requires Nitrox for sufficient bottom time since the main deck sits around 100-110'.

 

FWIW

 

Top to bottom visibility kept the anxiousness level down and we had extra assembled SCUBA rigs hanging off the dive platform in case someone needed to go immediately back down and make a couple of decompression stops. Since the air in your lungs is constantly expanding the whole way up (Boyle's Law), you don't really feel starved for air....you're exhaling the entire way. I had been on over 1500 dives by that point and used to swim competitively, so I was always very comfortable in the water. Worst case scenario, my BCD probably had 2 or 3 breaths of air in it. It doesn't take long to surface from that depth, just don't out kick your bubbles.

The scariest part was going down the wall to 200'. A few more feet and you risked passing out. If that happens, you were going down to 1500 as no one was likely to be able to catch you in time, but you'd be dead well before you hit the bottom. We would literally keep one hand on our BCD inflater button with the other hand holding the depth gauge right in front of our masks. Display read 200, button mashed. Even though most of us dove with computers, we had back-up gauges and still kept track of things.

BTW, I'm not recommending doing this stuff to ANYONE. We had no one below divemaster certification with us and were all extremely experienced and very well trained. If something screwed up, it was the individual's fault. I would never even discuss doing this stuff with a class of students, much less suggest they try any of it. We were being pretty reckless and stupid.

 

Apprently there's a billionaire and his son on the sub. About to find out what money can buy

 

That aged well.

 

The people on board:

Along with (Stockton) Rush (the submersible company's CEO), those missing include a British billionaire and explorer, Hamish Harding, a Pakistani businessman, Shahzada Dawood, his son Suleman and a 77-year-old French explorer, Paul-Henri Nargeolet. Authorities from the United States and Canada are continuing to conduct a rescue operation, and France has pledged to send a deep-sea robot to help with the effort.

Inside the missing Titanic submersible, as rescuers continue search for 5-member crew

This situation brings to mind the movie Marooned. Tough decisions.

 

Assuming that they are alive and trapped, this to me would be the worst way to go... Imagine being trapped with 4 other people in the size of a bathroom (speaking of... does the sub have a bathroom?), for 2 days as of now, with no communication with the outside world. Also, knowing that you only have two days left. I imagine they're going though pure hell if that's the case... I'm surprised this story isn't bigger.

 

If they're never found, I hope that communication was lost because the submersible came apart and they met a quick end. Otherwise their end is unimaginable.

 

I think you mean to say they are about to (or already did) find out what money can't buy.

 

How often did one of you end up having to go for a tube ride?

 

Never on one of my trips. Stung by a ray and bit by a moray eel were the worst things that ever happened to me. The moray was way worse. They clamp on and don't release so you shred your finger when you're pulling it out of their mouth. To make it more disconcerting, you can't see red below 35 feet, so I was profusely bleeding green blood.

The greater risk with an out of air ascent is an embolism by surfacing too rapidly.

 

There is really no chance to save these folks. If the engine is shot they don’t have anything to bring them up, and presumably no power to depressurize or slow their assent on the way back even if they could.
If they had a sudden leak they are done long ago.
If they just lost comms they could have surfaced but the USCG has searched 7600 sq miles and no sign.
If they lost control they still should have been able to release ballast to get back up.

the only possible scenario where they could be saved is if they are caught in something, and an ROV could free them by cutting a line. But really it seems 99 percent they are gone.

 

Yes, it has a bathroom. If I was the father, I'd ask the other passengers to kill me so my son would have a better chance of living until help arrived, assuming the craft was still intact. The French explorer is 77.

 

For what’s it worth, I think you are probably right. The last shred of hope, though, is that the Navy does have some capabilities that are not widely known and could result in a successful rescue if, and only if, the submarine is still intact down there.

 

Back when I was young and very fit we could get about 30min at 100ft on air with 80’s. That was shooting a lot of fish so just cruising would be much more.
My friends that started using nitrox said they just plain felt better after diving on it.