Posted on 06/21/2023 8:43:31 AM PDT by Red Badger
As time runs out for the passengers on the Titan submersible that went looking deep into the sea for wreckage of the Titanic, a last-ditch effort involving heavy machinery and submarines arrived in Newfoundland on Tuesday night.
Three C-17 aircraft from the U.S. Air Force reportedly landed at a cargo terminal in St. John’s, Newfoundland, carrying unmanned vehicles capable of going 19,000 feet underwater as well as two heavy-duty Hyundai winches emblazoned “6000 kg line pull,” a huge roll of cable, and two large machines that said “high voltage” on their sides, The Daily Mail reported. A forklift truck loaded the equipment onto six flatbed trucks.
The equipment was taken to a port where a ship dubbed the Horizon Arctic was scheduled to leave at midnight, although the journey to the area where Titan is submerged would take 15 hours. The Titan may be as deep as 12,000 feet below the surface and weighs 10,432 kg, so both winches would be necessary to pull it out.
Late Tuesday night, “banging sounds” were reported coming in 30-minute intervals near where the Titan went missing with its passengers: billionaire Hamish Harding, French explorer Paul-Henri Nargeolet, OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush, and Shahzada Dawood, 48, and his son Sulaiman Dawood, 19.
“RCC Halifax launched a P8, Poseidon, which has underwater detection capabilities from the air,” the Department of Homeland Security said in an e-mail. “The P8 deployed sonobuoys, which reported a contact in a position close to the distress position. The P8 heard banging sounds in the area every 30 minutes. Four hours later additional sonar was deployed and banging was still heard.”
On Tuesday afternoon, Capt. Jamie Frederick with the Coast Guard’s 1st District estimated that the passengers aboard the Titan had limited oxygen left. “We know there’s about 40 hours of breathable air left based on that initial report,” he said.
Acknowledging that the search area was “larger than the state of Connecticut,” he added that his estimate of the remaining oxygen was based on OceanGate Expeditions saying that the Titan had a 96-hour life support system, meaning the oxygen would run out at roughly 5 a.m. ET on Thursday.
Another concern regarding the passengers comes from the fact that a 2022 report by CBS correspondent David Pogue said the Titan’s hatch is sealed by an external crew with 17 bolts, so they cannot open the hatch from the inside.
By FAR the best take on the fatal Titan sub fiasco.
[Yes, fatal.]
Skip the rest, this is the best, by an actual subject matter expert.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4dka29FSZac
a fools errand, they are dead
Yes, I viewed that video this morning. Very enlightening. I did not know this ‘company’ was a jury-rig operation...............................
Some rich guys took an ill advised risk.
Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
It is now just a ‘recovery’ operation.
I guessing that even if they find the sub, it will be too late.................
Hope the rescue crew is sufficiently diverse to get the job done.
< /SARC>
Another waste of taxpayers’ money.
It’s time to pray for everyone involved in this effort.
Hope for the sake of the CEO, none of them are 50 year-old white guys.
they are dead jim
The sub had a carbon-fiber hull. i.e. fancy fiberglass.
Carbon fiber bicycles develop stress fractures over time. The material fails catastrophically as stress fractures form. It happens suddenly, and without warning. That is why they have to X-ray aircraft wings that use the material. I cannot imagine the thought process, or lack there of, that went into design of a vehicle like this or, the amount of negligence in not doing X-ray inspections.
Just my thoughts
Early on I read this vessel had scuba gear stored under floor
wonder if that was figured into the amount of available air??
Yea learning the hatch is bolted from the outside would have convinced me not to spend $250 k
From Tech Crunch:
” In January 2020, Rush gave an interview to GeekWire in which he admitted that the Titan’s hull “showed signs of cyclic fatigue.” Because of this, the hull’s depth rating had been reduced to 3,000 meters. “Not enough to get to the Titanic,” Rush said.
During 2020 and 2021, the Titan’s hull was either repaired or rebuilt by two Washington state companies, Electroimpact and Janicki Industries, that largely work in aerospace. In late 2021, the Titan made its first trip down to the wreck of the Titanic.”
AND AS IF THAT WASN’T BAD ENOUGH:
“...the manufacturer of the Titan’s forward viewport would only certify it to a depth of 1,300 meters due to OceanGate’s experimental design. The filing states that OceanGate refused to pay for the manufacturer to build a viewport that would meet the Titan’s intended depth of 4,000 meters. The Titanic lies about 3,800 meters below the surface.”
Most likely.................
Bump for later
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.