A race against time is on to find the small submarine Titan, owned by the American company OceanGate founded in 2009, which specializes in underwater expeditions. Contact was lost on Sunday June 18, 1 hour 45 minutes after it was submerged from the icebreaker Polar Prince 600 km off the coast of Newfoundland in the North Atlantic.
On board are five people, the CEO of OceanGate Stockton Rush, the Frenchman Paul-Henri Nargeolet who was to be at the controls of the submersible. They are accompanied by three “tourists” who each paid around $250,000 for the eight-day trip. Expeditions depart from St. John’s, Newfoundland, Canada, and sail approximately 400 miles aboard the Polar Prince to the wreck site. He is wealthy British businessman, aviator and space tourist Hamish Harding, 58, CEO of Dubai-based private jet sales firm Action Aviation. Also present were British-Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman.
The former is Vice Chairman of Engro Corporation, one of Pakistan’s largest conglomerates, working in various sectors such as fertilizers, vehicle manufacturing, energy and digital technologies. The small submarine and its 5 occupants had to take two hours to reach the abyssal site at 3800 m depth where the Titanic rests, whose sinking in 1912 killed 1500 people.
Contacted by Le Figaro, OceanGate communicates very little and is content to explain “to focus entirely on the well-being of the crew, to take all possible measures to bring the five members back safe and sound. (…) and pray that the crew and passengers return safe and sound.” If they seem slim, the chances of finding survivors are, according to experts, very real. “Paul-Henri Nargeolet is undoubtedly the most experienced pilot in the world at these depths, and if anyone can get out of it, it’s him”, explains Michel L’Hour, friend of the diver and former director of the Department of Underwater and Underwater Archaeological Research in Marseille.
One of the first hypotheses to explain the loss of contact between the Polar Prince and the submersible is that of an electrical or electronic failure. This is the optimistic scenario here, because in this case, Titan would slowly rise to the surface and be visible from the sky, provided you know where to look. “It is a challenge to conduct research in this isolated region. For the moment, we are concentrating on locating the submarine. But at the same time, if we find this device in the water, we will have to carry out some sort of rescue, ”said Rear Admiral John Mauger of the United States Coast Guard on Monday evening. The energy and oxygen autonomy of Titan is 96 hours, which still leaves a few hours of hope, but the conditions on board are very difficult, in a completely closed cockpit impossible to open from the inside, without food, nor water beyond the sandwich and the bottle of water embarked for the eight hours of voyage initially envisaged…
Two US Coast Guard aircraft, Lockheed C-130 Hercules, were mobilized to find the submarine, and dropped underwater locator beacons. For their part, the Canadians also deployed two planes, a C-130 and a Boeing P-8 Poseidon. The latter is equipped with underwater detection capabilities. Inspections are carried out on the surface as well as underwater, using buoys equipped with sonars. The research area is located more than 1,450 kilometers off the coast of the state of Massachusetts. The U.S. Coast Guard is also in close contact with any commercial vessels sailing in the area that might spot the submarine first should it come to the surface by chance.
The other hypotheses are unfortunately much less optimistic. The Titan may have been trapped in the huge hulk of the Titanic. The metal of the wreck is slowly degraded by bacteria which can weaken it, with a risk of structural collapse. “If the risk does indeed exist, I would be very surprised, judge Michel L’Hour. Paul-Henri was surely at the helm, and he knows the Titanic very well, and I find it hard to believe that he could have found himself trapped. In addition, the communication system should have continued to function. But if the submarine were blocked, the chances of survival would be very limited… There are less than a dozen machines in the world capable of diving to a depth of 4000 meters. Ifremer announced on Tuesday that it was diverting its research vessel Atalante, which is carrying the Victor 6000 autonomous robot (capable of descending to a depth of 6000 m) “to assist the crew of the submarine in distress”. The French ocean-going ship could be at the accident area in 48 hours.
The last hypothesis is that of a structural problem. At 4000 m depth, a simple escape can have fatal consequences. A possibility that unfortunately cannot be ruled out. Titan is not on its first dive, its test descent was made in 2018, and since 2021, according to the Guardian, it has transported around 60 paying customers and 15 to 20 researchers to Titanic. Remember that this submarine has not been certified by an official authority, such as Lloyd’s Register, the American Bureau of Shipping, or Bureau Veritas. The operator justifies this absence by the fact that his submersible was so innovative, with a carbon fiber hull replacing steel to withstand the pressure of great depths, that it did not fit into the usual industry frameworks. naval. “Thanks to the innovative use of modern materials, Titan is lighter and more economical to mobilize than any other deep-diving submersible,” it says on the OceanGate website.
Despite the technical assurance affirmed by OceanGate, Paul-Henri Nargeolet confided to his relatives a certain apprehension before boarding this machine with a very original design, with a porthole much larger than what is usually done for a machine intended for very great depths.
