You’ve already been on board the “Titan” diving capsule: Two former Titanic tourists describe what it looks like on board. And assess the situation.
Munich – David Pogue and Mike Reiss know the missing submarine from the inside. The CBS journalist and the TV writer were already at the wreck of the Titanic with the diving capsule “Titan”. On Sunday (June 18), the mini-submarine was lost during another dive. Since then there has been no trace.
Passenger capsule sealed with bolts: Former Titanic tourist says ‘Titan’ crew locked up
“There is no backup, no escape pod,” says journalist Pogue BBC: “The rule is: come to the surface or die.” The passenger compartment is sealed with bolts, without outside help there is no way to escape. This means that even if the submarine is not on the seabed, the occupants have to hold out until they are found. There are currently five people on board.
The “Titan” has seven functions to resurface. The fact that none of them seem to have worked so far is what Pogue rates as “very worrying”. Should the submersible leak or become trapped under water, all emergency functions would be irrelevant.
“If it’s at the bottom, I don’t know how anyone is going to reach it, let alone bring it up,” TV writer Reiss said. He was “not optimistic” that the incident would have a happy ending. A submarine expert from University College in London takes a similar view.
Titanic submersible “looks improvised”: US author reports on Xbox controllers and old construction pipes
Pogue himself was in the “Titan” three times, and communication with the mother ship is said to have broken off on all three dives. The journalist was never missing that long, once it was three hours. He fears that the submersible could be far away from the entry point in the current case. He explains: “If the support ship is directly above the sub, they can send short text messages back and forth. Apparently they don’t get an answer anymore.”
Pogue says he didn’t really trust the diving capsule before he entered it for the first time. He describes the submarine as “sort of improvised”. “You steer the submarine with an Xbox controller, parts of the ballast are old construction pipes.” The inventor and OceansGate boss Stockton Rush assured him that the carbon fiber main capsule was designed in cooperation with NASA and the University of Washington was and was “rock solid”. (moe)
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