Foreign countries|A lost submarine
Those to be rescued remained silent and motionless to conserve oxygen at a depth of 480 meters. The ordeal dragged on when several lifeboats broke down.
Titanic about two and a half days had passed since the disappearance of the Titan miniature submarine in the Atlantic between Tuesday and Wednesday night. If the crew is OK, they are believed to have enough oxygen until about noon on Thursday.
This summer marks the 50th anniversary of what is known to be the deepest successful rescue of all time. In August 1973, the British Roger Mallinson and Roger Chapman was retrieved after three days from the Pisces III miniature submarine from the bottom of the Atlantic from a depth of about 480 meters.
The US public service radio company recalled the incident on Tuesday NPR. The historic rescue has been repeated in the past by, for example, the British broadcasting company BBC.
“You just have to trust that [alus] is a good deed”, Mallinson comments on the point of view of the rescued for NBC News.
Mallinson was 35 years old at the time of the ordeal 50 years ago, the now deceased Chapman was 28 years old. They were working on a Canadian miniature submarine on behalf of the postal service.
They had been on a routine mission to lay an intercontinental telecommunication cable on the seabed and were preparing to be towed back to the mother ship when the engine room hatch of the miniature submarine accidentally opened. Water did not get into the cabin, but the ship instantly became too heavy and sank quickly.
The ship reached the seabed in about half a minute and at a speed of 65 kilometers per hour, although the two managed to remove the 181 kilogram lead weight from the ship. The men prepared for the collision by wrapping themselves in the safest possible positions and stuffing their mouths with cloth so they wouldn’t bite their tongues because of the impact. They were not injured.
The two made contact on the surface. The crew of the Titan, which went missing last Sunday, has not been found, suggesting that “something very serious has already happened,” Mallinson told NBC News.
After verifying, that their Pisces III ship was intact after the collision, Mallinson and Chapman just started waiting for rescue in the cramped cabin. They remained almost silent and motionless to conserve oxygen.
“It was very cold – we were soaking wet,” Mallinson recalled to the BBC.
“I wasn’t in the best of shape anyway, because I had just suffered three or four days of food poisoning from a horrible meat and potato pie.”
Rescue teams arrived from Britain, Canada and the United States. They managed to locate the sunken ship using echo sounding. The purpose was to attach a rope to it with another submarine and pull it to the surface. However, the job dragged on in a distressing way when two lifeboats broke down and others also suffered from defects.
Finally, they were brought to the surface when there was only 12 minutes of oxygen left.
Chapman and Mallinson had only one cheese sandwich and a bottle of lemonade for sustenance, but they did not break into them until the hoist rope was attached.
“It tasted like champagne,” Mallinson said, according to the BBC.
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