The operation to find the Titan submersible is like “trying to find a needle in a haystack”, said one expert, after it went missing off the coast of southeastern Canada.
While there remains a slim chance that the missing Titan submersible could be still found with all on board safe, experts were pessimistic about its fate as of Wednesday (Jun 21).
The vessel went missing off the coast of southeastern Canada on Sunday while taking tourists to explore the wreckage of the Titanic. Rescue efforts are underway for the pilot and four passengers on board.
The incident is expected to have implications on engineering and legal standards in the commercial deep sea exploration industry, which is relatively new and unregulated, according to experts.
Associate Professor Eric Fusil from the University of Adelaide told CNA’s Asia First on Wednesday that the entire operation is like “trying to find a needle in a haystack”.
“It's a very wide area. It's pitch black. It's very deep. You do not have any direct ways of communicating with the Titan or finding her. You don't have any GPS (or) any radar (as) nothing with electromagnetic waves works underwater,” he explained.
“You only rely on acoustic sensors. And in terms of being able to see something, you need some spotlights, and you can only see something like maybe within 10m or 20m at best.”
On the chances of survival for those on board, Assc Prof Fusil said: “Unfortunately, maybe due to my background, I'm quite pessimistic."
Secretary of the Submarine Institute of Australia Frank Owen said there are various challenges in locating the missing submersible, including finding it and communicating with it to understand the situation.
“It's very, very difficult for them to do this when they haven't heard from them now for some 20 hours. So time is of the essence and time is starting to run out,” Mr Owen told CNA’s Asia Now on Tuesday.
The incident was recorded about an hour and 45 minutes into the Titan’s two-hour descent.
Mr Owen said that inclement weather may also be posing an obstacle to the ongoing efforts.
“They'd said they'd found a weather window that allowed them to launch. That suggests to me … that it's perhaps a little rough on the surface,” he noted.
“And if the Titan, the submersible, has managed to surface by either dumping its clump weights or using its own power to get to the surface, perhaps it is so rough on the surface that it's not able to be detected by the searching forces.”
Meanwhile, the submersible is likely to struggle to continue operating, said Mr Owen.
“I think the temperature on board will get very cold. The water temperature is about 3 degrees (Celsius) at that depth, and keeping everybody warm uses some of the energy in the submersible’s batteries. While it will keep some in reserve for its emergency systems, it also needs that power for communications, for lighting, for heating, as well as propulsion,” he said.
There are reports that the vessel may be stuck within the wreckage of the Titanic itself, which “means that even if they do release their emergency weights, they still can't get clear”, said Mr Owen.
He cited the example of a Russian Priz AS-28 submarine that had to be rescued from deep in the Pacific Ocean in 2005, after it was entangled in undersea cables.
“They called on the US and the UK to assist them, and the UK was able to send a remotely operated vehicle down to where the submarine was and cut it clear,” said Mr Owen, adding that bringing the necessary resources to the site will take more time.
Professor Stefan Williams from the Australian Centre for Field Robotics at the University of Sydney told CNA’s Asia Tonight on Tuesday that the search efforts would involve a combination of machinery and methods.
“They would have coast guard vessels, for example, who have come to the site to use acoustic systems to try and listen for any beacons. They will have aircraft surveying to see if they can find the submersible if it has come up to the surface,” he said.
“And then they may be starting to deploy remotely operated vehicles, which will be able to descend down to the wreck site to help assist with the search.”
He also noted the depth involved, with the Titanic sitting about 3.8km under the surface. The submersible was likely somewhere near the seafloor at the point it went missing, said Prof Williams.
“Acoustic communications are challenging at that kind of range and optical light just will not penetrate in those sorts of depths. So being able to see where the vessel might be is a real challenge.”
Prof Williams said the best-case scenario is that the vessel lost communications, but otherwise remains intact and is potentially coming to the surface.
“There'll be safety devices on board to either drop weight or inflate a bag to increase the buoyancy to bring the vessel back up to the surface. If that's the case, then it'll be a matter of trying to find it using either aerial surveillance or ships on the surface,” he said.
Another possibility is that there had been a failure of some of the systems onboard, sending the craft descending to the sea floor.
In that case, rescuers would be relying on acoustic beacons and other devices that are independent of the submersible's main power, to try and locate it and hopefully recover it, said Prof Williams.
However, he said he is “a little bit pessimistic”, given the amount of time that has elapsed since authorities last heard from it.
“I think there's a chance that there has potentially been a catastrophic failure of the pressure vessel, which is where the life support systems and where people would have been housed. The submersible would have been subject to over 350 times atmospheric pressure,” said Prof Williams.
“There's a huge amount of pressure pushing down on these pressure vessels once they're in the deep sea, and if there's been some sort of fault, then it is possible that the vessel would've been essentially destroyed and that would've had serious consequences for people on board.”
Noting the “significant risks” involved in exploring such extreme environments, experts said the incident would likely lead to tighter regulation of the sector.
“This deep-sea tourism industry is relatively unregulated. It's a relatively young industry. It's something that's just coming onto the scene,” said Prof Williams, adding that it has only gained pace commercially over the last few years.
“I suspect the outcome of what happens over the next couple of days will really dictate the conversation we have going forward about how we manage these sorts of operations, and the possibility of using this as a tourism venture and bringing people into these extreme environments.”
It is also a very niche sector, something which would have legal implications, especially with insurers, said Assoc Prof Fusil.
While there are classification societies that provide classification rules for these vessels, there are not many that can go far deep, especially with passengers on board, he noted.
Assoc Prof Fusil expects regulations to be tightened going forward.
“It's fair to expect that there will be a hardening of the rules from both an engineering perspective, and also a legal perspective to authorise passengers to dive in those submersibles,” he said.
“Insurers would be very reluctant to insure anyone going on those trips because we realise it's even riskier to go down deep to the ocean bottom compared to going up in space.”