An expert who helped design the Deepsea Challenger submersible used by director James Cameron to view the Mariana Trench (the deepest in the world) said he believes the missing Titan sub has run out of power or is suffering from partial flooding in the pressure hull.
“To me, it sounds like the sub’s pressure hull is intact, but it’s demobilised from power,” deep-sea engineer Ron Allum told The Guardian.
“Sound travels particularly well underwater. A catastrophic implosion could be heard for thousands of miles and could be recorded,” he explained, suggesting a pressure hull implosion was unlikely.
However, he did explain that while the sub may have dropped weights to try to resurface, any flooding would keep it below the water.
“If the pressure hull is flooded, you’re now talking about the dry mass of a vessel. You could be lifting a very heavy weight,” Allum said.
“If it were intact, an ROV [remotely operated vehicle] could attach to it and it could at least bring it up to shallower water where they could get a stronger lift cable to it to lift it out of the water … that ascent may take an hour or two.
“The ROV may have to work around the wreckage … it may take a few hours to release the sub from the seafloor.”
Ocean Gate/Alamy
