Before the disastrous implosion in the deep waters of the North Atlantic, OceanGate Expedition’s marine submersible, Titan, had been carrying aboard five individuals who were bound for the infamous 1912 shipwreck, Titanic.
The unfortunate incident happened on Sunday, June 18, 2023, although a larger part of its rather grim details unfolded several days later.
The group of explorers, which included OceanGate’s Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Stockton Rush, Pakistani-British businessman Shahzada Dawood and his 19-year-old son Suleman Dawood, British billionaire Hamish Harding, and French diver Paul-Henri Nargeolet, were aboard the Titan sub when it was discovered missing and lost communication with its mother ship, the Polar Prince.
The tourist explorers who had started from St. John, an area in Canada’s Newfoundland, were already an hour and 45 minutes into their sea-dive adventure and approximately 12,500 feet below the sea when they strayed away into the deep Atlantic.
Amid several reactions to this development, a Twitter user, YH (@Yemihazan), on June 22, 2023, raised a concern about what happens down in the deep of the sea and the fate of the explorers.
“The craziest part about the Titanic sub is, after it implodes, everyone inside will just vanish into thin air due to the immense water pressure; even their skeletons will dissolve immediately. There wouldn’t be a trace of them anywhere,” he wrote.
DUBAWA, therefore, decided to look into the circumstances bound to happen in the depths of the Atlantic, using the Titan sub as a case study.
The discovery of “noises” and initial anxiety of asphyxiation
While a host of sea searches were carried out by the United States Coast Guard and Navy and the Canadian Sea Guard and military, the sea search officials headed by the US Coast Guard, Rear Admiral John Mauge, heard “noises” perceived to be coming from the Titan.
The search team made out the discovery three days after the sub had gone missing, noting the sounds to be “short, sharp, relatively high-frequency noise” – what marine experts think could be from within the sub where a hard object was being used to hit the end of the deep-sea vessel.
However, while the discovery may have caused some glimmer of hope in the minds of those endeared to the situation, experts weren’t certain about the origin of the sounds.
Although there was a slim chance that the vessel’s occupants could still be alive, there came the troubling concern that the available oxygen in the sub might fizzle out with the consequence of the tourist explorers experiencing asphyxiation if they are not found quickly.
With three days gone without finding the Titan, rising levels of carbon dioxide (CO2) were certain, with a lean oxygen supply available in the 22ft deep-sea vessel. Already, vents (scrubbers) installed in the Titan to filter out toxic levels of CO2 had stopped working due to an electricity cut-out in the strayed vessel.
Scrubbers purposely fit into deep-water vessels to sap out high levels of toxic CO2 using soda lime. CO2, which is colourless and odourless, isn’t harmful to humans in an open environment such as on land. Still, it can unfold as a nightmare in enclosed places like the Titan sub.
High levels of CO2 in a vessel such as the Titan can cause headaches and drowsiness. When it lingers, hypercapnia (when CO2 builds in the bloodstream), with disorientation and seizures as immediate symptoms.
In a Daily Express US conversation with ex-Royal Naval Clearance Diver, Ray Sinclair, reflected on the grim reality of the situation. The Faulkland veteran opined that submarines such as the Titan have batteries which “have a finite life” and “CO2 scrubbers,” too.
He stated that if the batteries go out, the occupants onboard the sub will “suffocate” despite the amount of oxygen they possess because “the toxic gas fills their lungs”.
“If the CO2 scrubbers died, it would be a matter of hours before they did too. The gas build-up would make them very sleepy very quickly, and they would pass out from that.” Sinclair told Daily Express US.
The veteran believed the gory details he had described of the strayed Titan sub had already happened to the tourist explorers onboard it, even as the fruitless search for the vessel intensified.
Asphyxiation was the lesser issue compared to an inevitable horrid deep-sea implosion
Asphyxiation wasn’t the only foe of the moment, given the inevitable hostile pressure happening in the bowels of the Atlantic.
The earth’s atmosphere (air) has a degree of weight- which can be translated as a force- that pushes down on human beings even as they are at sea level. We’re surrounded by an atmosphere whose weight is equivalent to the amount of air in our lungs. It’s like a column that starts from the crown of your head to the edge of the earth’s atmosphere.
The amount of a single atmosphere is 1.033 kilograms on each square centimetre- or better still, one atmosphere. But this weight reduces the higher a person moves above the sea level. More or less, making shorter the air column between the person and the edge of the earth. That is why a person feels less weight when he is above sea level, perhaps climbing a mountain or skydiving.
The same formula is applicable when a person is under the water. Except that, this time, a person is under the weight of liquid, which is heavier than air. And when a person descends ten meters below sea level, it is equivalent to one atmosphere. Researchers say that at Juan de Fuca Ridge, one of the 120 sites where the ocean floor ecosystem has been studied in recent times and 300 kilometres off the coast of Washington state, 2,500 meters beneath the sea equals 250 pressure of atmospheres. That’s just about the weight of an elephant on your big toe.
The sea has been categorised into different level layers, and the degree of light penetration and water pressure solely determines the survival of certain living creatures and organisms underneath the sea. The epipelagic layer, for instance, which is the part of the sea that receives sunlight most, allows more aquatic animals and plants to subsist within its terrain than other parts of the sea. Sunlight only descends through the sea at a depth of 656 feet, where the water pressure is 21 atmospheres- the equivalent of two human beings balancing on a single square-inch spot.
The zone where the shipwrecked Titanic is in the bathypelagic layer- the level of the sea that is near midnight or darkest- where if any submarine vessel is to access the 1912 infamous voyage, has to go lower than it. The ship’s actual depth lies about 12,500 feet and approximately 375 atmospheres of water pressure. This means that every square inch surface is hit by a force equivalent to 5,500 pounds, which further relatively makes it superior to the pressure jaw bites of a crocodile (3,700 psi) and the great white shark (4000 psi).
Boyle’s law defines that the volume of gas is inversely proportional to the amount of pressure. The abundant supply of gas in a place or within a body means less presence of pressure. On the contrary, higher pressure ensures less gas supply because excess pressure has the potential to constrict air. That further means gas within an object or even a living thing (lungs) will be forcefully compressed under the crushing weight of excess pressure- a situation that is certain in deep-sea, miles away from the earth’s surface.
Because of the unfriendly conditions down there in the deep, sea divers and explorers transport themselves in underwater crafts whose structures are abundantly fortified with pressure-proof materials that can withstand the endless forces of the water. The sequel to that is the necessity to build the sea-craft in a structure that wouldn’t allow any of its parts to be crushed by the besieging water force- usually spheric.
Additionally, Henry’s law states that the higher the increase in pressure, the more fluid contains dissolved gas. It means that when pressure increases, available gas suddenly dissolves in the fluid. And on the contrary, when the pressure is less present within an object, gas escapes that environment. This occurs within an air-tight container, as available air turns into little water droplets.
Consequently, there is a strong likelihood that when the lost Titan witnessed a power cut and the scrubbers stopped working, the flow of deoxygenated blood in the bodies of all the occupants onboard only meant they were beginning to experience internal blood poisoning.
Normally, they could have received high oxygen concentrations through their alveoli, causing them to interact with deoxygenated blood. But with the scrubbers stopped working and high concentrations of dissolved CO2 (which exists more in the human body and far less in the atmosphere) in deoxygenated blood, the tourist explorers were only exhaling carbon dioxide and inhaling it back in. That was highly toxic to them.
Aside from the overwhelming depths of large terrain of water bodies, prevailing aquatic pressure as a result of the earth’s atmosphere is understated. The same research mentions how the Human Operated Vehicle (HOV) Alvin was taken on the voyage to Juan de Fuca Ridge, and barely 200 meters that it dipped into the waters, its pilot discovered a crack on the outer part of its porthole hull. The next decision? The team had to abort its mission as further descent would cause the sub to compress under the submerging weight of the water.
Sea underwater crafts like the Alvin only maintain a sea-level earth atmosphere- one atmosphere, and have their facilities fortified with thick walls and prevent occupants from crushing under the weight of several miles of deep-sea torrents. Titanium-doped steel builds subs to keep the pressurising torrents from breaking through and extinguishing those onboard.
The dismissal of safety warnings by OceanGate Expedition’s CEO
Rob McCallum told the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) how he had pestered Rush Stockton before the underwater voyage to stop using the Titan submersible until it had been tested and certified by an independent agency.
“I think you are potentially placing yourself and your clients in a dangerous dynamic,” Mr McCallum had written to the CEO. “In your race to Titanic, you are mirroring that famous catch cry: ‘She is unsinkable'”.
But according to McCallum, Mr Rush had remained unrightfully indignant, terming the former’s confrontation as an “insult.”
“We have heard the baseless cries of ‘you are going to kill someone’ way too often,” Mr Rush retorted. “I take this as a serious personal insult.”
Mr McCallum, who had continuously insisted that the sub be tested and certified, stated that not until a submersible has been “classed and tested” should not be used for any commercial sea dive expeditions.
But Mr Rush had remained stubborn and instead tried to defend his company’s qualifications, stating that OceanGate’s “engineering focused, innovative approach…flies in the face of submersible orthodoxy, but that is the nature of innovation.”
The CEO further tried to rein in criticisms surrounding his inclinations about his seacraft on political tendencies that he perceived to exist in the maritime industry. According to Mr Rush, “industry players” wanted to prevent “new entrants from entering their small existing market.”
In another matter, the BBC publication mentions how industry experts had raised eyebrows at the quality of the Titan sub, which was built using carbon fibre.
Mr McCallum, who owns an ocean expedition company, informed BBC that the industry had tried “for several years” to make OceansGate’s CEO “halt his programme for two reasons,”
“One is that carbon fibre is not acceptable,” he said. “The other is that this was the only submersible in the world doing unclassed commercial work. It was not certified by an independent agency.”
BBC reported that submersibles may be certified by maritime agencies such as the American Bureau of Shipping (ABS), Det Norske Veritas (DNV), a Norway-based global accreditation organisation, or Lloyd’s Registration.
According to Mr McCallum, OceanGate’s CEO, Mr Rush, liked to pride himself as a “maverick entrepreneur” who “liked to think outside the box, didn’t like to be penned by the rules.”
But Mr McCallum, who seemingly regarded conservatory principles as a thing that could not be bargained, emphasised that “there are sound engineering principles and the laws of physics.” According to the sea expert, “If you steer away from sound engineering principles, which are based on hard-won experience, there is a price to pay, and it’s a terrible price.”
