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The chances that the missing Titan
deep sea submersible will resurface successfully are probably only 30%. This
is partly based on educated guesswork concerning the tragic "lost with all hands" fates of missing, then found on the seafloor, submarines ARA San Juan in 2017and KRI
Nanggala in 2021.
The specs of the Titan are hereand updated details of its disappearance are here.
Reasons for Titan’s disappearance in
what should have been an 8 hour dive over the long sunken RMS Titanic might be:
- Titan snagging on part of Titanic if
it got too close to Titanic (hopefully that might be a temporary snag).
- Loss of neutral buoyancy causing a
downward collision with Titanic, or with the seafloor rupturing Titan's pressure
hull.
- Titan sinking way below its 4,000
meter operating depth causing its pressure hull to rupture.
- A sudden downward current of cold
water could make Titan sink too deeply.
- Rapid loss of oxygen for the crew causing asphyxiation or gradual loss of oxygen content causing crew to fall asleep.
Failure of the electrical system or
batteries (especially if they were Lithium-ion Batterie) causing fire or a release of poison gas asphyxiating crew.
Other systems going wrong.
Titan ideally should have:
- a working
audible “pinger” allowing passive sonars (on vessels (including the “Mother” surface
ship) on sonobuoys or on fixed undersea sensors) to hear Titan. Apparently Titan
failed to "ping" at the usual times, thereby raising the alarm that it was missing (see diagram above).
- two or
three redundant low frequency communications devices.
- an emergency
buoy released with a 5,000 meter long thin communications line to reach the surface and then release
distress radio GPS location signals and/or flares and/or permitting two way
communications.
Hopefully my 70% “lost with all hands” prediction is wrong and Titan’s 30% chance of successfully resurfacing in the next 40 hours (while air and power hold out) comes true.