Geoff: Good evening and welcome
to the newshour.
The U.S. Coast guard confirmed
this afternoon that the missing
submerisble in the "North
atlantic ocean" was destroyed in
a, quote, "Catastrophic
implosion."
Its debris was found on the
ocean floor, and all five people
aboard were killed.
William brangham begins our
coverage.
>> This morning, an rov or
remote-operated vehicle from the
vessel horizon arctic discovered
the tail cone of the titan
submersible, approximately 1600
feet from the bow of the titanic
on the seafloor.
William: It was the news no one
wanted to hear.
The missing submersible, which
disappeared on Sunday on a
descent down to visit the
wreckage of the titanic, had
been completely destroyed.
U.S. Coast guard rear admiral
John Mauger.
>> The rov subsequently found
additional debris.
In consultation with experts
from within the unified command,
the debris is consistent with a
catastrophic loss of the
pressure chamber.
William: The U.S. Coast guard
and the company that ran the
trip, "Oceangate expeditions,"
expressed their condolences to
the families of the five
passengers who perished.
They are hamish Harding,
shahzada Dawood and his son,
suleman Dawood, paul-henri
nargolet, and oceangate CEO, and
captain of the vessel, Stockton
rush.
In a statement, oceangate
thanked the vast, international
search operation that mobilized
over the last few days, saying,
"The entire oceangate family is
deeply grateful for the
countless men and women from
multiple organizations who
worked so very hard on this
mission."
Coast guard officials said that
the nature of the implosion, and
the depth at which the wreckage
sits, could make any salvage
operation and recovery of the
deceased very difficult.
>> This is a incredibly
unforgiving environment down
there, on the sea floor, and the
debris is consistent with a
catastrophic implosion of the
vessel.
William: As those recovery
operations continue, and the
families grieve their losses,
there are sure to be further
questions about oceangate, its
safety record, and the overall
adventure tourism industry.
In fact, as this saga unfolded
over the last few days, past
criticisms of "Oceangate" had
re-emerged.
Will Kohnen is chairman of the
marine technology society's
"Manned underwater vehicles
committee."
Back in 2018, he addressed a
critical open letter to the
now-deceased "Oceangate" CEO
, Stockton rush.
In an interview before today's
discovery, he argued that the
titan was not certified to
travel down to those depths.
>> There are only 10 vehicles in
the whole world that can go 4000
meters or deeper and all of them
are certified, except the titan.
William: Coast guard officials
couldn't say exactly when the
titan imploded, but said the
banging noises heard earlier in
the week were seemingly
unrelated to this disaster.
The titan's remains now lie in
pieces on the ocean floor, less
than 2000 feet from historic
wreckage its passengers wanted
to see.
For the pbs newshour, im wb
-- I am William brangham.
Geoff: Some further perspective
on this accident now, and what
it could mean going forward.
We're joined again by Jules
Jaffe, an oceanographer with the
Scripps institute of
oceanography at the university
of California, San Diego.
Thank you for being with us.
When the coast guard says that
the submersibles debris is
consistent with the catastrophic
loss of the pressure chamber,
what does that mean?
What, based on your vast
experience, likely happened?
Jules: As we know, the vehicle
lost contact about one and three
quarters hour after it left the
surface and it was about 2.5
hours to the bottom so my
conjecture is actually that it
was not quite at the bottom but
was probably around 800 or 900
-- 8000 or 9000 feet deep.
From what we understand, the
pressure at that depth is around
4000 pounds per square inch so
think about a square inch.
Think about 4000 pounds.
When you think about the
pressure, it's actually coming
from all directions so the best
analogy I could think about was
imagine you have an egg in your
hand and you simply crush it.
I think honestly, that is what
happened to the vehicle.
Geoff: What happens next?
Will there be a recovery effort
or does the ocean depths make
that impossible?
Jules: We do have these
underwater robots that have arms
on them and I think we could
probably pick the debris up and
load it into a large basket.
These underwater robots are
pretty versatile.
I'm hoping that we can do that
and learn really exactly what
the failure was so a future
version could ameliorate that
problem and make tourist
exploration of the deep ocean
more accessible and less
dangerous.
Geoff: As we just heard, there
were questions about safety
issues having to do with
oceangate, about the quality of
engineering, the level of
testing that went into the
development.
How does all of that strike you
in light of today's news?
Jules: My dad used to say,
hindsight is 2020.
It strikes me sadly that perhaps
the company was not up to speed
and understanding -- remember,
we already made two trips.
They were making about one trip
a year as far as I could tell
from reading the news.
So they did one in 2021.
They did one in 2022.
Here we are on the third trip.
What happens to anything that is
under stress, a mechanical
component, is it fatigues.
Think about the tremendous
pressure and then it relaxes and
tremendous pressure and it
relaxes.
The other part of the equation I
really worried about and maybe
it is validated was, you know,
when we take planes, we are
convinced of their safety, but
we don't always understand that
the aerospace industry has
strict standards for doing what
is a nondestructive test and
evaluation and these ultrasonic
probes to examine the integrity
of the metal components.
If you have ever seen a plane,
the wings are flexing and those
guys are world experts on
ensuring our safety.
It is pretty clear, sadly, that
the people in this company were
not up to speed on testing this
vehicle and ensuring its safety
for such a tragic occurrence
that has happened probably four
days ago when they lost contact
with the surface.
Geoff: Is adventure tourism
going to change because of this?
Should it change because of
this?
Jules: There is another company
that makes underwater vehicles
that have gone into the marianas
trench which is 35,000 feet and
this 1 -- I would not call it a
shallow application -- but it is
12,000 feet.
I think adventure tourism is
going to be here to stay.
I am a supporter of innovation
in underwater vehicle
development.
Clearly, we need to be a little
bit more vigilant, ensuring the
safety and understanding the
forces that are on vehicles.
This design was very new.
Carbon fiber design with
titanium, and I think we need to
worry about more about the
stresses and fatigue that
happens when we make repeated
excursions into the deep ocean.
Geoff: Thank you so much for
your time and insights.
Jules: My pleasure.