8 ms·

Banging sounds heard during Titan search, according to internal government memo

63 points by _iven_ 3y ago

theossuary 3y ago
This makes me think of the search for the USS Thresher, a US Navy submarine. After the sub sank, the Seawolf was one of the Navy ships that went looking for it. Sonar operators on the Seawolf heard what they thought were manually operated SOS signals, banging of metal on metal, and eventually something resembling a voice. While these reports have started some conspiracy theories, the sonar readings from the initial sinking and wreckage indicates the Thresher imploded near instantly at depth, which would be unsurvivable for any amount of time. Honestly the chance of anyone being alive in the Titan is about as close to zero as you get; these rescuers want so badly to save them that they're hearing what they want to. I hope I'm wrong though. https://m.soundcloud.com/user-798629330/episode-261-the-uss-thresher https://m.soundcloud.com/user-798629330/episode-261-the-uss-... https://youtu.be/4dka29FSZac https://youtu.be/4dka29FSZac
- peterbecich 3y ago
  The last section of this article "Update, July 15" addresses those points about the Thresher tragedy: https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/41523/uss-threshers-crew-may-have-survived-many-hours-after-its-disappearance-according-to-new-docs https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/41523/uss-threshers-cr...
- stringfood 3y ago
  [dead]
AustinDev 3y ago
Wow, this is the worst possible situation, if true. They're likely to run out of breathable air long before they can be rescued. I'm hoping they make it out but, I personally would have opted for an implosion if I was in the same situation. The suffering they're enduring, if actually alive, is pretty rare. I can't imagine what is potentially going through their heads. If they are alive the 8 hour delay from Oceangate on reporting the incident to the USCG is likely going to result in massive liability, possibly criminal. Deep Sea rescues are extremely improbable and minutes matter let alone hours. I have a hard time believing that this report is accurate but, it's possible. My best friend works at the lab that tests and certifies deep sea vessels for the navy, manned and unmanned, and he's 99% sure they're already gone due to an implosion. He actually was involved in the testing of one of their prototypes so has a pretty intimate knowledge of their construction. Cyclical fatigue on the carbon fiber hull is the likely culprit if such was their fate.
- graypegg 3y ago
  Being in an enclosed space, knowing no one else can hear you, surrounded by people probably having a panic attack, at the bottom of the ocean in total darkness while you are slowly noticing the air getting harder and harder to breathe… yeah I would’ve taken the hull imploding over 80-something hours of that. One guy is down there with his 19yo son… empathy is a powerful thing, imagining that situation just makes my heart sink.
  - flangola7 3y ago
    It is also close to freezing temperatures
    - prox 3y ago
      And even if they were to surface, the bolts of the hatch can only be opened from the outside
  - lostlogin 3y ago
    > Being in an enclosed space, knowing no one else can hear you, surrounded by people probably having a panic attack, at the bottom of the ocean in total darkness while you are slowly noticing the air getting harder and harder to breathe… I had an old guy tell me about why he was claustrophobic once. Closed doors and the dark were a challenge. He got depth charged in a submarine during WWII. The lights got blown out, water was coming in etc. Everyone survived but it had a marked effect on him.
    - peteradio 3y ago
      That's an incredible story. Someone had to keep their wits about them to successfully resurface. I imagine there was a lot of experience and training that saved that crew.
- HWR_14 3y ago
  They have another ~30 hours of air. The biggest hope is that they are not terribly deep trapped near the surface and can be located in that time.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
rirze 3y ago
I have a dumb idea; how hard is it to add a location tracker to these kind of subs? Does the high pressure make this incredibly hard to add?
- bboygravity 3y ago
  How would you track your location underwater? What's your reference? They don't have any GPS signal down there...
  - XorNot 3y ago
    With sonar. The submarine doesn't have to locate itself, it just needs to be active pinging and it can be triangulated. Radio doesn't work underwater, but sound actually travels incredibly far (hence why military subs go all out with noise reductions). Edit: I mean the real question is why the hell does this thing not have some type of system like this already? You know the upfront expected dive time, so set a couple of noisemakers on the exterior hull to go off after you exceed it.
    - whythre 3y ago
      I am not a marine noise expert, but it’s my understanding that noise transmits horizontally underwater way better than vertically. Since this sub is going really deep, getting the pings to go ‘up’ to a meaningful degree is going to be difficult.
      - atoav 3y ago
        This is correct, the different temperatured layers of water typically develope quite well defined borders, these border regions act like any border between mediums with differing densities: they refract and reflect waves passing through them.
        XorNot 3y ago
        Right: but even in then, you'd still be able to drop a microphone down through the layers and rapidly survey the whole thing at once. Much easier if the target is making a racket.
prmoustache 3y ago
I am not even sure why we are looking for them, I don't think there is any way to setup rescue equipment that can go low enough to help them and drag that submersible out of the water before they would run out of oxygen.
- dan_mctree 3y ago
  Maybe they could attach a cable and drag it up to a ship? I'm sure there's ways to help these people with joined effort
  - prmoustache 3y ago
    And with which equipment would you do that? Are there even submersibles with adequate tooling available in a small enough radius? I've followed an OceanGate Titanic mission where a popular travel blogger was participating in and from what I understood there aren't many submersible vessels in the world able to go so low, let alone with functionnal tools. It is not like you can open the door to a diver for him to attach a cable, pressure is just too high.
    - v7n 3y ago
      This is barely on topic, but "there aren't many submersible vessels in the world able to go so low" caught my eye and I will use this opportunity to throw shade on the US DoD as partially responsible for the lack of such vehicles in current day. Yes, I'm pretty salty about this one. The small submersibles used for Titanic the movie for filming the wreckage were Mirs* and a marvel of engineering for their time. However "[t]he level of technology flowing into the Soviet Union raised concern in the US and Rauma-Repola [the Finnish manufacturer] was privately threatened with economic sanctions." * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mir_(submersible) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mir_(submersible)
- benjaminwai 3y ago
  The French research ship Atalante is almost there: "It carries the Victor 6000 autonomous robot, capable of descending to a depth of 6,000 metres, beyond the 3,800 metres of the wreck's position" https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/france-send-ship-titanic-sub-rescue-operation-ministry-2023-06-20/ https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/france-send-ship-titani... Last I checked on MarineTraffic Atalante was about 100NM away from site. Would it not help?
summarity 3y ago
More details about the sub's life support and surfacing systems from a CBS reporter who was on an expedition: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jyt7H2tF76w https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jyt7H2tF76w
mpreda 3y ago
I wonder why the submersible was not equipped with redundant "self surface" systems. I imagine the overall density of this submersible to be close to that of water. Such that dropping some amount of ballast (like the metallic rails underneath) may lighten it enough to self-surface. In addition, some emergency "baloons" may be fitted, inflatable in an emergency by CO2 capsules to resurface. And an emergency system to open the sub (e.g. by blowing up a hole somewhere convenient) could be added as well to allow exit once at surface.
- madaxe_again 3y ago
  It is. It has electromagnetic drop weights that are meant to detach on power failure. Thing is, when it’s out of the water and the power is off, there’s going to be a mechanism, bolts or dogs or zip ties or whatever, to keep them on - and someone has to remember to detach those as part of the launch.
  - numpad0 3y ago
    It'll be another appaling surprise if they didnt have a panel or box along a checklist, either inside the sub or next to a control panel to store and verify all those safety pins and locks.
    - madaxe_again 3y ago
      It wouldn’t be the first time they’ve had a mundane mistake that has potential severe ramifications - like fitting a thruster backwards. Doesn’t inspire confidence. I mean - I can think of so many examples in my life where I’ve seen some safety measure Macgyvered out of existence because it was inconvenient, and familiarity breeds complacency. I’m reminded of some really gnarly ski lift accidents where emergency brakes were disabled because they tripped inappropriately due to improper maintenance, and flights which have taken off with their pitot tubes still covered, and inertial measurement units fitted upside down in rockets, and on and on it goes.
      - madaxe_again 3y ago
totetsu 3y ago
What is it about this type of story that is so attention grabbing? Kids trapped in cave, Plane missing in jungle, etc etc. Is there a name for this? Pragmatically speaking, this is of little consequence to most people, there are greater human tragedies going on, there are more catastrophic engineering failures happening, more egregious negligence,.. something about the unknown element of it.
- silisili 3y ago
  In this case, it's because everyone on board was filthy rich. If it were me or you, we'd be sleeping with the fishes without mention.
  - 4gotunameagain 3y ago
    The parent comment already made the connection to the thai kids cave, whose story went around the world. So this part does not play a role about the sensationalism of the story. About the magnitude of the search and rescue effort.. It might do
    - silisili 3y ago
      well sure, that was kids. We only remember that kids were trapped, barely if at all the adults involved. If that cave was just full of random divers, we'd probably not heard of that one either.
      - evgen 3y ago
        And the Chilean miners trapped for a couple of months back in 2010? The fact that all I need to do to remind you of the event is mention 'Chilean miners' should be sufficient evidence to prove an exception to your proposed rule.
        silisili 3y ago
        I'll half concede, fair point. It was a lot of people (more than 30), and IMO wasn't covered as heavily as say, the Thai cave or this may be. There is definitely a disaster angle news latch onto, but it's pretty rare for a group of adults this small. There are small plane crashes with more fatalities multiple times a year... And it can't be the 'missing people' angle, there are like 400k kids every year reported missing with less than milk carton coverage...
nologic01 3y ago
If they are indeed banging they should use morse code to communicate something
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- hellweaver666 3y ago
  ...---... ?
- ak_111 3y ago
  Interesting idea, I actually can't think of anything they are able to communicate that would aid in their rescue. They could probably signal if they are close to the surface, they won't be able to provide much more information on their exact location I think.
  - ip26 3y ago
    Identifying themselves to disambiguate from other random noises?
    - ak_111 3y ago
      The banging noise is already treated as non-random but that doesn't make it easy to locate, and they are presumably unable to locate themselves so won't be able to transmit any location details even if you gave them a few words worth of bandwidth, the best they might convey is how deep they are currently are "We are only a few meters above the wreck". for example
tragomaskhalos 3y ago
While it's easy to be wise after the event, this thing does seem to be rather too Heath Robinson to be safe considering the extraordinarily challenging nature of the environment it operates in.
faefox 3y ago
If the banging hasn't been heard since could the sounds be related to the vessel imploding? Oxygen tanks or similar rupturing? You'd think if the passengers were still alive they'd continue to make noise at regular intervals or at least try to bang out an S-O-S in Morse code.
kherndon33 3y ago
Maybe they can use mores code?
kherndon33 3y ago
Mores code
gr8flyer1011 3y ago
I don't know how they could be retrieved successfully since the US Navy DSRV crush depth is only 5,000 feet; the only hope they have if they're still alive, is to get the propulsion back so they can maneuver to a more shallow depth. So sad.

63 points by _iven_ 3y ago

This makes me think of the search for the USS Thresher, a US Navy submarine. After the sub sank, the Seawolf was one of the Navy ships that went looking for it. Sonar operators on the Seawolf heard what they thought were manually operated SOS signals, banging of metal on metal, and eventually something resembling a voice. While these reports have started some conspiracy theories, the sonar readings from the initial sinking and wreckage indicates the Thresher imploded near instantly at depth, which would be unsurvivable for any amount of time. Honestly the chance of anyone being alive in the Titan is about as close to zero as you get; these rescuers want so badly to save them that they're hearing what they want to. I hope I'm wrong though. https://m.soundcloud.com/user-798629330/episode-261-the-uss-thresher https://m.soundcloud.com/user-798629330/episode-261-the-uss-... https://youtu.be/4dka29FSZac https://youtu.be/4dka29FSZac

peterbecich 3y ago
The last section of this article "Update, July 15" addresses those points about the Thresher tragedy: https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/41523/uss-threshers-crew-may-have-survived-many-hours-after-its-disappearance-according-to-new-docs https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/41523/uss-threshers-cr...
stringfood 3y ago
[dead]

AustinDev 3y ago

Wow, this is the worst possible situation, if true. They're likely to run out of breathable air long before they can be rescued. I'm hoping they make it out but, I personally would have opted for an implosion if I was in the same situation. The suffering they're enduring, if actually alive, is pretty rare. I can't imagine what is potentially going through their heads. If they are alive the 8 hour delay from Oceangate on reporting the incident to the USCG is likely going to result in massive liability, possibly criminal. Deep Sea rescues are extremely improbable and minutes matter let alone hours. I have a hard time believing that this report is accurate but, it's possible. My best friend works at the lab that tests and certifies deep sea vessels for the navy, manned and unmanned, and he's 99% sure they're already gone due to an implosion. He actually was involved in the testing of one of their prototypes so has a pretty intimate knowledge of their construction. Cyclical fatigue on the carbon fiber hull is the likely culprit if such was their fate.

graypegg 3y ago
Being in an enclosed space, knowing no one else can hear you, surrounded by people probably having a panic attack, at the bottom of the ocean in total darkness while you are slowly noticing the air getting harder and harder to breathe… yeah I would’ve taken the hull imploding over 80-something hours of that. One guy is down there with his 19yo son… empathy is a powerful thing, imagining that situation just makes my heart sink.
- flangola7 3y ago
  It is also close to freezing temperatures
  - prox 3y ago
    And even if they were to surface, the bolts of the hatch can only be opened from the outside
- lostlogin 3y ago
  > Being in an enclosed space, knowing no one else can hear you, surrounded by people probably having a panic attack, at the bottom of the ocean in total darkness while you are slowly noticing the air getting harder and harder to breathe… I had an old guy tell me about why he was claustrophobic once. Closed doors and the dark were a challenge. He got depth charged in a submarine during WWII. The lights got blown out, water was coming in etc. Everyone survived but it had a marked effect on him.
  - peteradio 3y ago
    That's an incredible story. Someone had to keep their wits about them to successfully resurface. I imagine there was a lot of experience and training that saved that crew.
HWR_14 3y ago
They have another ~30 hours of air. The biggest hope is that they are not terribly deep trapped near the surface and can be located in that time.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

rirze 3y ago

I have a dumb idea; how hard is it to add a location tracker to these kind of subs? Does the high pressure make this incredibly hard to add?

bboygravity 3y ago
How would you track your location underwater? What's your reference? They don't have any GPS signal down there...
- XorNot 3y ago
  With sonar. The submarine doesn't have to locate itself, it just needs to be active pinging and it can be triangulated. Radio doesn't work underwater, but sound actually travels incredibly far (hence why military subs go all out with noise reductions). Edit: I mean the real question is why the hell does this thing not have some type of system like this already? You know the upfront expected dive time, so set a couple of noisemakers on the exterior hull to go off after you exceed it.
  - whythre 3y ago
    I am not a marine noise expert, but it’s my understanding that noise transmits horizontally underwater way better than vertically. Since this sub is going really deep, getting the pings to go ‘up’ to a meaningful degree is going to be difficult.
    - atoav 3y ago
      This is correct, the different temperatured layers of water typically develope quite well defined borders, these border regions act like any border between mediums with differing densities: they refract and reflect waves passing through them.
      - XorNot 3y ago
        Right: but even in then, you'd still be able to drop a microphone down through the layers and rapidly survey the whole thing at once. Much easier if the target is making a racket.

prmoustache 3y ago

I am not even sure why we are looking for them, I don't think there is any way to setup rescue equipment that can go low enough to help them and drag that submersible out of the water before they would run out of oxygen.

dan_mctree 3y ago
Maybe they could attach a cable and drag it up to a ship? I'm sure there's ways to help these people with joined effort
- prmoustache 3y ago
  And with which equipment would you do that? Are there even submersibles with adequate tooling available in a small enough radius? I've followed an OceanGate Titanic mission where a popular travel blogger was participating in and from what I understood there aren't many submersible vessels in the world able to go so low, let alone with functionnal tools. It is not like you can open the door to a diver for him to attach a cable, pressure is just too high.
  - v7n 3y ago
    This is barely on topic, but "there aren't many submersible vessels in the world able to go so low" caught my eye and I will use this opportunity to throw shade on the US DoD as partially responsible for the lack of such vehicles in current day. Yes, I'm pretty salty about this one. The small submersibles used for Titanic the movie for filming the wreckage were Mirs* and a marvel of engineering for their time. However "[t]he level of technology flowing into the Soviet Union raised concern in the US and Rauma-Repola [the Finnish manufacturer] was privately threatened with economic sanctions." * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mir_(submersible) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mir_(submersible)
benjaminwai 3y ago
The French research ship Atalante is almost there: "It carries the Victor 6000 autonomous robot, capable of descending to a depth of 6,000 metres, beyond the 3,800 metres of the wreck's position" https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/france-send-ship-titanic-sub-rescue-operation-ministry-2023-06-20/ https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/france-send-ship-titani... Last I checked on MarineTraffic Atalante was about 100NM away from site. Would it not help?

summarity 3y ago

More details about the sub's life support and surfacing systems from a CBS reporter who was on an expedition: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jyt7H2tF76w https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jyt7H2tF76w

mpreda 3y ago

I wonder why the submersible was not equipped with redundant "self surface" systems. I imagine the overall density of this submersible to be close to that of water. Such that dropping some amount of ballast (like the metallic rails underneath) may lighten it enough to self-surface. In addition, some emergency "baloons" may be fitted, inflatable in an emergency by CO2 capsules to resurface. And an emergency system to open the sub (e.g. by blowing up a hole somewhere convenient) could be added as well to allow exit once at surface.

madaxe_again 3y ago
It is. It has electromagnetic drop weights that are meant to detach on power failure. Thing is, when it’s out of the water and the power is off, there’s going to be a mechanism, bolts or dogs or zip ties or whatever, to keep them on - and someone has to remember to detach those as part of the launch.
- numpad0 3y ago
  It'll be another appaling surprise if they didnt have a panel or box along a checklist, either inside the sub or next to a control panel to store and verify all those safety pins and locks.
  - madaxe_again 3y ago
    It wouldn’t be the first time they’ve had a mundane mistake that has potential severe ramifications - like fitting a thruster backwards. Doesn’t inspire confidence. I mean - I can think of so many examples in my life where I’ve seen some safety measure Macgyvered out of existence because it was inconvenient, and familiarity breeds complacency. I’m reminded of some really gnarly ski lift accidents where emergency brakes were disabled because they tripped inappropriately due to improper maintenance, and flights which have taken off with their pitot tubes still covered, and inertial measurement units fitted upside down in rockets, and on and on it goes.
    - madaxe_again 3y ago

totetsu 3y ago

What is it about this type of story that is so attention grabbing? Kids trapped in cave, Plane missing in jungle, etc etc. Is there a name for this? Pragmatically speaking, this is of little consequence to most people, there are greater human tragedies going on, there are more catastrophic engineering failures happening, more egregious negligence,.. something about the unknown element of it.

silisili 3y ago
In this case, it's because everyone on board was filthy rich. If it were me or you, we'd be sleeping with the fishes without mention.
- 4gotunameagain 3y ago
  The parent comment already made the connection to the thai kids cave, whose story went around the world. So this part does not play a role about the sensationalism of the story. About the magnitude of the search and rescue effort.. It might do
  - silisili 3y ago
    well sure, that was kids. We only remember that kids were trapped, barely if at all the adults involved. If that cave was just full of random divers, we'd probably not heard of that one either.
    - evgen 3y ago
      And the Chilean miners trapped for a couple of months back in 2010? The fact that all I need to do to remind you of the event is mention 'Chilean miners' should be sufficient evidence to prove an exception to your proposed rule.
      - silisili 3y ago
        I'll half concede, fair point. It was a lot of people (more than 30), and IMO wasn't covered as heavily as say, the Thai cave or this may be. There is definitely a disaster angle news latch onto, but it's pretty rare for a group of adults this small. There are small plane crashes with more fatalities multiple times a year... And it can't be the 'missing people' angle, there are like 400k kids every year reported missing with less than milk carton coverage...

nologic01 3y ago

If they are indeed banging they should use morse code to communicate something

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
hellweaver666 3y ago
...---... ?
ak_111 3y ago
Interesting idea, I actually can't think of anything they are able to communicate that would aid in their rescue. They could probably signal if they are close to the surface, they won't be able to provide much more information on their exact location I think.
- ip26 3y ago
  Identifying themselves to disambiguate from other random noises?
  - ak_111 3y ago
    The banging noise is already treated as non-random but that doesn't make it easy to locate, and they are presumably unable to locate themselves so won't be able to transmit any location details even if you gave them a few words worth of bandwidth, the best they might convey is how deep they are currently are "We are only a few meters above the wreck". for example

tragomaskhalos 3y ago

While it's easy to be wise after the event, this thing does seem to be rather too Heath Robinson to be safe considering the extraordinarily challenging nature of the environment it operates in.

faefox 3y ago

If the banging hasn't been heard since could the sounds be related to the vessel imploding? Oxygen tanks or similar rupturing? You'd think if the passengers were still alive they'd continue to make noise at regular intervals or at least try to bang out an S-O-S in Morse code.

kherndon33 3y ago

Maybe they can use mores code?

kherndon33 3y ago

Mores code

gr8flyer1011 3y ago

I don't know how they could be retrieved successfully since the US Navy DSRV crush depth is only 5,000 feet; the only hope they have if they're still alive, is to get the propulsion back so they can maneuver to a more shallow depth. So sad.