Search launched for missing Titanic tourist submersible
Fox News’ Alexis McAdams reports on operations to locate the missing submersible off the coast of Newfoundland.
A career scientist in the submersible vehicle industry fears the worst — a catastrophic implosion — regarding the fate of the OceanGate, he indicated in an interview on Monday evening.
The submersible with five people on board has been missing since Sunday while bringing tourists to explore the wreck of the Titanic.
"For there not to be any communications or any movement, indications are that something went critical," Steve Somlyody, a Florida-based senior research scientist who has 20 years of experience in submersible design and operation, told Fox News Digital.
MISSING OCEANGATE TITANIC TOURIST SUBMARINE SEARCH IS UNDERWAY
"The pressure down there at 4,000 meters is pretty high. About 5,800 PSI at Titanic depth. If they had any kind of leak, it would lead to an implosion and it would happen in an instant, very immediately. You wouldn’t even know it happened."
Somlyody has worked for Bluefin Robotics and now scientific research firm Battelle.
He said he was speaking for himself and not the organization.
ANKARA, TURKIYE - JUNE 19: An infographic titled "Titanic tourist submarine goes missing" created in Ankara, Turkiye, on June 19, 2023. Search and rescue operation underway by the U.S. Coast Guard in Boston after a tourist submarine bound for the Titanic's wreckage site went missing off the southeastern coast of Canada. (Yasin Demirci/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
The researcher helped build the unmanned underwater vehicle used in the search for Malaysia Airlines flight MH 370 that disappeared mysteriously over the Indian Ocean in 2014.
Rescue options are limited, he said.
"If they had any kind of leak, it would lead to an implosion and it would happen in an instant."
The HOV Alvin out of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts and the U.S. Navy's deep-submergence research vehicle (DSRV), based on the West Coast, are, he believes, the only vehicles in the United States capable of reaching Titanic depth.
TITANIC EXPERT ‘VERY HOPEFUL’ MISSING OCEANGATE TOURIST SUBMARINE WILL BE FOUND
Given the lack of time — just 72 hours of oxygen in the vehicle according to multiple reports — the Navy's DSRV, and possibly the HOV Alvin, would have to be flown close to the site, but also first readied for the mission, which could take untold hours, he said.
A U.S. Coast Guard vessel sits in port in Boston Harbor across from the U.S. Coast Guard Station Boston in Boston, Massachusetts, on June 19, 2023. A submersible vessel used to take tourists to see the wreckage of the Titanic in the North Atlantic has gone missing, triggering a search-and-rescue operation, the U.S. Coast Guard said on June 19, 2023. "Yes, we're searching for it," said an official from the U.S. Coast Guard Rescue Coordination Center in Boston. (Joseph Prezioso/AFP via Getty Images)
Vehicles such as the OceanGate would have multiple redundancies for both life support and for reaching the surface in an emergency.
SUBMARINE USED FOR TOURIST VISITS TO TITANIC WRECK GOES MISSING IN ATLANTIC
Among these redundancies would be several methods to lighten the vehicle and make it buoyant, said the submersibles expert.
"If they were to float up from that depth, it would take a significant amount of time, depending upon how much weight they were able to shed and how buoyant they become."
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Ten hours to rise to the surface would not be unreasonable.
BOSTON - JUNE 13: Stockton Rush, OceanGate's chief executive, spoke at a press conference next to the Cyclops 1, a five-person sub that was used by OceanGate to capture detailed sonar images of the Andrea Doria shipwreck. This summer marks the 60th anniversary of the Andrea Doria's sinking, and it was the first time in 20 years that a manned submersible explored the site. OceanGate for the first time ever captured high-definition video footage and 2-D and 3-D sonar images of the legendary Andrea Doria. (David L. Ryan/The Boston Globe via Getty Images)
But all these efforts would be detectable by a sonobuoy — the kind being used in the rescue effort to search for the OceanGate.
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"They should be able to detect them," said Somlyody.
"The lack of signs of communication is deeply worrisome."
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