BENGALURU: There are still some possibilities to locate the Titan tourist submersible “if there’s no mechanical failure and it has not imploded”, said top ocean scientist Dr GA Ramdass, director, the National Institute of Ocean Technology (NIOT), Chennai. NIOT is an autonomous institute under the Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES).
Speaking exclusively to TNIE, Ramdass said the location of the sub is known from the point of its launch.
“Submarines travel at 3 knots (nautical miles) per hour. In the sea, radars don’t work. Multi-beam sonar fitted to ships, remotely operated underwater vehicles (RoVs) that can go up to 5,000 metres into the ocean can search for the sub after making an intelligent guess of the lost craft’s location,” he said.
He added that failure to locate the submarine could be because of loss of communication, which may be due to an accident or electrical or electronic failure.
“There is no electromagnetic wave communication in the ocean over long ranges. We use acoustic communication, which is not foolproof. It is slower in comparison to electromagnetic wave communication and has limited bandwidth. Sound can refract based on the density variation in the sea, and go away from the target. A Canadian aircraft on the rescue mission has heard some banging sounds from the vicinity of the Titan’s last known location, but is unable to track the source of sound, ” said the oceanographer. With a limited supply of oxygen, the Titan crew is racing against time.
“Besides limited oxygen supply, we do not know the efficiency of the CO2 (carbon dioxide) scrubbing system inside the submarine. Subs use canisters fitted with potassium or lithium hydroxide to remove CO2 from the atmosphere through devices called ‘scrubbers’. Excess of CO2 will suffocate the inmates,” he said. Ramdass explained that submarines take large amounts of water to go down into the ocean.
“To come up, they drop expendable weights made of lead, iron or fine granules of metal. The inability of the sub to come up may be either because it is either stuck in underwater debris, or an accident leading to mechanical, electrical and electronic failure," added Ramdass.
A massive search operation is underway to find the OceanGate Expeditions’ submersible with five people -- the CEO and founder of OceanGate Expeditions Stockton Rush, British billionaire and explorer Hamish Harding, renowned French diver Paul-Henri Nargeolet and UK-based Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood and his 19-year-old son Suleman -- on board. The Titan is equipped with four days of oxygen supply. Harding collaborated with India to bring eight wild cheetahs from Namibia in September 2022. He had flown on one of his aircraft from Namibia to Kuno National Park in Madhya Pradesh, where the cheetahs were relocated. An aviation expert, Harding had earlier spent some time in Bengaluru.