It’s looking grim for the five people aboard the OceanGate Titan submersible vehicle that went missing shortly after beginning its descent from the surface of the Atlantic Ocean to visit the wreckage of the famed Titanic.
The U.S. Coast Guard has scheduled a press conference for this afternoon and the BBC reports it may be to announce the remains of Titan have been found on the ocean floor.
“A debris field was discovered within the search area by an ROV near the Titanic,” the Coast Guard said in a tweet announcing the press conference. “Experts within the unified command are evaluating the information.”
Dive expert David Mearns, who is also a friend of passengers on Titan, told the BBC that the debris includes “a landing frame and a rear cover from the submersible.”
Titan lost contact with the surface less than two hours after beginning its journey on Sunday. It was thought to have about 96 hours worth of oxygen aboard.
OceanGate co-founder Guillermo Söhnlein, who left the company years ago, told the British broadcaster in response to the news of the discovered debris: “if there is a failure it would be an instantaneous implosion. If that’s what happened that’s what would have happened four days ago.”
If the hull of the Titan did fail, it may take a long time—if ever—to diagnose what exactly went wrong. But ultimately the cause is certainly the extraordinary forces exerted by the ocean at depth.
Dr. Nicolai Roterman, a deep-sea ecologist and lecturer in marine biology at the University of Portsmouth, explains that at a depth of over 2 miles the Titan was subjected to more than 5,500 pounds per square inch (PSI) of pressure.
If the sub failed, directly exposing passengers to those kinds of pressures, Roterman says that it would be over very quickly.
“If there was any kind of hull breach, the occupants would succumb to the ocean in a near instant.”
As fellow Forbes contributor Marshall Shepherd points out, the pressure we experience from the atmosphere at sea level is a mere 14.7 PSI, or less than three-tenths of a percent of the pressure found at the site of the Titanic shipwreck.
“I think it is important to remember that to us humans, the deep sea is a very inhospitable place,” adds Roterman. “Even the most reliable technology can fail, and therefore accidents will happen. With the growth in deep-sea tourism, we must expect more incidents like this.”
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