00:00 A search and rescue mission is underway in the North Atlantic Ocean for a crew and group of tourists on board a submersible that set off to visit the wreckage of the Titanic.
00:09 The U.S. Coast Guard confirmed the search was underway, but other details such as how many people were on board remain unclear.
00:16 Now, the company that runs the tours is called Ocean Gate Expeditions, and according to the company's website, the submersible carries five people.
00:24 Guests pay up to $150,000 to travel to the wreckage of the famous shipwreck, more than three kilometers below the ocean's surface.
00:33 And for more on this, I'm joined by Christopher Perry, a former Royal Navy warfare officer and aviator.
00:39 Thanks so much for being with us here on France 24.
00:41 First of all, is this something that happens with some regularity, tourists paying tens of thousands of dollars to visit the wreckage of the Titanic?
00:49 I have to admit, I was a bit surprised when I heard about this earlier today.
00:54 Well, I'd say it's pretty routine, but not regular.
00:58 It's done probably once or twice a year.
01:00 And you're right, people pay a lot of money to do this.
01:03 What I'm concerned about is that the vehicle concerned has had a fairly checkered history in terms of its safety record and its ability to go down to the depths at which the Titanic lies today.
01:17 Well, tell us more about this.
01:19 Tell us more about this vessel.
01:20 It's quite small.
01:21 What's the difference between a submersible, you know, we keep using that word, submersible, not a submarine?
01:27 Yeah, I mean, a submarine is something that is fully equipped with integrated systems that allows it to dive and obviously come to the surface again pretty regularly.
01:38 The submersible, which I think a lot of people have seen video and pictures of, is about the size of a van.
01:44 And it's essentially a leisure craft, no more.
01:47 And it has appropriate safety features like increased air supplying and compressed air bottles.
01:53 It has the ability to get itself to the surface, but very little more.
01:57 There was a video on the company's website recently, which has been taken down now, which showed how quite a lot of the controls were operated through a laptop.
02:06 Now, to my mind, that's not a very robust way of controlling something which is going down to extreme depths in the ocean where human beings, I'm afraid, are in the same degree of danger as they are when they're in space.
02:19 So you can't afford to have any mistakes or marginal errors down at that depth.
02:26 So the vessel is supposed to ping a message every 15 minutes to signal to those ashore that it's safe.
02:31 But it's been many hours since a ping has been heard.
02:34 So what does that tell you?
02:37 Well, I mean, I understand that they last had contact yesterday on Sunday.
02:42 So it's a good 12 to 18 hours since they've had this ping.
02:47 It's very unusual. Even if something had happened to the craft, you'd expect the ping to continue and for people to be able to locate the vessel.
02:57 So I'm afraid to say that it looks very, very pessimistic at the moment.
03:01 How long could people on board a vessel like this survive?
03:04 I imagine there's a limit to how much oxygen is on board.
03:08 You're right. The key issue is whether the vessel's pressure hull has been penetrated.
03:14 That's the real critical thing here.
03:17 They've got about 96 hours air supply and obviously clothing and other issues.
03:23 But as I said, if the vessel has reached its crush depth and has been penetrated in any way, I'm afraid it's going to be very sad news for everybody.
03:32 And the wreckage is two miles or more, more than three kilometers below the surface of the ocean.
03:36 How difficult is that to carry out a rescue mission at that depth?
03:42 Well, if if it is a rescue mission, it's incredibly difficult.
03:46 First of all, you've got to try and locate this thing.
03:49 It's quite tiny, really, amid quite an extensive debris field.
03:53 The seabed itself, it has various canyons.
03:57 Titanic itself sits in a trench.
04:00 So trying to find this thing is going to be very difficult unless it's transmitting.
04:04 And even once you've found it, actually recovering the vehicle itself is going to be quite difficult unless you can attach a hook and a hoser to it and drag it to the surface.
04:14 And I noticed one of the Canadian vessels that is going out to help has that sort of crane.
04:19 Alternatively, you can send another submersible down and grab it, hug it if you like, and bring it to the surface, piggyback style.
04:27 But as the hours go by, the chance of being able to do that are diminishing.
04:31 You mentioned that this kind of submersible has a poor safety record.
04:35 Do you mean that particular submersible from that company or just in general, this kind of vessel?
04:42 When you go down to that sort of depth, the error margins are absolutely tiny.
04:47 You can't afford to have any technical failures whatsoever.
04:50 There has been some discussion over the last five years about the safety crush depth of this particular vessel.
04:58 And it was restricted the last time I saw it to 3,000 metres.
05:02 Now, Titanic's down at 4,200 metres.
05:05 So I don't know if it's been recertified, but certainly there's been some discussion about it.
05:10 A friend of mine wanted actually to go on this dive this year and made an inquiry about it and didn't receive a satisfactory answer.
05:19 Yeah, there's certainly a lot of danger involved and we're hoping for the best.
05:22 Christopher Perry, former Royal Navy warfare officer and aviator.
05:27 Thanks so much for joining us here on France 24.
