Right now, five people are possibly trapped in a private submersible somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean.
They have less than 20 hours of air left as of this writingassuming theyre still alive.
About an hour and 45 minutes into the dive, communication between the submersible and its mothershipPolar Princeceased.
Who is onboard the missing submersible?
Shahzada Dawood,a Pakistani businessman.
Suleman Dawood, Shahzada Dawoods son.
Stockton Rush, OceanGate, Inc.s CEO and founder.
The difference between a submersible and a submarine
TheTitanis a submersible.
Unlike a submarine, a submersible is launched from a larger ship and later hauled back in.
Navigating the Titan relies on a text-messaging system wherein the mothership basically tells theTitans pilot how to steer.
There is no GPS or other location system onboard.
What went wrong?
But there are three plausible scenarios:
The submarine is currently floating on top of the ocean.
TheTitanis equipped with ballast mechanisms that allow it to rise to the surface even if it loses power.
TheTitanis intact, but unable to return to the surface.
In this case, even if it is located, rescuing the crew would present an unprecedented challenge.
There was a hull breach or other catastrophic structural failure.
If this happened,the submersible wouldve been immediately crushed, leaving no survivors.
B, you have to get to it.
Do they really pilot the submersible with a video game controller?
Despite the quarter-million-dollar price of an eight-day expedition with Oceangate, theTitanis far from a luxury vessel.
The lights are from a camping store.
The toilet is a plastic bottle.
The craft is controlled by a modified $30 Logitech F710 game controller.
There are certain things you want to be buttoned down.
Everything else can failyour thrusters can go, your lights can goand youre still going to be safe.
Depends on how you define the word, I suppose, but lets hope so.
