The OceanGate submersible that had four tourists on board and imploded earlier this month has prompted an exploration mission to recover their bodies. However, experts claim that the chances of finding the remains are looking bleak. The vessel is located 12,500 feet below sea level, meaning the recovery efforts are complicated due to the specifics of the disaster. Admiral John Mauger of the US Coast acknowledged the complexity of the situation in a press conference recently, saying this is an incredibly unforgiving environment down there on the sea floor and the debris is consistent with a catastrophic implosion of the vessel.
Ofer Ketter, a seasoned submersible specialist who co-founded another private submarine vessel company, told the NY Post that the pressure of the ocean plays a significant role in the difficulty of passenger remains recovery. Ketter believes that the chamber, the pressure chamber where the passengers are sitting in, did not withstand the pressure because of the material that it was built on. And that is exactly what imploded and turned to dust. Everything else that was either made of titanium or perhaps other steels survived, and that’s what was found.
When it comes to the victim’s untimely demise, Ketter emphasized that they never knew it happened, which is actually very positive in this very negative situation. Meanwhile, Dr. Peter Girguis, a Harvard University professor, speculated on the catastrophic event with the news outlet, stating that when a scuba tank is overfilled, there’s a safety device that releases gas very quickly.
The OceanGate victims include Suleman Dawood, Shahzada Dawood, Hamish Harding, Titanic explorer Paul-Henri Nargeolet, and OceanGate’s founder and CEO Stockton Rush. While the circumstances surrounding the implosion are still mostly speculative until debris can be recovered, it’s clear that recovery efforts will be challenging given the depth of the vessel and the environment in which it lies.
