An 85-year-old Teessider who once experienced a claustrophobic mini-sub has shared his dread over the possible loss of the Titan submersible. David Hunter participated in a training exercise on Pisces II, a land-based mini-sub that eventually ventured into the North Sea after successfully being sealed and pressurized at Dents Wharf on the River Tees. He recounted his experience after learning about the ongoing rescue mission to locate five trapped submariners near the Titanic wreck. Crews are working hard to find the sub, named Titan, which lost contact with tour operators last Sunday. The vessel was on a journey to the site where the Titanic sank about 435 miles south of St John’s, Newfoundland.
David narrated how during his training exercise on the Pisces II, Vickers Subsea’s pressurized submarine, he had to spend 90 minutes lying on his stomach in a sealed steel sphere, with the only view through a four-inch thick forward-facing glass window port-hole. He said the Pisces II was designed to work down to 3km in the ocean and had initially been built for the American Space Program to recover Space Capsules that were landed by parachute on re-entry before the Space Shuttles being in service.
David said the Pisces II experienced its own drama after its sister craft, Pisces III, plunged to the sea bed with the crew inside following a flooded sphere incident. The tragedy that occurred more than four decades ago made world news. The Pisces III’s surviving crewmembers clearly stated that there was only a three-day supply of oxygen left inside the stricken craft. They also revealed that it was only after the Pisces II managed to secure Pisces III that they were able to maintain minimal oxygen supply long enough to save the crew, who had just four hours of oxygen left in the system.
Now David fears the worst for the submersible Titan and its crew. The possibility of losing them in the North Atlantic sends shivers down his spine, given what Roger Mallinson and his companion, Roger Chapman, went through just weeks after David’s training exercise on Pisces II. The pair’s submersible, the Pisces III, sank 150 miles off the coast of Ireland while they were laying telephone cables in 1973. They became trapped inside a tiny six-foot diameter steel ball after it plunged down to the sea bed. However, they miraculously survived, spending 84 hours trapped inside the tiny sub. Despite their harrowing experience, Roger Mallinson believes there is always hope and that it is amazing what can happen. He advises the rescuers to keep the Titan’s crew warm to prevent them from freezing and conserve their oxygen.
David ended his narrative, hoping that the occupants of Titan can be saved.
