One of the last messages sent from the doomed Titan submersible during its June 2023 voyage to the Titanic wreckage was "all good here," the Coast Guard said.
At approximately 2,274 meters, the Titan sent the message, “All good here,” according to the animation.
The last communication from the submersible was sent at approximately 3,341 meters: “Dropped two wts,” meaning drop weights, according to the Coast Guard.
All communications and tracking from the submersible to Polar Prince were lost at 3,346 meters, according to the Coast Guard.
I’m assuming a lot here, but dropping weights would likely mean they were trying to ascend. They may have had just over five meters’ worth of knowing something was going wrong (whatever that means in terms of time) before the implosion.
For an emergency ascent, they’d probably have dropped more than two. They also probably wouldn’t have taken the time to type a message to the surface if it were going wrong that quickly.
It seems more likely to me that they were controlling their rare of descent. I’d expect them to lose a little buoyancy as the vessel compresses, so it seems reasonable that they’d drop the occasional weight as they descend.
Fair enough. That makes a lot of sense. I have heard that the failure model for this thing likely would have been some cracking sounds, and then the implosion, but I probably shouldn’t speculate quite so hard. At any rate, the whole thing was a disaster waiting to happen, and whaddaya know, it did.
Frankly, it was probably cracking and pinging all the way down, even on normal dives. They had steel titanium outer caps on the ends, and carbon fiber in the middle, those two materials stretch and compress very differently under extreme loads.
I’m assuming a lot here, but dropping weights would likely mean they were trying to ascend. They may have had just over five meters’ worth of knowing something was going wrong (whatever that means in terms of time) before the implosion.
For an emergency ascent, they’d probably have dropped more than two. They also probably wouldn’t have taken the time to type a message to the surface if it were going wrong that quickly.
It seems more likely to me that they were controlling their rare of descent. I’d expect them to lose a little buoyancy as the vessel compresses, so it seems reasonable that they’d drop the occasional weight as they descend.
Fair enough. That makes a lot of sense. I have heard that the failure model for this thing likely would have been some cracking sounds, and then the implosion, but I probably shouldn’t speculate quite so hard. At any rate, the whole thing was a disaster waiting to happen, and whaddaya know, it did.
Frankly, it was probably cracking and pinging all the way down, even on normal dives. They had
steeltitanium outer caps on the ends, and carbon fiber in the middle, those two materials stretch and compress very differently under extreme loads.