Finding a tiny submersible in the vast, icy ocean surrounding the remote Canadian coast of Newfoundland, Canada is a daunting task.
If, in addition, the oxygen available to the crew is close to running out, the rescue teams cannot work more than against the clock.
The operation to locate the missing commercial submarine with 5 people who were going to visit the wreck of the Titanic is especially challenging, despite the fact that in the last hours “sounds of blows” in the search area have restored hope to find them alive.
It is estimated that the five people on board had about 40 hours of air to breathe.
The submersible has tanks capable of supplying its five occupants with oxygen for up to 96 hours, but 3 days have passed since it was lost.
The crew of the Titan ship, belonging to the OceanGate company, lost contact with the base 1 hour and 45 minutes after submerging in the sea, according to the United States Coast Guard.
Alistair Greig, professor of marine engineering at University College London, explains why the search is so complicated.
“Communication through water is always very difficult. Once communication has been lost, it is very difficult to locate where it is. One of the big problems with the operation is that they don’t know whether to look at the surface of the Atlantic or at the bottom of the sea. It could be in either of the two places.”
For the expert, it is unlikely that OceanGate’s experimental submarine is in the middle. He believes that he is either floating or completely sunk.
unpredictable movement
Jamie Pringle, a researcher at Keele University, points out that another of the difficulties is that the ship can be moving unpredictably right now.
The submersible disappeared into the ocean approximately 1,500 kilometers from Cape Cod, Massachusetts, where the depth is approximately 4,000 meters.
“If it is andOn the surface of the ocean, it will be very difficult to detect because, since it is a submersible, it is designed to have neutral buoyancy. That is, most of the ship floats underwater with only a small amount of surface visible,” says Greig.
The submersible, made of carbon fiber and titanium, it is “the size of a large van, and it is painted white“.
“Try find something like that from the airparticularly if they have run out of power and cannot send signals, it will be a real challenge,” he adds.
trapped inside
Another of the additional complications is that the crew cannot leave on their own.
The ship cannot be opened from the inside; it can only be opened by specialized equipment from the outside.
That is why, in the hypothetical case that the ship was able to reach the surface, the passengers would not be able to get out of it without outside help.
“If he’s in the bottom of the sea, it will not be so much a question of looking for them, but of listening to them because what is used to locate them is sonar and hopefully the crew will make some noise in the hull, which can be detected,” says the marine engineering professor.
Jonathan Amos, BBC Science correspondent, explains how rescue teams are using sound
Sound is the way to communicate in the ocean. Whales and porpoises use it, just like humans.
All forms of electromagnetic radiation, such as radio or radar, are pretty much useless underwater.
But sound travels efficiently, it travels fast (1,500 m/s) and over great distances.
That’s why the rescue operation has been dropping sonobuoys into the water, listening for any unusual sounds.
If the hits detected every 30 minutes come from the ship and are real, the authorities can use them to locate the submarine.
If they are transmitted as a regular pattern, you can time the arrival of that pattern on different sonobuoys to get where the source comes from.
The GPS receiver does something similar on your phone, using radio signals transmitted from different satellites.
Sound focusing is not that precise, but it would be a great help in reducing the efforts of the remotely operated drone.
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See original article on BBC