A latrine, a PlayStation controller and overcrowded: this is traveling on the Titan, the lost submarine

Photo: OCEANGATE / copyright

Titan, the submersible that carried five passengers to the site of the Titanic wreck in the North Atlantic, has been missing since Sunday. Boarding this ship implies accepting certain discomforts throughout the approximately ten hours that the trip should have lasted.

The interior size of the OceanGate submersible resembles that of a “minivan,” Mike Reiss, a writer-producer who worked on “The Simpsons” and undertook the same journey last year, told his podcast.

In each dive, the five crew members – the pilot and the four passengers – are forced to take off their shoes and sit cross-legged on the same floor, since there are no seats, to fit in the 670 centimeter long cylinder.

Inside the ship there is only one window to be able to see the outside “in turns”, CBS journalist David Pogue, who was also a passenger on the Titan in November, told US public radio NPR.

Even so, you can also see what is around you through some screens that connect with cameras on the surface of the device.

In addition, the Titan has a black curtain that separates the latrine from the space where the crew sit: The toilet is a small black boxas can be seen in one of the videos where the CEO of OceanGate, Stockton Rush, explains how the submersible works.

Rush travels as the artifact’s pilot and is one of five people currently aboard it.

Reiss remembers that before the trip -that can cost up to $250,000– passengers have to sign a “long, long waiver document that mentions the possibility of death three times on the first page.”

On the other hand, he also talks about the fact that in the device there are usually sandwiches and water available for travelers. However, Reiss says that many of the visitors have told him that they do not eat during the journey because of the excitement, so they never use the “toilet”.

For his part, Pogue noted that many of the submersible’s parts “seemed thrown together.” Without going any further, the ship is controlled by a video game controller, whose design resembles one of the characteristic Xbox or PlayStation controls. The same CEO of OceanGate details in a video that they have two spare controls, “just in case.”

Reiss described the journey as “a car you drive drunk across the ocean.”

Without a radio and without GPS, the crew members have 96 hours of oxygen. This Wednesday, the submersible only has between 14 and 16 hours of oxygen left after it disappeared on Sunday, so rescue teams are working against the clock and travelers have “limited rations” of food.

And if that was not enough, if the submersible remains at the bottom of the sea for a long time, the crew faces very low temperatures with a cold just above the freezing point and with the possibility of developing hypothermia.

Pogue pointed out that in the trip “you are on your own” and there is only one way out: “There are no reinforcements, there is no way of escape, it is to reach the surface or die.”

Keep reading:
• Titanic: why it is so difficult to find the missing Titan submersible in the ocean
• “For those of us who traveled in the Titanic submersible, it was worth the risk to see the majestic sinking of the Titanic”: the testimony of the Mexican youtuber Alan Estrada
• Missing submersible that was going to explore remains of the Titanic has 40 hours of oxygen, says the Coast Guard