Like putting a candle to a saint and light a miracle.
Something like this happened this Wednesday in the rescue operation of the five crew members of the submersible Titanlost since Sunday on its way to the remains of the titanicthe search for which is an international issue and a global concern.
In this case, when time runs out, with the 96-hour margin of oxygen available in their reserves practically fulfilled, the candle to hold on to was the detection of some banging noises that were recorded on Tuesday night by Canadian reconnaissance planes under the surface in the North Atlantic.
Although at first they disappeared for several hours, the planes picked up those noises again this Wednesday and the flame of prayer regained light.
The experts were analyzing if they were of human origin and where their origin was.
The rescue mission poses great challenges
A multitude of ships and planes are looking for the submersible in an area of 30,000 km2 of ocean
the canadian plane P-8 Poseidonlaunched sonobuoys to the ocean…
…and the P-3 Dawnlaunched a torpedo-type sonar
Sonars transmit information by radio
passive sonobuoy
Hear the sounds of propellers, engines and machines
torpedo sonar
For research
active sonobuoy
Emits sound waves and listens to the returned echo
The sonars detected underwater noises every 30 minutes in a position close to the wreck, although the source is unknown.
There are no seats, all the passengers are barefoot
and they must sit on the ground
Titanium and carbon fiber capsule
If the ‘Titan’ lost power at a depth of 3,800m, the temperature inside would drop dramatically, as the surrounding water is close to freezing.
Search on the seabed
The remains of the ‘Titanic’ complicate the sonar detectiondue to the large amount of debris on the bottom, making it difficult to locate an object on the bottom
The visual search is limited, since the spotlights They have a range of just over 6 meters
The currents are very strong at that depth and could push the submersible along the seabed and away from the ‘Titanic’, further complicating the search.
SOURCES: BBC, ‘The New York Times’, ‘Rolling Stone’, agencies and own calculations. THE VANGUARD
The rescue mission poses great challenges
A multitude of ships and planes are looking for the submersible in an area of 30,000 km2 of ocean
the canadian plane P-8 Poseidonlaunched sonobuoys to the ocean…
…and the P-3 Dawnlaunched a torpedo-type sonar
Sonars transmit information by radio
passive sonobuoy
Hear the sounds of propellers, engines and machines
torpedo sonar
For research
active sonobuoy
Emits sound waves and listens to the returned echo
The sonars detected underwater noises every 30 minutes in a position close to the wreck, although the source is unknown.
There are no seats, all the passengers are barefoot
and they must sit on the ground
Titanium and carbon fiber capsule
If the ‘Titan’ lost power at a depth of 3,800m, the temperature inside would drop dramatically, as the surrounding water is close to freezing.
Search on the seabed
The remains of the ‘Titanic’ complicate the sonar detectiondue to the large amount of debris on the bottom, making it difficult to locate an object on the bottom
The visual search is limited, since the spotlights They have a range of just over 6 meters
The currents are very strong at that depth and could push the submersible along the seabed and away from the ‘Titanic’, further complicating the search.
SOURCES: BBC, ‘The New York Times’, ‘Rolling Stone’, agencies and own calculations. THE VANGUARD
The rescue mission poses great challenges
the canadian plane P-8 Poseidonlaunched sonobuoys to the ocean…
…and the P-3 Dawnlaunched a torpedo-type sonar
Sonars transmit information by radio
A multitude of ships and planes are looking for the submersible in an area of 30,000 km2 of ocean
passive sonobuoy
Hear the sounds of propellers, engines and machines
active sonobuoy
Emits sound waves and listens to the returned echo
torpedo sonar
for research
The sonars detected underwater noises every 30 minutes in a position close to the wreck, although the source is unknown.
There are no seats, all passengers are barefoot and must sit on the ground
Titanium and carbon fiber capsule
If the ‘Titan’ lost power at a depth of 3,800m, the temperature inside would drop dramatically, as the surrounding water is close to freezing.
Search on the seabed
The remains of the ‘Titanic’ complicate detection by sonar, due to the large amount of debris at the bottom, making it difficult to locate an object on the bottom
Visual search is limited, as the spotlights have a range of just over 6 meters
The currents are very strong at that depth and could push the submersible along the seabed and away from the ‘Titanic’, further complicating the search.
SOURCES: BBC, ‘The New York Times’, ‘Rolling Stone’, agencies and own calculations.
THE VANGUARD
A surveillance plane flies over the area where the missing ‘Titan’ submersible, which was carrying five people to explore the Titanic, is being searched for.
Canadian Forces/Handout
All search resources, which have increased exponentially since Monday, when only the Polar Prince the mother ship that launched the Titanfocused on that area, now defined as twice the size of Connecticut (about 30,000 km2 in total), located 643 kilometers from the Canadian coast of Newfoundland and 1,450 kilometers from Cape Cod, in the state of Massachusetts.
This Wednesday there were five pieces of equipment, with remotely operated robots to dive to great depths, and it was expected to reach ten this Thursday with the contribution of more vessels from Canada and the Atalante French.
“We have to be very careful, but we are confident,” said Capt. Jamie Frederick, of the United States Coast Guard, based in Boston, where logistics are coordinated.
He acknowledged, however, that “we cannot frankly specify what these noises are and we are trying to find out their location,” he added.
US Coast Guard Capt. Jamie Frederick speaks to the media at a press conference Wednesday in Boston
AP Photo/Steven Senne
Captain Frederick says the time has not yet come to consider leaving the rescue mission
“The ocean is a complex place, with human, natural sounds, and it’s hard to tell which source they’re coming from,” said Carl Hartsfield of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. “You have to carry out an acoustic analysis, which is being done, but, from my experience, there are sounds of animals under the sea that seem to be of human origin,” he stressed.
Frederick also did not specify if the noises were produced systematically every half hour, as indicated at the beginning.
“The important thing is that they have continued to listen to each other”, a circumstance that maintains the possibility, or the illusion, of rescuing Stockton Rush, pilot and president of the company that owns the submersible; to the French submariner and expert in the titanic , Paul-Henry Nargeolet; and British millionaires Hamish Harding and Shahzada Dawood (of Pakistani origin) and their 19-year-old son Suleman.
“We are on a 100% rescue mission,” the captain replied. “We need to have hope,” he added.
File image of the ‘Titan’, the submersible operated by OceanGate that explores the remains of the ‘Titanic’
Reuters
Frederick responded in this way to the question of whether this deployment was already a “recovery” operation of the submersible, with no hope of finding the occupants alive.
“It’s a rescue, that’s why we’re doing all this and we’re going to continue putting all available means in the effort to find the Titan and its crew,” he insisted. “We work tirelessly and as quickly as possible,” she said. “Sometimes you have to make a difficult decision, but we haven’t gotten there yet,” he confessed about abandoning the job.
He refused, however, to specify what was the maximum limit for the confidence in survival to continue. Frederick spoke on Tuesday of a margin of 40 or 41 hours, a day later, almost at the limit of those calculations, he deviated from talking about figures despite insistence. “I am not going to enter numbers or percentages,” he reiterated. “Oxygen is one piece of information, but there are others,” he said.
The Bahamian research vessel ‘Deep Energy’ during the search for the ‘Titan’ submersible
EFE/EPA/US COAST GUARD
The search is focused on the area where the planes detected sounds, although it is not known if they were human.
A while earlier, Rear Admiral John Mauder said on CBS on Wednesday morning that the margin had been reduced to less than 20 hours.
Experts specify that the vehicle contains a finite capacity of oxygen. Its consumption, on the other hand, can be less than usual, with a gain of 10% or nine hours, if the occupants remain calm and breathe less than usual. On the contrary, if the level of carbon dioxide, the invisible gas that is exhaled when breathing, rises a lot, it can shorten that period.
Another issue is that of food. In a submersible inside a van, “food and water rations are limited,” Frederick said.
In this desperate mission, no one considers the cost. The Coast Guard is clear that the priority is to save lives.
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