«Experimental vessel has not been approved by regulators»
Tourists who pay $250,000 to descend almost 13,000 feet below sea level to see the wreck have been found to be » Titanic» must sign a paper stating that they are warned that the submersible is not approved by any regulatory body. More and more strange details appear in the case of the bathyscaphe missing in the North Atlantic.
OceanGate Expeditions was founded in 2009 to show wealthy explorers the ship that hit an iceberg and sank in 1912. The wreck was only discovered in 1985, when it was found 350 miles off the coast of Newfoundland, Canada.
Tourists have been visiting the site of the most famous shipwreck for decades, often in extremely rugged but internally primitive submersibles.
However, those boarding the submersible must sign a document stating: «This experimental vessel has not been approved or certified by any regulatory authority and may result in physical injury, emotional injury or death.»
CBS News correspondent David Pogue participated in the OceanGate expedition last year and spoke about his experience in November.
«I couldn't help but notice how many parts of this submarine seemed improvised, with off-the-shelf components,» he noted. «Piloting the ship is done with a game controller.»
OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush, who believed to be one of five people aboard the missing sub, told Pogue that the ship was designed with the help of NASA, Boeing and a team from the University of Washington.
The last time about the missing bathyscaphe was heard on Sunday morning, an hour and 45 minutes after the start of his mission. The journey to the wreck of the Titanic usually takes two and a half hours. The submersible had 96 hours of air left as of Monday afternoon, according to the US Coast Guard.
But fears are mounting that the submersible has exploded or sunk to the sea floor and become trapped. No Coast Guard vessel is capable of reaching the seabed at such depths.
Pogue said on Monday that he was told there were seven ballasts that a submersible could jettison to float to the surface.< /p>
“Either they float on the surface and have no power,” a journalist told Chris Cuomo on Newsnation. “Or something happened that canceled all seven of these ballasts. Or the really terrible possibility is that the capsule leaked, and they would be dead in a fraction of a second.”
Pogue claims the expeditions were incredibly risky.
The submersible is made of carbon fiber and titanium and is designed to withstand the intense underwater pressure of about 6,000 pounds per inch. It is equipped to communicate with the mother ship via text messages, notes the Daily Mail.
While Pogue was aboard the mother ship, the submersible below him became disorientated on the sea floor and was unable to locate the submerged vessel — despite that the mother ship was sending down messages instructing the bathyscaphe to move left, or right, or straight ahead.
Pogue said that every attempt to get to the place was incredibly dangerous. «This company makes several expeditions a year, stopping over the Titanic for five days each time,» says the journalist.
The carrier ship MV Polar Prince left Newfoundland on Saturday, heading for the Titanic wreck «, located 370 miles away.
The submersible landed on the water early Sunday morning. On board were 58-year-old British billionaire adventurer Hamish Harding, French Navy veteran Narjolet and OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush.
Rush told CBS News in an interview last year that his business is «very unusual.» He added: «It's a separate category. It's a new kind of travel.»
He said their clients were all sorts of people: “We have Titanic enthusiast clients, whom we call 'Titanyacs'. We had people who mortgaged their house to come and tour. And we have people who do not think twice about a trip of this cost. We had one gentleman who won the lottery.”
The submersible is not a submarine as it is not independent, relies on the mother ship and lost contact with it 1 hour 45 minutes after descent .
Analysts believe it may have lost power or sunk and possibly become trapped at the crash site. Some initially speculated that it may have surfaced and drifted without power, but this seems increasingly dubious.