Sounds “consistent with an implosion” were recorded after the submersible of the tourist company OceanGate lost contact with the surface, last Sunday, revealed the US authorities. The information adds to the discovery of the wreckage that indicates a “catastrophic” incident. Fragments found near the wreckage of the Titanic include the Titanic’s tail cone and two parts of the pressure hull. The submersible disappeared after an hour and 45 minutes of diving. In case of emergency, the capsule would be designed to guarantee 96 hours of oxygen as “life support”. The four-day searches that followed were unsuccessful. On Thursday (22), Rear Admiral Mauger, of the US Coast Guard, confirmed the deaths of five people aboard the Titan. The five people on board were 58-year-old British billionaire and explorer Hamish Harding; Pakistan-born business tycoon Shahzada Dawood, 48, and his son Suleman, 19, both British citizens; French oceanographer and Titanic expert Paul-Henri Nargeolet, 77, who has visited the wreck dozens of times; and the American Stockton Rush, founder and chief executive of OceanGate, who piloted the submersible. Catastrophic implosion The thesis of the implosion of the submersible Titan gains ground with new information disseminated by the North American authorities. The cause given for the accident would have been a “catastrophic implosion”, based on debris patterns. Added to this data is the detection of sounds “consistent with an implosion or explosion near where the submersible Titan was operating when communications were lost,” according to the US Navy. that information about the “detected sounds” was later used by the Coast Guard to narrow the search area. Efforts continue to map the debris field and investigate the seabed around the Titanic. A remotely operated underwater vehicle ( ROV) found five major fragments of the 6.7-meter Titan submarine. “The debris field on the seafloor is about 488 meters from the bow of the wreckage of the Titanic”, which rests four kilometers below the surface of the North Atlantic, US Coast Guard Rear Admiral John Mauger told reporters. Quoted on the BBC, Paul Hankin, an expert on submarines, stressed that the first indication that the submersible could have imploded comes with the discovery of a large debris field. , On thursday. “Essentially, we found five different major pieces of debris that tell us to be from the remains of Titan,” he claimed. Reuters reported on Thursday that liability waivers signed by Titan passengers may not protect the vessel’s owner from potential lawsuits by victims’ families Tourism, profit and risk from curiosity With the fate of the Titan and those who were on board, attention now turns to the safety of tourism services and their suitability for transporting people to the Titanic wreck site. Those who embarked on what became the Titan’s last voyage paid more than €250,000 (R$1.2 million). The journey would take eight hours to descend to 3,800 meters and reach the remains of the RMS Titanic, about 380 miles off the coast of St. John’s in Newfoundland, Canada. For more than a century, the sunken ship has spurred the irresistible curiosity of explorers and filmmakers alike. The director of the Hollywood blockbuster Titanic and deep sea explorer James Cameron has become the first person to take a dive to the deepest part of the ocean. In 2012, Cameron designed and built a submersible. And “the risk of a submarine imploding under pressure was always at the forefront of engineers’ minds.” Among several episodes related to the claim of the wreckage and rights to visit the Titanic, several companies developed tourist routes dedicated to a part of the wealthy public. In 1998, the British company Deep Ocean Expeditions was one of the first to sell tickets to the public for around €33,000 (R$170,300). In 2012, the same company expanded the trips to 12 days each, and took 20 passengers for more than €59,000 (R$306,000) per person. From 2002, the Bluefish travel company, based in Los Angeles, also began diving to the Titanic with prices reaching €60,000 (R$ 311,000) per person. In 2019, London-based Blue Marble sold tickets for over €106,000. OceanGate conducted successful expeditions in 2021 and 2022 and has 18 dives planned in 2023.
Agência Brasil
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