. The Boston Coast Guard said at a conference call on Tuesday that the search operation was still underway. Reservoir Lieutenant Commander Robert Polewski, specialist in the field of submarine rescue, saturation diver and co-owner of the Underwater Works Training Center, trained both in the Polish Navy, US NAVY and US Coast Guard, however, in an interview with Gazeta.pl, he informed about the information he obtained unofficially and from which shows that “the current operation is aimed at searching for the missing boat and its subsequent extraction”.
As the expert told us, in the vicinity of the sinking, just after losing contact with the bathyscaphe, there was a former unit dealing with deep-water underwater works and which was asked to help with the Titan. After a short time, however, the help was abandoned due to the too short period in which the crew is able to survive independently inside the hull and the long time of the ship’s arrival in the action area. “Perhaps there is some information that has not been released to the public that indicates that it is known what happened to the bathyscaphe,” the expert told us.
No contact gives me hope
Lieutenant Commander Robert Polewski said that if it resurfaced somewhere, there would be a good chance of saving the crew. – But it’s very unlikely. If they managed to swim out, they would probably be able to establish communication and give a sign of life – he says. He explains that when we lose contact with the bathyscaphe – which has the ability to return to the surface on its own – and the unit has not been found, something disturbing has most likely happened to it.
– The hull in the bathyscaphe may have unsealed, there was a leak. If such a hull loses even a little airtightness, the pressure inside will equalize with that outside. At these pressures, at a depth of 1,500 meters, there’s not the slightest chance of getting back safely. At such a moment, no rescue operation is carried out, but a search and extraction operation, because it is known that no one in such a unit survived. And when there is no communication, the search is very difficult – the diver told Gazeta.pl.
– You would need to know the area, but I don’t think there is any possibility of catching on any object under the surface of the water, such as fishing nets. It happened, but in definitely shallower waters, e.g. in the Baltic Sea. At depths of the order of 50 meters, one could presume that something was going on there tangled. But I can’t think of anything here other than damage to the hull – explains.
The search will take several days
Where the bathyscaphe landed, if it sank, can be predicted with some accuracy, because it was moving along the designated course – explains Commander Lieutenant Robert Polewski. He adds that the base ship certainly monitored the position of the bathyscaphe on an ongoing basis. – Sonar measurement at this depth, however, will not be as accurate. You can definitely determine the region, but it is more difficult the further you go to the bottom, because such a bathyscaphe behaves like any other object and is carried by the currents during sinking – he explains.
Finding a bathyscaphe is like looking for a needle in a haystack, but as Lt. Rez. Polewski explained to us, today’s methods are much better than a decade ago thanks to autonomous underwater vehicles (AUV). – Today’s search methods for objects at the bottom of the seas and oceans are not only a supplement to old methods (towed sonars, under-hull sonars), but above all they are a very effective and the main way of searching – says the expert. Today, even commercial companies have autonomous search engines that can be programmed to methodically and accurately search the bottom 24 hours a day.
– Initially, only the armed forces had AUVs, but with the development of technology, it has become the standard when it comes to the largest companies and large-scale exploration. There are often several or even a dozen of such vehicles, which has increased the effectiveness of the search many times over, which in most cases ends in finding the wreck – says Commander Lieutenant Robert Polewski. The diver estimates that the Titan bathyscaphe should be found within a few days of using the AUV, but it depends on the amount of effort and resources used for the search.
Source: Gazeta
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