Boston — 8 hours. And within them, many unanswered questions.
About an hour and a half after sinking to the bottom of the North Atlantic, a submersible on an expedition to view the wreckage of the Titanic lost contact with the surface. It would take about eight hours for the Canadian research icebreaker Polar Prince supporting the Titan submersible to report its disappearance to the Coast Guard – a report that sparked an ongoing international rescue effort on Thursday.
The time gap has yet to be explained by the company that owns the submersible, Oceangate Expeditions.
Sean Leet, the head of the company that co-owns the Titan support ship, declined to discuss timelines during a news conference on Wednesday, saying only that “all protocols for the mission were followed.” But experts familiar with deep-sea exploration said the lost hours raise red flags.
“The time delay between announcing a submarine sinking and notifying outside resources and emergency responders appears to be excessive,” said Robert Craft, a deep-sea explorer who has located the missing ships at sea. The emergency procedure under consideration is typically declared after three consecutive missed scheduled communications “but can vary slightly between organizations,” he said.
Others suggested that the delay could be due to the unorthodox approach adopted by the company behind the experimental ship.
Salvatore Mercogliano, a professor of history at Campbell University in North Carolina who focuses on maritime history and policy, said the men of the Polar Prince probably did not call for help after losing communication with the Titan because the submersible had experienced communication failures before. did – so such an incident did not raise any immediate concern. Mercogliano said the ship used a primary system that originally communicated with the surface ship via text messaging.
“They have lost communication before as well. And it appears that when their communication broke down, they didn’t think it was a disaster at all,” Mercogliano said.
“They were probably waiting for the scheduled visit to get over. And they were probably waiting for the period when they expected Titan to come back to the surface,” he speculated. “They were unable to locate it. And then they realized he was having an emergency.”
Another thing to consider: Mercogliano said Titan lacked an emergency radio beacon that could float to the surface and start beeping when there was an emergency. “But they didn’t have that,” he said. “And so it appears that Polar Prince waited the normal period for the recovery of this submarine to send Mayday out in distress.”
Norman Polmer, a prominent naval analyst and author, stated that the protocol for “checking in” would be determined by the company, and would vary by company and submersible. A company may ask to check every four hours and check immediately if there is a problem, but there are absolutely no set rules for commercial submersibles, he said.
“From a military point of view, there are specific protocols. But from a commercial point of view, there is nothing that is standard,” he said on Thursday. “If they had said nine hours, that would probably have been their agreement– If we don’t have a problem, we’ll call you back in nine hours. For civilian submersibles, that’s what they want. Within the military, if you have an experiment or a test or a trial, yes, there is a certain protocol.
Aaron Davenport, a maritime expert, senior policy researcher at the RAND Corporation, and a retired US Coast Guard officer, said he was puzzled by the alleged lack of security protocols given the inherent dangers of the operation, including the time for the Polar Prince to voice its concerns. also includes. call.
First, Davenport said, Titan and Polar Prince must have had a process in place to keep in touch periodically, such as every hour.
“The protocol that is commonly used in Coast Guard operations and in any kind of potentially dangerous situation is that you want to maintain communication with someone on the surface or shore who can call for help in an emergency. may or may provide assistance,” Davenport said.
“And so you would think that they would be probing the surface on a regular basis,” Davenport said. “And then if you don’t hear from them, that would be a sign that you need to start thinking about possible defenses or reorganize things or start planning if you are unable to determine that they are safe.” Or not .”
Davenport said that most ships have an emergency beacon, which automatically deploys when the ship is submerged. But he said he found no indication that Titan had any way of alerting anyone to an emergency.
In an email after the Associated Press interview, Davenport said that the ship that launched the submarine appeared to be unable to save the ship.
Davenport said, “They lost hours earlier – they should have alerted people and made rescue preparations immediately.” “What is confusing is that they lost comms all along early in the mission, and it doesn’t appear that they had a good plan for restoring comms and/or aborting the mission.”
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Associated Press writer Michael Casey in Boston contributed to this report. Finley reported from Norfolk, Virginia; Raymer reported from Concord, New Hampshire; McDermott reported from Providence, Rhode Island.
