Chronology Of Tourist Submarines Missing: Break Contact After Almost 2 Hours

Illustration of the submarine Submersible Titan. (Twitter/@OceanGateExped)

YOGYAKARTA A tourist submarine that explored the area around the wreck of the fireboat has been reported missing since Sunday, June 18, 2023. The ship was lost off the coast of Canada, the Atlantic Ocean. Then what is the chronology of the tour submarine missing?

As is known, the tourist submarine is part of an eight-day series of tourist trips offered by OceanGatewas Expeditions. Each person must pay around 250 thousand US dollars or around Rp3.7 billion. While the tourist boat is carrying five people, two of them are billionaires and CEOs of the OceanGate tourism agency company.

The base of the trip itself is in Newfoundland. The tourist submarine used is Titan which weighs approximately 23 thousand pounds. The ship is made of carbon fiber and titanium. Titan is indeed equipped with several advanced safety features, one of which is the real-time hull health monitoring system (RTM). This feature will provide the results of an analysis related to the pressure and integrity of the submarine structure. This means that Titan is able to provide signs from an early age if problems arise so that it will provide time to save itself by climbing to the surface.

Initially, passengers would enter the tourist submarine before having to travel approximately 400 nautical miles to the location of the fireboat using a support ship. Then on Sunday, the ship began to descend into the ocean to the location of the shipwreck ship. It took approximately two hours to dive into the fire with a distance of approximately 12,500 feet (3,800 m).

The ship began to descend to the location of the fire. After a while, the ship suddenly lost contact with Polar Prince, a support ship that functions to transport the submarine to the surface where the ship was located. The tourist submarine itself had dived for 1 hour 45 minutes in the North Atlantic Ocean. And since then the Titan ship search operation began.

Based on the search results, the missing tourist boat in the middle of the tourist expedition was categorized as a submersible with a capacity of five people including 1 pilot and 4 crew. Ships are usually used for various purposes such as surveys and site inspections, data collection for research, film purposes, and so on.

Despite being able to dive, Submersible is very different from submarines because it does not have enough power to launch independently while in the sea. The ship is also made of titanium and carbon fiber weighing 21,000 pounds, measuring 22 feet x 9.2 feet x 8.3 feet. Titan itself has the ability to maintain life for 96 hours.

The Titan owned by OceanGate is the only manned submersible in the world that has the ability to carry five people diving at a depth of 4,000 meters. In addition, Titan is said to allow to explore nearly 50 percent of the world's oceans.

The ship, which is included in the lower category of the Cyclops Class, uses Polar Prince, a former ship that was previously used to break Canadian Coast Guard ices as a support ship. Until now, the search is still being carried out.

That's the chronology of the lost tourist submarine. Visit VOI.ID to get more interesting information.