Live updates on search as oxygen runs out
The Titan submersible that went missing en route to the Titanic wreck was designed to return to the surface after 24 hours, according to Aaron Newman, an investor in OceanGate who visited the site on the vessel in 2021.
Titan is held underwater by ballast — heavy weights that helps with a vessel’s stability — built to be automatically released after 24 hours to send the sub to the surface, Newman said.
“It is designed to come back up,” he told CNN.
Crew members are told they can release the ballast by rocking the ship or use a pneumatic pump to knock the weights free, Newman said. If all else fails, he said, the lines securing the ballast are designed to fall apart after 24 hours to automatically send it back to the ocean’s surface.
Titan’s thrusters are powered by an external electrical system, while an internal system powers communications and a heater, Newman said.
Separately, Discovery Channel host Josh Gates, who went on a test dive on the Titan in 2021, said he learned that year that there were four ways for the vessel to shed weight and bring it back up to the surface in the case of an emergency.
There is a computer-controlled weight release, a manual-valve system that injects air into exterior ballast containers, a hydraulic system to drop weights and an ability to detach from the sled attached to the submersible and help move the vessel back to the surface.
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Source: CNN
