Kostas Toktaridis, founder and owner of a diving center in Greece, and former captain of a submersible similar to that lost in the Atlantic Ocean, said: DEA News about three possible versions of what happened.
Now in the northern part of the Atlantic Ocean, a search is underway for a submersible that disappeared while descending the wreckage of the Titanic during a tourist expedition. It disappeared about 1 hour and 45 minutes after the dive started on June 18. There are five people in the bathtub. OceanGate Expeditions confirmed that the ship was lost. According to media reports, by the morning of June 21, there will be enough air for crew members and tourists.
Kostas Toktaridis told reporters that he served as such a submersible commander for 5.5 years and was also responsible for the operational activities of the submarine for a while.
He confirmed that all bathroom utensils in the world are capable of supporting life for 96 hours in an emergency. During this time, people have communication, electricity, oxygen supply, water and food.
Toktaridis calculated: “According to the available information, the connection was lost 1 hour and 45 minutes after the dive started. Such a submarine sinks at a speed of 30 meters per minute. This means that it can sink to a depth of 3150 meters. The Titanic sank at a depth of 3,700 meters.
The team said on the phone that they dropped the ballast.
“The ballast is only lowered if there is an emergency, something serious. This means that they began to rise to the surface, canceled the dive … ”the submarine explained.
There are three versions of what happened to the former captain. The first is water flow. According to him, at this pressure – 370 bar at a depth of 3700 meters – it is very dangerous.
Toktaridis emphasized that even a small crack starts to leak. This is very dangerous for passengers as the amount of nitrogen and carbon dioxide increases.
“If you don’t stop the flow of water quickly, the submarine can quickly get heavy and lose the positive buoyancy it has, and then go deep again,” the expert said.
According to him, people cannot survive if the bathtub is overloaded.
The second reason is collapse, the bath tub being crushed by external pressure. According to the old captain, this is happening very fast. “It was a terrible compression of the trunk and he couldn’t stand it,” Toktaridis said.
In addition, according to the expert, fire, ie smoke inside, and short-circuit ignition may have occurred. “The smoke could knock the captain unconscious and he wouldn’t be able to take action to return,” Toktaridis said.
He added that in the event of such an event, tourists are always trained on safety measures. If the captain is sick, passengers are shown how to raise the bathtub to the surface. That is, how to reset the ballast, how to talk on the underwater phone, and then how to control the joystick.
It was learned that the lost bath tub in the Atlantic Ocean was searched before. embraced approximately 26 thousand square kilometers. Since this part of the Atlantic Ocean is under the jurisdiction of the United States, the search operation is led by the US Coast Guard. Canada is also participating in the search, which sends an aircraft designed to search for and destroy enemy submarines and surface ships.
Source: Gazeta

Barbara Dickson is a seasoned writer for “Social Bites”. She keeps readers informed on the latest news and trends, providing in-depth coverage and analysis on a variety of topics.