Titanic submarine goes missing: What is a submersible? All details

A Titanic submersible ‘Titan’ carrying five people to the site of the Titanic wreckage off the Canadian coast went missing on Sunday in the North Atlantic Ocean. According to reports, the vessel lost contact with the Polar Prince - a support ship - after about one hour and 45 minutes into its descent. The five people on board reportedly include - British billionaire Hamish Harding, Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood, and his son Suleman, founder and CEO of the operating company OceanGate Stockton Rush, and veteran French diver Paul-Henry Nargeolet.

Also read: Titanic submarine which went missing has oxygen supply till Thursday

According to the US coast guards, the submersible has enough oxygen to last the five people on board for 96 hours.

What is a submersible?

A submersible is a small boat or other craft, designed especially for research and exploration. Compared to a submarine, a submersible is more limited in its movement and how long it can stay underwater. While a submarine has enough power to leave port and come back to port under its own power, a submersible needs a mother ship that can launch and recover it.

The submersibles are white tubes of about 6.7 meters long and 2.8 meters wide, and have a top speed of three knots or 5.5 kilometers (3.5 miles) an hour, reported AFP.

Also read: Hamish Harding, the British billionaire on board missing Titanic submersible has a India connection

According to an underwater robotics expert at the University of Sydney Stefan Williams, while submersibles were usually used for scientific purposes, there is an increasing number of them to be used for commercial purposes such as tourism.

“…There is some discussion in the community about the relative merits of manned submersibles versus remotely operated platforms or vehicles. You can do an awful lot of exploration and scientific research with uncrewed vehicles,” he said, as quoted by AFP.

(With inputs from AFP)

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