What Is Catastrophic Implosion? How The Titan Submersible turned Into Debris Near Titanic Wreck

Five persons, incuding the founder and CEO of OceanGate Expeditions who was piloting the vessel, died as the Titan imploded undersea.

An undated photo of the tourist submersible shared by OceanGate. ( Image Source :Getty )

An extensive search for the Titan submersible missing for five days ended on a tragic note late Thursday when debris of the vessel was found on the seabed. In a statement, the US Coast Guard said all five passengers on board the Titan, a tourist submersible diving to the site where the Titanic wreckage rests about 4 km below the surface, had died. OceanGate, the company that operated the trip and charged $250,000 per person, also later confirmed that all five had “sadly been lost”.          

Talking to the media earlier, US Coast Guard Rear Admiral John Mauger said the debris spotted was consistent with "a catastrophic implosion” of the vessel. According to him, as reported by the international media, the submersible lost contact with a surface ship “about 1 hour and 45 minutes into a 2-hour descent”, and that its remains were discovered on the ocean floor about 1,600 feet from the bow of the drowned Titanic. 

What Is A ‘Catastrophic Implosion’?

"Catastrophic implosion" is often used metaphorically to describe any sudden and disastrous collapse or failure, regardless of the specific context. The term "implosion" suggests an inward collapse or destruction, as opposed to an explosion that involves an outward release of energy or force. 

When an implosion occurs under water, it refers to the sudden inward collapse of the vessel. 

Air pressure changes the higher you go up in the air or the deeper you go underwater. Just like you experience a change in the air pressure when an aircraft takes off or you go on a hike in the mountains, divers are familiar with the concept as they feel the pressure when they go deep underwater. They breathe air that is regulated to match the pressure, which climbs the deeper they go.

“Pressure is enormous down there,” Professor Nikolas Xiros, who teaches naval architecture and marine engineering at the University of New Orleans in the US state of Louisiana, was quoted as saying in a USA Today report.

At 12,500 feet, the depth where the Titanic wreck rests, the pressure is “nearly 380 times greater” than that at the surface, the report quoted Luc Wille, professor and chairman of physics at Florida Atlantic University, as saying. He said the pressure would be more than 4,400 pounds per square inch at that depth.

Speaking to CNN, Rick Murcar, an international training director at the National Association of Cave Divers, put the figure at “around 5,600 pounds per square inch of pressure” at the depth cited. 

"People always underestimate that impact,” Wille was quoted as saying.

According to former Naval officer Aileen Maria Marty, a catastrophic implosion is “incredibly quick”. It takes place within a fraction of a millisecond, the Florida International University professor told CNN. 

The deaths might have been painless as the “entire thing would have collapsed before the individuals inside would even realize that there was a problem”, she added.

Search On, But Bodies May Never Be Found

While the US Coast Guard said Thursday it would continue the search to find whatever it can, the report quoted experts to say it is unlikely any bodies would be recovered.

It is “an incredibly unforgiving environment down there on the sea floor”, the coast guard was quoted as saying. 

They have so far located the nose cone of the Titan in a large debris field, besides one end of its pressure hulls. The other end of the pressure hull was found in a second debris field that is smaller, the report said. The complex and dangerous mission is taking place 400 miles east of Nantucket in a remote location. 

The five persons who died included Stockton Rush, the founder and chief executive officer of OceanGate Expeditions who was piloting the vessel, British billionaire Hamish Harding; Pakistani-born British businessman Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman (19), and French oceanographer Paul-Henri Nargeolet.