Will the Titanic claim more victims a century later?

CLIP You are listening to a Frequency Podcast network production.

Jordan Heath Rawlings I don’t know if I can imagine a worse way to die than suffocating in an airless tube kilometres below the surface, unless it’s doing that and paying a quarter of a million dollars for it.

CLIP In the cold North Atlantic, and all hands on deck search and rescue operation, looking for any signs of a small private submersible and the five people on board missing since Sunday after going to explore the Titanic wreckage

Jordan Heath Rawlings As I record this five people are missing on that submersible. A massive search is racing against time to save them, but no matter how big your search might be, the ocean is always bigger. As the world watches transfixed, we continue to learn more about the company that sent these people down the draw of commercial expeditions to the deepest parts of the ocean. And exactly how the craft that went down there was made.

CLIP An experimental submersible vessel that has not been approved or certified by any regulatory body and could result in physical injury, disability, emotional trauma, or death.

Jordan Heath Rawlings The vehicle has 96 hours of air. If the crew is not rescued by the morning this episode is released, they’ll have about 24 hours left. If nothing else has gone wrong, if the vessel can be found, if the ocean with all the merciless danger lurking in its depths hasn’t already made it plain, just how fragile life is down there.

I’m Jordan Heath Rawlings. This is The Big Story. Leyland Cecco is a Canadian based reporter who works for The Guardian, has been following this story since it broke. Hello Leyland.

Leyland Cecco Hi, Jordan. Thanks for having me today.

Jordan Heath Rawlings Thank you for jumping on to, help explain this story, which I think has, you know, for various reasons we can talk about, transfixed the world right now.

Leyland Cecco It has. And admittedly, I didn’t think in 2023 I’d be writing about the Titanic. But it seems as though this is, you know, a big story and it’s front and centre for a lot of people right now.

Jordan Heath Rawlings Well, let’s start with the basics. What is exactly Ocean Gate Expeditions and what are they doing out of Newfoundland?

Leyland Cecco So Newfoundland St. John’s, Newfoundland is, believe it or not, actually the closest city to where the Titanic is resting, and it’s still 300 nautical miles or almost 400 nautical miles away from St. John’s. But a number of companies have kind of used that Eastern community as a bit of a jumping off point for Titanic expeditions. And so, what we know is Ocean Gate runs every few months, ships out of Newfoundland towards the Titanic wreck site in which they bring a small Russian built submersible that is capable of visiting the final resting site of the Titanic.

Jordan Heath Rawlings And what are these expeditions like? Like how long do they last? Who goes on them? How much do they cost? I had no idea that, and I don’t wanna call them pleasure trips cuz I’m not sure that’s what they are. But I had no idea that, you know, expeditions to the Titanic were available for the right price.

Leyland Cecco I mean, I think, and not to be good, but I think anytime you think of anything, the right price will get you there. And I think this is emblematic of you know, a strata of the tourism industry in which people who can afford a $250,000 trip to the bottom of the ocean, or for whom $250,000 doesn’t bat an eye, is kind of the clientele that Ocean Gate has been courting. And I think when you, when you look at the company’s website, you see, you know, they do offer a suite of services. They help build production crews. They help do surveys underwater. They do deep sea testing. But I think, you know, the, the trips that bring in the most money for this company are these eight day expeditions off the coast of Newfoundland, days out into the middle of the North Atlantic where they hope and pray for the right weather conditions in which they can drop this submersible off a repurposed ship. And, you know, for a lot of money you get a, a glimpse of one of the most famous sea wrecks in the world.

Jordan Heath Rawlings Tell me about that submersible you mentioned that is at the heart of this story. Before we get to the breaking news that is happening right now, what kind of vessel is it? How deep do they dive, and just what do we know about what that dive is like at that depth?

Leyland Cecco So the vessel itself is pretty small. It’s about 22 feet long, but in some ways it’s actually quite impressive. It holds more people than any other submersible does in the world. And, and it can hold a crew of five people. And we do know that five people were on board. And so it has these little electric thrusters that allow it to kind of move around with a joystick and it has a number of cameras and kind of scanners so it can, you know, understand its environment. But basically it kind of is, is on a platform. It’s thrown off the back of the boat, the platform sinks about 30 feet and then the submersible is untethered and, and makes its descent about 3,800 meters down to the bottom of a trench. And there, if all goes well, the crew will, will see the, the remains of the Titanic. Unlike previous submersibles. It’s actually made from pretty modern composite materials. So I spoke with an a deep sea exploration expert who, you know, when he, he went down in the nineties to the, the wreck of the Titanic. You know, he said the craft, he was in two inch thick steel. And when James Cameron made his voyages down, they were using a submersible that used titanium alloys, for the hull. And speaking with a few people you know, this is a five inch thick carbon fiber hull on the, on the submersible. For some people that is kind of, has raised some question marks about kind of whether or not that could have been implicated in a possible, breach of the hull. You know, this is a relatively new material to be used at such immense and, you know, high, highly pressurized depth that the Titanic is resting at.

Jordan Heath Rawlings So let’s go back now to the event itself. I should mention, as we are speaking, it is late on Tuesday morning. Things may change what happened this weekend and what do we know exactly about what’s happening right now?

Leyland Cecco So we know that Ocean Gate sent an expedition out to the Titanic site earlier this week, and we know it’s been pretty poor weather in the last few weeks, and so it’s really kind of prevented any of these expeditions from going ahead. But it seems as though they had a window and it seems as though they launched the submersible on Sunday morning and by Sunday afternoon. They lost contact with the vessel and alerted the Coast Guard. And so we got news yesterday. The BBC was the first to break the story, but we got news that there was a kind of a scramble between both the US Coast Guard and the Canadian Coast Guard to try and track down where this missing vessel might be. So I think in the last 24 hours there’s been a frantic search from both the US from Canada from a number of commercial vessels, and I think we’re seeing that intensity ratchet up in the coming hours and the coming days is basically, it’s a race against time. At this point.

Jordan Heath Rawlings When you say it’s a race against time, how much time when does the race end? And also, because we haven’t discussed it yet, and I know maybe not all the identities are confirmed, who’s on board?

Leyland Cecco So when the submersible would’ve departed on Sunday morning, they have about 96 hours worth of bottled oxygen on board the vessel, and so that effectively puts us to Thursday morning, and I’m speaking to you on Tuesday, which means there still is very much hope that in the event that the hull has not been breached, that there wasn’t a fire, that the submersible is not trapped deep below the ocean depth, that there is enough oxygen for the crew on board to get back safely. This presumes that they are breathing at a relatively steady rate. And that they’re using their CO2 scrubbers that are onboard the vessel. And I think what’s notable, and when we, when we talk about who’s on the craft, you know, if, if you have people who are experienced divers on board, they know how to breathe in a very kind of regulated, predictable, and, you know, effectively a calm way, which will preserve the air on board far longer than if you have people who might be kind of panicking, who might be breathing hyperventilating. And so the makeup of the crew will also, in a way, determine how much oxygen is consumed in the coming days.

Jordan Heath Rawlings Who is the crew?

Leyland Cecco So we don’t know the full roster of the crew. We do know Hamish Harding. A UK billionaire is on board and he’s the founder of the Explorers Club. He has multiple world records for dives, including, the longest duration at full ocean depth in a crude vessel when he went to the, lowest depth of the Mariana Trench. We know there is a Pakistani businessman, Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman. We believe a former French Navy commander is the pilot on board the vessel, and depending on the day, there are scientists that attend or tag along on, on every one of the voyages that Ocean Gates run. We’re just not entirely sure who is on, so we’re kind of getting a glimpse of, of who might have been. But we do know that by and large, the crew who paid to join are typically very affluent, and can afford the $250,000 US that it, it costs to get down to this vessel.

Jordan Heath Rawlings I wanna ask this a little bit delicately because obviously there are currently still, hopefully still, lives at stake and lives to be saved here. Since this craft has gone missing. There have been a handful of reports and I played clips from a couple of them in the intro by people who have been on this craft before, including a CBS reporter, and they seem to paint this as perhaps not the most technologically advanced expedition. What do we know from people who are not Ocean Gate about the viability of these expeditions and the risk here, going down this deep?

Leyland Cecco I mean, I think that question really captures the essence of this voyage, which is that these are a group of people who are pushing the limits of what is humanly possible. They are pushing far deeper than most vessels or vehicles can ever travel. And so there will always be an element of risk. There will always be an element of danger, and I think we’ve seen in, in the last couple days, a lot of questions about Ocean Gates craft the Titan. In that video clip, you know, the reporter shows that it’s just, you know, steered by a joystick. It has one button, and I think it, in many ways, it speaks to this kind of hastily thrown together element of parts of the craft at the, you know, at the same time, it does use very advanced materials and it’s exterior. It’s using a carbon fiber composite. But speaking with experts who are veterans of deep sea exploration. There are concerns that there could be structural issues with this craft because of the materials that were being used. And you know, one person I spoke with, who’s done a number of deep sea dive said, you know, this is and has long been our biggest fear is losing a submersible in the deep water and as dangerous it is this does not happen often. And so I think it’s, it’s really captivated people because you have a group of very committed, you know, explore enthusiasts people who are down deep below and, and possibly in trouble.

Jordan Heath Rawlings Tell me about the search. Now you mentioned the Canadian Coast Guard. The American Coast Guard both scrambled. Just how the heck do you search such a gigantic body of water that goes so deep? Like I don’t even comprehend really how you approach it.

Leyland Cecco I was struck yesterday when I listened to the US Coast Guard talk about the search efforts because it really hammered home that. We live in a world in which we take for granted the technology we have access to, the communications we have, the way in which we’re very much in touch with everything around us, and I think we’re really seeing here the limits of that. I admittedly was, was quite astounded by the fact that the US Navy, the Canadian Coast Guard, you know, their best efforts right now, all they have is sonar buoys that are deployed in the ocean. And the best they have is they say they can listen, they can listen for sound. They can’t conduct a visual sweep underwater right now. And they’re drawing on any commercial ships in the area that might have access to sonar. But you got a sense from, from even the officials within the US Coast Guard that this is a very daunting search. The, the search is in many ways right now, I think, hopeful that the craft is at the surface and is just listlessly bobbing somewhere. Because the other reality that you have to conduct a deep water search, I think is in many ways, not viable. Very few vessels can go deep. Close to the depth of the Titan has reached it at 3,800 meters and recovery effort would be next to impossible if it was still deep below. And so I think the Coast Guard’s efforts of, of kind of a wide search area from close to the scene of the wreck reflects a hope that the vessel is somewhere near the surface. Because I think the other option that is still deep below, I think is a very grim outcome for those involved.

Jordan Heath Rawlings Since you just touched on it, I’ll ask cuz I’m sure everybody had this instant reaction, why didn’t they just come up to the surface? I mean, where could they be other than still underwater?

Leyland Cecco So I had the chance to speak with someone who’s, who’s made a couple trips to the Titanic and is, is a veteran deep sea explorer, and he said when you’re down there, there’s what they call the trinity that you’re worried about. You’re worried about fire, you’re worried about entanglement, or you’re worried about a full hull breach or, or compromising of the hull. And he talked about, you know, when they went on their second voyage down to the Titanic, the skid from one of their submersibles got caught on the Titanic, and you know, they had a second sub that was near them that kind of helped guide them and they jiggled it free. So, But he said, you know, your heart’s racing because you’re stuck deep below the water and you don’t know if you’re gonna get unstuck. That same expedition, one of the submersibles went behind the Titanic to get footage of the propellers, and they lost radio contact with that ship, and he said that was a heart racing few minutes in which they had no contact with the other submersible. Now they got contact back a couple minutes later, and in the case of the Titan right now, it’s been 30 hours since they had contact. So speaking with people who know deep sea exploration and know the stakes and know the risks, I think the possibility that it might be stuck, that it might have become entangled in the wreck that, there might have been on fire, on board, I think is increasingly a very real possibility.

Jordan Heath Rawlings This is more a comment than a question, but discussing this with you and preparing for this interview and reading up on this craft and these expeditions, I don’t understand for the life of me, why anyone goes down there at all, let alone pays a quarter million dollars to do it. It seems, inexplicable to me. I know maybe I don’t have an adventurous heart or whatever, but like everything down there is trying to kill you.

Leyland Cecco I think you could make the same argument about most kind of human endeavours at the edge of, of kind of what is possible. You know, you look at Summit in Everest and that was, in many ways a deadly endeavor. It has claimed the lives of hundreds of people over the years. And yet, people today will spend tens of thousands, if not in many cases, more than a hundred thousand dollars to make that trip that many people have made before. And the people who are visiting the Titanic wreck are not the first to do so. And I think among them you have enthusiasts who feel as though they’re a part of the scientific efforts to document the decay of the wreck that they have made it, their life’s work to, to kind of be a part of that, that sign of community of explorers or scientists who, who kind of push the bounds of what is possible. But I think to the average person, the prospect of of shelling out a quarter of a million dollars for a glimpse of a wreck is, you know, is a bit laughable. But I think there are people who, who kind of spend their lives trying to live and do live on the periphery of human possibility. I mean, Hamish Harding does have records for spending time, you know, deeper than anyone has ever gone before. And so for him, this was the first time he’d visited Titanic. This is not outside of the norm for what he sees is, is kind of possible. And so I think it’s laying bare both human ambition in a way that, as you said, why would you wanna go that deep where light doesn’t penetrate your ensconced and complete darkness and relying in many ways on the ingenuity of engineers in a carbon fiber sub. But I think for some people the question is, why not?

Jordan Heath Rawlings Yeah, I guess so. And I mean, related to that question, why the Titanic of all places to dive in the ocean? There’s so much out there that we haven’t explored so much life out there. What draws people to this site?

Leyland Cecco It feels like a very, it many ways on its face and on paper bizarre expedition to make. But I don’t think there is any disaster in modern human history that occupies such a large space as the Titanic. And I think James Cameron’s Hollywood movie in 97 brought it to another level of fascination. But even before Cameron, you know, made his movie, I think there’s long been this obsession and I think obsession is an incredibly accurate description of a lot of these people’s fixation on the wreck. And actually there was a really interesting piece in the New York Times last week about how a new generation has kind of latched onto the obsession with the Titanic. And there’s all these TikTok videos of kind of conspiracies. The Titanic never sank that…

Jordan Heath Rawlings Oh my gosh

Leyland Cecco Another ship sank in instead and that it was kind of shuttled off for insurance purposes. And so…

Jordan Heath Rawlings Do we need a conspiracy theory about the Titanic now? Don’t we have enough?

Leyland Cecco It just speaks to the fact that this, this disaster pervades every aspect of human imagination and creativity that there is nowhere as safe from kind of the presence of the Titanic. And so, maybe 2023 is, you know, the year of the Titanic, because we’ve had two major news stories about this ship, and we’re only a few months into the year. So I don’t know, it’s, it’s bizarre. But again, I don’t think that there’s anything that we’ve kind of witnessed as a disaster that is, again, loomed as large as this ship has. So it in many ways is not surprising that we’re fixated on it once again.

Jordan Heath Rawlings The BBC by the way, is, is reporting kind of as we’re talking that another commercial vessel, a pipe laying vessel has a remote underwater vehicle in the area, and they’re gonna try to send that down to look, but we just wait and, and hope for the best in terms of this search. And, and you mentioned the deadline somewhere around Thursday morning, I guess?

Leyland Cecco Yeah, so this is kind of, I mean, I, I feel a bit glimpse in this, but the do or die time in the search in that you are racing against the reality that oxygen is running out. If the crew is still safe within the vessel. They have a very large and difficult space to search. The fact that they have a new submersible, they can pile it down there, gives them for the first time eyes in the water. Because until this point, they’ve just been relying on sound. But even then you have to hope that the craft, the Titan has some form of kind of reflective material or can kind of broadcast, I mean be seen in the dark because if it is down there, it is down there very far in the dark alone. And so while this submersible will aid in efforts, I think this is very much, we have to hope for the best situation because the voyage down there pushes the limits of what’s possible. But setting another voyage down there to rescue them is, I think in many ways impossible.

Jordan Heath Rawlings Do you think that, and we’re obviously, crossing our fingers for this vehicle to be found near the surface and people rescued should the worst occur and it’s lost down there? Does this add to the myth of the Titanic, does this make the site more attractive for this kind of visitor?

Leyland Cecco I hadn’t thought about that, and I worry that it does because it adds a level of danger and mystery because I mean, we’re still in, in recent years getting new theories of what brought the Titanic down of, you know, a fire in the hall, weakened it and made it more susceptible to an iceberg strike. And to have a submersible full of explorers and scientists and, you know, a billionaire to disappear researching the boat, we’ll wanna know what happened? We’ll wanna know what caused, you know, a craft made of futuristic materials to just fail. And I think the Titanic represents always searching for answers. And I, and I can’t imagine this event will, will do anything to, to kind of calm that quest.

Jordan Heath Rawlings Leyland, thank you so much for this and, I guess we’ll all watch and hope.

Leyland Cecco Thanks for having me, Jordan. And it, yeah, it’s a difficult time for a lot of people to see this unfold and, and I think hope is the best thing that we have right now. Leyland Cecco reporting for the Guardian. That was The Big Story. For more, you can head to TheBigStorypodcast.ca. You can find us on Twitter @TheBigStoryfpn. You can always write to us. The address is Hello@TheBigStorypodcast.ca. You can find this podcast for free and every single podcast player available. If you really don’t want to hear ads, you can subscribe to TBS Plus in Apple Podcasts. Thanks for listening. I’m Jordan Heath Rawlings. We’ll talk tomorrow.