Less than 8 hours left for the Titanic-touring submarine, OceanGate, to be rescued: hopes vanish

On Sunday morning of the 18^th of June, a submersible vessel went down the atlantic ocean near the coast of Canada with 4 tourists and one man piloting the vehicle to visit the wreck of the Titanic ship that sank in 1912, and currently sits at 1.300 feet below the surface. The communication between the passengers and the on land crew was lost 2 hours after the submersion began. The crew did not immediately inform the authorities, instead, it was informed later that same day during nighttime.

It was informed by the crew that the vehicle has around 4 days of oxygen available for the 5 passengers to breathe on, based on the time the submarine went down, it’s expected that the oxygen will run out around the morning of the Thursday 22^nd of June, which will be their most likely cause of death, which is getting dangerously closer by the minute. This data, of course, is an estimate, as there are many variables that can affect the oxygen levels, such as how many people are alive, how fast they have consumed the oxygen, and more.

Rescuing efforts began immediately after the incident was informed to the authorities, with joint forces between Canada’s and the United States’ coast guards, navy, and armed forces. Till this moment, the vehicle has not been located, and there is no plan proposed on how to take it back to the surface, which can also take between 4-6 hours, meaning there are less than 2 hours to locate the vessel and come up with a resurfacing plan.

So far, the only progress has been “banging sounds with an interval of 30 minutes” heard with a Canadian sonar, which confirmed that at least one passenger is still alive, close to the resting place of the iconic Titanic that sank in 1912.

Scientists have already started to point out the impossibility of the rescue of the passengers, who are now breathing in very low levels of oxygen, with the air contaminated by their bodily waste and gases produced by their bodies. The submarine is also not able to maintain an adequate temperature for very long, so the passengers are also exposed to hypothermia due to the extremely low temperatures of the deep level they are at. In short, all rescuing efforts are most likely useless.

Media coverage has been constantly informing the status of the rescuing efforts, while most internet users have taken the situation for a comedic incident, since the 4 passengers paid $250.000 USD to get into the vessel that has now been declared impossible to rescue.

The circumstances of the tour have also been pointed out to be ironically comedic, such as the fact that the whole vehicle is controlled by a video-game knock-off brand control remote, that the vessel has to be bolt from the outside before immersion and can take hours to re-open, and that there were multiple severe safety concerns raised about the vessel before it was released to the ocean, and yet, 4 people paid to be on it to see already-seen fotage of the Titanic wreck, reportedly, very wealthy.