BOSTON — The desperate search for a submersible that went missing while taking five people to view the wreckage of the Titanic has drawn attention to other deep-sea rescues.
Those rescue efforts, from a submersible off Ireland to a submarine off the New Hampshire coast, offer some hope for the passengers and their families. But some of those rescues weren’t as complex as the effort to find the Titan submersible. They were often in shallower water, and in several cases they were much larger vessels. Many ended in the deaths of some, if not all, of the passengers on board, demonstrating the inherent risk of operating in the depths of the ocean.
SUBMERSIBLE PISCES III
Fifty years ago, two British sailors were trapped in a deep-sea submersible more than 1,500 feet below the surface of the Atlantic Ocean, facing an uncertain fate as an international team searched for a way to free them.
In an incident echoing efforts to find and recover those trapped on the Titan submersible, the lives of Roger Chapman and Roger Mallinson depended on the success of the mission, which turned out to be the deepest known successful underwater rescue.
The operation illustrates the difficulty of carrying out deep-sea rescues.
The ordeal for Chapman and Mallinson began when the two were laying a transatlantic telephone cable some 150 miles off the coast of Cork, Ireland on August 29, 1973.
During what would otherwise have been a routine shift, water began to flood the aft section of the vessel, which measured only about six feet in diameter. The Pisces III would sink to about 1,575 feet.
Once the vehicle reached the bottom of the sea, the two could do little more than search for leaks and do their best to conserve oxygen. Unlike the Titan, they were able to maintain communication with those on the surface.
The Pisces III was too deep for divers, so rescuers began looking at other options. One was a US remote controlled submersible called the CURV-III for controlled underwater recovery vehicles. The Canadian Coast Guard and the Royal Navy also responded. Two similar submersibles, Pisces II and Pisces V, were also sent to the scene.
Rescuers managed to connect cables to the stranded submersible. With available oxygen running low and the two having eaten their only meal, a can of lemonade and a cheese sandwich, rescuers began hoisting the Pisces III until it broke the surface of the water.
Chapman and Mallinson had to wait a little longer as workers struggled for 30 minutes to open the hatch to allow fresh air in.
The two had been in the capsule for more than 84 hours and had approximately 12 minutes of oxygen left by the time they were able to get out of the confined spaces.
USS SQUALUS
Off the New Hampshire coast, the diesel-electric submarine USS Squalus was on a test dive in March 1939 when a valve failure caused a portion of the submarine to flood.
The Squalus bottomed out in about 240 feet of water off the Isle of Shoals. Salvage operations began the next day, according to the Navy History and Heritage Command.
For the first time, the Navy used the McCann Rescue Chamber, a pear-shaped steel chamber, which was lowered into the submarine and successfully transported the surviving crew members to the surface.
Over the next 13 hours, 33 surviving crew members were rescued. Twenty-six others drowned in the initial accident. “During the emergency and the entire time we were at the bottom, all crew members demonstrated composure and precision in carrying out the duties of their posts,” according to the testimony of Lieutenant WT Doyle, one of the survivors.
“The Commander’s orders were carried out promptly and efficiently. Despite the low temperature and the tight space, there were no complaints. A group of men of better quality or higher spirit than those of the Squalus will never be bettered.
RUSSIAN MINISUB
In 2005, a Russian AS-28 mini-submarine sank in the Pacific Ocean after becoming entangled in a fishing net.
The AS-28 was sent to investigate an underwater surveillance antenna that had become entangled in nets. While surveying the area, the sub became stuck in about 620 feet of water.
Seven trapped sailors began writing farewell letters to their loved ones as water supplies dwindled and the air thinned in the claustrophobic mini-sub on the Pacific floor. But with only several hours of oxygen to spare, a British robotic craft was able to free the sub.
Crew members recalled three days of darkness and freezing temperatures.
“It was cold, cold, very cold. I can’t even describe it,” a crew member said as sailors walked ashore with dazed looks and bloodshot eyes after their boat broke free of the cables that had snagged it.
Soon after, Russian officials investigating the near tragedy found problems with the rescue effort. Among them were reports that the Navy may have initially refused the submarine’s request to be towed free, fearing it would damage the submarine antenna assembly.
The response was reminiscent of the Kursk submarine disaster of 2000, in which most of the 118 crew members died instantly. When the submarine sank to the bottom of the sea, just 350 feet below the surface, 23 men were able to flee to a rear compartment, where they waited for help. But delays in launching a rescue effort and then in seeking Western help doomed the rest of the crew, who died mainly from suffocation.
SUB INDONESIA
Two years ago, an Indonesian submarine disappeared off the resort island of Bali with 53 sailors on board.
The submarine lost contact after receiving clearance to dive. The Defense Ministry said a helicopter later detected an oil slick near the starting position of the dive.
The Navy launched a frantic search and predicted that the submarine would run out of oxygen in the next few days. A camera-equipped underwater robot found the lost submarine in at least three pieces on the ocean floor at a depth of 838 meters (2,750 feet). All 53 crew members died.
The cause of the sinking of the German-built diesel submarine remains uncertain. The Navy previously said that a power failure could have left the submarine unable to execute emergency procedures for resurfacing. Emergency survival suits that are normally kept in boxes were found floating underwater, apparently indicating that the crew may have attempted to don them during the emergency.
USS THRESHER
In 1963, the crew of a rescue ship listened helplessly after receiving an ominous message “exceeding test depth” before the nuclear-powered USS Thresher disintegrated under the crushing pressure of the sea. 129 sailors and civilians died in a routine test dive off Cape Cod.
There was a massive search by air and surface forces using sonar, magnetometers, and radiation detectors. Some floating debris was recovered. But it wasn’t until several months later that a deep-submersion research bathyscaphe discovered the wreckage at a depth of about 8,500 feet.
The wreckage of the submarine covers a mile of ocean floor, according to oceanographer Robert Ballard, who used his 1985 discovery of the RMS Titanic as a Cold War cover for the fact that he had surveyed the Thresher on the same mission.
