www.npr.org Open in urlscan Pro
2a02:26f0:3100:2a2::1155  Public Scan

Form analysis
0 forms found in the DOM

Text Content

Accessibility links
 * Skip to main content
 * Keyboard shortcuts for audio player

NPR 24 Hour Program StreamOn Air Now
 * Hourly News
 * Listen Live
 * Playlist

 * Open Navigation Menu
 * 
 * 
 * Sign In
 * NPR Shop
 * Donate

> Close Navigation Menu
 * Home
 * News Expand/collapse submenu for News
   * National
   * World
   * Politics
   * Business
   * Health
   * Science
   * Climate
   * Race
 * Culture Expand/collapse submenu for Culture
   * Books
   * Movies
   * Television
   * Pop Culture
   * Food
   * Art & Design
   * Performing Arts
   * Life Kit
   * Gaming
 * Music Expand/collapse submenu for Music
   * Tiny Desk
   * #NowPlaying
   * All Songs Considered
   * Music Features
   * Live Sessions
 * Podcasts & Shows Expand/collapse submenu for Podcasts & Shows
   Daily
    * Morning Edition
    * Weekend Edition Saturday
    * Weekend Edition Sunday
    * All Things Considered
    * Fresh Air
    * Up First
   
   Featured
    * Taking Cover
    * Louder Than A Riot
    * It's Been a Minute
    * Life Kit
   
    * More Podcasts & Shows

 * Search
 * Sign In
 * NPR Shop

 * 
 * Tiny Desk
 * #NowPlaying
 * All Songs Considered
 * Music Features
 * Live Sessions

 * About NPR
 * Diversity
 * Organization
 * NPR Network
 * Support
 * Careers
 * Connect
 * Press
 * Ethics

Titanic submersible: Why rescuers have their work cut out for them Retired U.S.
Navy submarine Capt. David Marquet says crews would need to locate the vessel
then bring it to the surface to unlatch it. He puts the odds of passengers'
survival at "about 1%."

NPR


NATIONAL

LISTEN & FOLLOW Fill 10 Created with Sketch.
 * NPR App
 * Apple Podcasts
 * Spotify
 * Google Podcasts
 * Amazon Music
 * Amazon Alexa
 * RSS link


NATIONAL


'TINY SUB, BIG OCEAN': WHY THE TITANIC SUBMERSIBLE SEARCH IS SO CHALLENGING

Updated June 20, 20239:28 AM ET Originally published June 20, 20235:13 AM ET
Heard on Morning Edition

By 

Rachel Treisman

'TINY SUB, BIG OCEAN': WHY THE TITANIC SUBMERSIBLE SEARCH IS SO CHALLENGING

Listen· 4:014-Minute ListenPlaylist
Toggle more options
 * Download
 * Embed
   Embed <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/1183152712/1183152713"
   width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded
   audio player">
 * Transcript

Enlarge this image

A U.S. Coast Guard vessel sits in port in Boston Harbor on Monday amidst the
search for the submersible. Joseph Prezioso/AFP via Getty Images hide caption

toggle caption
Joseph Prezioso/AFP via Getty Images


A U.S. Coast Guard vessel sits in port in Boston Harbor on Monday amidst the
search for the submersible.

Joseph Prezioso/AFP via Getty Images

The search continues for OceanGate's Titan submersible, the vessel that went
missing on Sunday during one of its deep sea tourist trips to the Titanic
shipwreck.

Officials say the submersible lost contact with its support ship about 1 hour
and 45 minutes after submerging into the Atlantic Ocean and about 435 miles
south of St. John's, Newfoundland, in Canada.

There are five people on board, and not much time left to find them. The U.S.
Coast Guard estimated Monday afternoon that the vessel had somewhere between 70
and 96 hours of oxygen left.


NATIONAL


MISSING SUBMERSIBLE: RESCUERS RACE TO FIND TITAN AFTER DETECTING UNDERWATER
NOISES

The U.S. and Canadian Coast Guards are scouring the area, using aircraft and
sonar devices to scan the ocean and detect any sounds from below the surface —
under which the Titanic wreckage sits nearly 13,000 feet down.

David Marquet, a retired U.S. Navy submarine captain, says there are many
factors that make this search and rescue mission particularly challenging: It's
a "tiny sub, big ocean and extremely deep water and several hundred miles away
from the coast."

"It's basically imagining a spacecraft disappeared on the far side of the moon,"
he says. "A, you have to find it. B, you have to get to it. Even when you get to
it ... you still need to somehow get the people out of there to safety."




HISTORY


A REMARKABLE NEW VIEW OF THE TITANIC SHIPWRECK IS HERE, THANKS TO DEEP-SEA
MAPPERS

The way to do that, he says, is to tow the submersible — whose hatch is bolted
from the outside — back to the surface where a team can open it up.

Marquet says that's theoretically possible, but the odds are low. Whatever it is
that happened to the Titan, he puts the chances of its passengers' survival at
"about 1 percent."

"I'm hopeful, but I think the families should prepare themselves for bad news,"
he says.

He spoke to Morning Edition's Michel Martin about how the search is progressing
and what might happen next.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


INTERVIEW HIGHLIGHTS

On specifics of the search and rescue mission

The Coast Guard is flying airplanes, they're looking visually on the surface,
they are coordinating with Canadians. The Canadians are also flying airplanes —
one of their airplanes is a submarine-hunting airplane so it's dropping sonar
buoys. Usually the way these sonar buoys work is they're listening for noise
from the submarine, and since there's a row of these sonar buoys we can
triangulate where the noise is coming from and get a pretty good location of the
submarine. Now the problem is, in this case, it doesn't appear that the
submarine is making any noise, because they're not recording any signals. That
makes it a lot harder.


CULTURE


NEWLY RELEASED FOOTAGE OF A 1986 TITANIC DIVE REVEALS THE SHIP'S HAUNTING
INTERIOR

On what the next phase would entail

The next step would be basically to do high-resolution scanning of the bottom
using sonar. And this thing is about as big as a large SUV, and it's in an area
where, of course, the Titanic is, and the Titanic debris field, and there are
other rock formations, so that will be a lengthy process.

On why the passengers are trapped

This submarine is a small submersible. When you get it in, they actually bolt
the hatch on from the outside, so they don't even have the ability to open the
hatch. They couldn't open it against the sea pressure — the sea pressure down
there is 400 times what we feel here at the atmosphere, so they couldn't open it
anyway. But even if we got them to the surface, we need a team from the outside
to open it.


TED RADIO HOUR


ROBERT BALLARD: WHAT HIDDEN UNDERWATER WORLDS ARE LEFT TO DISCOVER?

On how to bring the submersible back up

The good news is because it's only 21 feet long, it weighs about 10 tons, and
there is equipment — we could hook a crane or a grappling hook or some kind of a
hook — to draw the thing back up to the surface. That ... requires a special
ship with a two-and-a-half mile cable and the ability to get the hook actually
on to the submersible.

The broadcast interview was produced by Claire Murashima and Milton Guevara, and
edited by Adam Bearne.

 * Titan submersible
 * search and rescue
 * U.S. Coast Guard
 * Titanic

 * Facebook
 * Flipboard
 * Email







MORE STORIES FROM NPR

BOOK REVIEWS

'RICH WHITE MEN' REINFORCES THE ARGUMENT THAT INEQUALITY HARMS US ALL

NATIONAL

MISSING SUBMERSIBLE: RESCUERS RACE TO FIND TITAN AFTER DETECTING UNDERWATER
NOISES

BOOK NEWS & FEATURES

IN 'THE FIGHT FOR MIDNIGHT,' A TEEN BOY CONFRONTS THE ABORTION DEBATE

NEWS

UP FIRST: TITAN SUBMERSIBLE SEARCH; ABORTION POLL; ANXIETY SCREENINGS

SPORTS

THEIR PRIZE CATCH WAS SET TO BRING IN $3.5 MILLION. THEN THE FISH WAS
DISQUALIFIED

INVESTIGATIONS

ELECTION WORKERS ARE FACING THREATS AND HARASSMENT AS THEY BRACE FOR 2024


POPULAR ON NPR.ORG

EUROPE

ANDREW TATE IS INDICTED ON HUMAN TRAFFICKING AND RAPE CHARGES IN ROMANIA

RESEARCH NEWS

HUNTINGTON'S SPREADS LIKE 'FIRE IN THE BRAIN.' SCIENTISTS SAY THEY'VE FOUND THE
SPARK

BUSINESS

A 3-HOUR PHONE CALL THAT BROUGHT HER TO TEARS: IMPOSTER SCAMS COST AMERICANS
BILLIONS

'TALES OF MIDDLE-EARTH' TEMPTS AND DIVIDES 'MAGIC' FANS WITH 'LOTR' CROSSOVER

EUROPE

HOW UKRAINE CREATED AN 'ARMY OF DRONES' TO TAKE ON RUSSIA

EDUCATION

STUDENT PODCASTERS SHARE THE DARK REALITIES OF MIDDLE SCHOOL IN AMERICA


NPR EDITORS' PICKS

EDUCATION

A MISSISSIPPI TEEN UNPACKS HOW THE JACKSON WATER CRISIS IMPACTS EDUCATION

MUSIC FEATURES

THE REBUILT HEART OF JASON ISBELL

YOUR HEALTH

DON'T GET THE JITTERS — KEEP UP A HEALTHY RELATIONSHIP WITH CAFFEINE USING THESE
TIPS

HEALTH

HOW MANY MILES DO YOU HAVE TO TRAVEL TO GET ABORTION CARE? ONE PROFESSOR MAPS IT

CULTURE

THE ACADEMY OF AMERICAN POETS NAMES ITS FIRST LATINO HEAD

GAMING

'FINAL FANTASY XVI' REVIEW: THE LEGENDARY SERIES AT ITS BEST



READ & LISTEN

 * Home
 * News
 * Culture
 * Music
 * Podcasts & Shows

CONNECT

 * Newsletters
 * Facebook
 * Instagram
 * Press
 * Public Editor
 * Corrections
 * Contact & Help

ABOUT NPR

 * Overview
 * Diversity
 * NPR Network
 * Accessibility
 * Ethics
 * Finances

GET INVOLVED

 * Support Public Radio
 * Sponsor NPR
 * NPR Careers
 * NPR Shop
 * NPR Events
 * NPR Extra

 * Terms of Use
 * Privacy
 * Your Privacy Choices
 * Text Only
 * © 2023 npr




Sponsor Message

Become an NPR sponsor




COOKIE CONSENT & SPONSORSHIP CHOICES

We and our partners store and access information on your device, such as unique
IDs in cookies to process personal data. You may accept and manage your choices
at any time by clicking `Manage Preferences`, including your right to object
where legitimate interest is relied upon. Your choices will be signaled to our
partners and will not affect your browsing.

By clicking “Accept All,” you agree to the use of cookies, similar tracking and
storage technologies, and information about your device to enhance your viewing,
listening and user experience, personalize content, personalize messages from
NPR’s sponsors, provide social media features, and analyze NPR’s traffic. This
information is shared with social media, sponsorship, analytics, and other
vendors or service providers.


WE AND OUR PARTNERS PROCESS DATA TO PROVIDE:

Actively scan device characteristics for identification. Store and/or access
information on a device. Personalised ads and content, ad and content
measurement, audience insights and product development. List of Partners
(service providers or vendors)

Accept All Reject All Manage Preferences



MANAGE PREFERENCES

We process your data to deliver content or advertisements and measure the
delivery of such content or advertisements to extract insights about our
website. We share this information with our partners on the basis of consent and
legitimate interest. You may exercise your right to consent or object to a
legitimate interest, based on a specific purpose below or at a partner level in
the link under each purpose. These choices will be signaled to our vendors
participating in the Transparency and Consent Framework.
Allow All


MANAGE CONSENT PREFERENCES

STRICTLY NECESSARY OR ESSENTIAL COOKIES

Always Active

These cookies are essential to provide you with services available through the
NPR Services and to enable you to use some of their features. These cookies are
necessary for the website to function and cannot be switched off in our systems.
They are usually set in response to actions made by you that amount to a request
for services, such as setting your privacy preferences, logging in, or filling
in forms. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies,
but some parts of the site will not then work. Without these cookies, the
services that you have asked for cannot be provided, and we only use these
cookies to provide you with those services.

Cookies Details‎

PERFORMANCE AND ANALYTICS COOKIES

Performance and Analytics Cookies

These cookies are used to collect information about traffic to our Services and
how users interact with the NPR Services. The information collected includes the
number of visitors to the NPR Services, the websites that referred visitors to
the NPR Services, the pages that they visited on the NPR Services, what time of
day they visited the NPR Services, whether they have visited the NPR Services
before, and other similar information. We use this information to help operate
the NPR Services more efficiently, to gather broad demographic information and
to monitor the level of activity on the NPR Services. NPR's third-party service
providers that measure and analyze the use of the NPR Services for NPR also use
their own cookies. NPR's third-party analytics service providers use cookies
across multiple sites to collect visitor data (such as data related to age,
gender and visitor interests).

Cookies Details‎

TARGETING AND SPONSOR COOKIES

Targeting and Sponsor Cookies

These cookies track your browsing habits or other information, such as location,
to enable us to show sponsorship credits which are more likely to be of interest
to you. These cookies use information about your browsing history to group you
with other users who have similar interests. Based on that information, and with
our permission, we and our sponsors can place cookies to enable us or our
sponsors to show sponsorship credits and other messages that we think will be
relevant to your interests while you are using third-party services. NPR works
with third-party vendors that may serve sponsorship credits or other messages to
you on other websites after you visit the NPR Services. These third-party
vendors use their own cookies to recognize you as an NPR Services visitor and to
serve you sponsorship credits or other messages on other websites that they
believe you will find most relevant. If you do not allow these cookies, you may
still receive sponsorship or marketing messages, but they may not be targeted to
your interests.

Cookies Details‎

FUNCTIONAL COOKIES

Functional Cookies

These cookies allow NPR Services to remember choices you make when you use them,
such as remembering your Member station preferences and remembering your account
details. The purpose of these cookies is to provide you with a more personal
experience and to avoid you having to re-enter your preferences every time you
visit the NPR Services. They may be set by us or by third party providers whose
services we have added to our pages. If you do not allow these cookies then some
or all of these services may not function properly.

Cookies Details‎

STORE AND/OR ACCESS INFORMATION ON A DEVICE

Store and/or access information on a device

Cookies, device identifiers, or other information can be stored or accessed on
your device for the purposes presented to you.

List of IAB Vendors‎ | View Full Legal Text Opens in a new Tab

PERSONALISED ADS AND CONTENT, AD AND CONTENT MEASUREMENT, AUDIENCE INSIGHTS AND
PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT

Personalised ads and content, ad and content measurement, audience insights and
product development

 * SELECT BASIC ADS
   
   Switch Label
   
   Ads can be shown to you based on the content you’re viewing, the app you’re
   using, your approximate location, or your device type.
   
   Object to Legitimate Interests Remove Objection

 * CREATE A PERSONALISED ADS PROFILE
   
   Switch Label
   
   A profile can be built about you and your interests to show you personalised
   ads that are relevant to you.
   
   Object to Legitimate Interests Remove Objection

 * SELECT PERSONALISED ADS
   
   Switch Label
   
   Personalised ads can be shown to you based on a profile about you.
   
   Object to Legitimate Interests Remove Objection

 * CREATE A PERSONALISED CONTENT PROFILE
   
   Switch Label
   
   A profile can be built about you and your interests to show you personalised
   content that is relevant to you.
   
   Object to Legitimate Interests Remove Objection

 * SELECT PERSONALISED CONTENT
   
   Switch Label
   
   Personalised content can be shown to you based on a profile about you.
   
   Object to Legitimate Interests Remove Objection

 * MEASURE AD PERFORMANCE
   
   Switch Label
   
   The performance and effectiveness of ads that you see or interact with can be
   measured.
   
   Object to Legitimate Interests Remove Objection

 * MEASURE CONTENT PERFORMANCE
   
   Switch Label
   
   The performance and effectiveness of content that you see or interact with
   can be measured.
   
   Object to Legitimate Interests Remove Objection

 * APPLY MARKET RESEARCH TO GENERATE AUDIENCE INSIGHTS
   
   Switch Label
   
   Market research can be used to learn more about the audiences who visit
   sites/apps and view ads.
   
   Object to Legitimate Interests Remove Objection

 * DEVELOP AND IMPROVE PRODUCTS
   
   Switch Label
   
   Your data can be used to improve existing systems and software, and to
   develop new products
   
   Object to Legitimate Interests Remove Objection

List of IAB Vendors‎ | View Full Legal Text Opens in a new Tab

ACTIVELY SCAN DEVICE CHARACTERISTICS FOR IDENTIFICATION

Actively scan device characteristics for identification

Your device can be identified based on a scan of your device's unique
combination of characteristics.

List of IAB Vendors‎ | View Full Legal Text Opens in a new Tab

ENSURE SECURITY, PREVENT FRAUD, AND DEBUG

Always Active

Your data can be used to monitor for and prevent fraudulent activity, and ensure
systems and processes work properly and securely.

List of IAB Vendors‎ | View Full Legal Text Opens in a new Tab

TECHNICALLY DELIVER ADS OR CONTENT

Always Active

Your device can receive and send information that allows you to see and interact
with ads and content.

List of IAB Vendors‎ | View Full Legal Text Opens in a new Tab

MATCH AND COMBINE OFFLINE DATA SOURCES

Always Active

Data from offline data sources can be combined with your online activity in
support of one or more purposes

List of IAB Vendors‎ | View Full Legal Text Opens in a new Tab

LINK DIFFERENT DEVICES

Always Active

Different devices can be determined as belonging to you or your household in
support of one or more of purposes.

List of IAB Vendors‎ | View Full Legal Text Opens in a new Tab

RECEIVE AND USE AUTOMATICALLY-SENT DEVICE CHARACTERISTICS FOR IDENTIFICATION

Always Active

Your device might be distinguished from other devices based on information it
automatically sends, such as IP address or browser type.

List of IAB Vendors‎ | View Full Legal Text Opens in a new Tab
Back Button


PERFORMANCE COOKIES



Search Icon
Filter Icon

Clear
checkbox label label
Apply Cancel
Consent Leg.Interest
checkbox label label
checkbox label label
checkbox label label

 * 
   
   View Cookies
   
    * Name
      cookie name

Reject All Confirm My Choices