Doctors reveal horror final moments of Titanic tourists as crew would have been 'alive one millisecond & dead the next' | The Sun
THE tragic Titan sub crew would have been "alive one millisecond and dead the next", a US Navy doctor revealed today.
Oceangate CEO Stockton Rush, Brit billionaire Hamish Harding, Paul-Henri Nargeolet, businessman Shahzada Dawood and his 19-year-old son Suleman all died on a dive to the Titanic wreck.
A deep-sea robot sub found five major pieces of debris of Titan two miles beneath the surface on Thursday.
Rear Admiral John Mauger, of the US Coast Guard, said the debris was 1,600ft from Titanic – and "consistent with a catastrophic loss of the pressure chamber".
Dr Dale Molé, the former director of undersea medicine and radiation health for the US Navy, revealed what would have happened during the crew's tragic final moments.
A violent implosion would have torn away the rear cover, landing frame, and ripped apart the sub's hull – crushing the passengers inside.
Read more on Titan
Director James Cameron slams search for sub as ‘nightmarish charade’
How one tiny fault with Titan could have led to catastrophic implosion
Molé told the Daily Mail: "It would have been so sudden, that they wouldn't even have known that there was a problem, or what happened to them.
"It's like being here one minute, and then the switch is turned off. You're alive one millisecond, and the next millisecond you're dead."
He compared the seismic implosion to the popping of a balloon when it has been blown up too much.
"They would have been ripped to shreds," Dr Molé explained.
Most read in The Sun
Director James Cameron slams search for sub as 'nightmarish charade'
Son who died on sub was 'terrified about trip but went to please dad'
Mason Greenwood looks worlds away from Prem as he trains alone
Debris from missing Titanic sub holds vital clues – as crew confirmed dead
"An implosion is when the wave of pressure is inward, whereas an explosion is when the pressure wave or the shock wave goes out from whatever the source of that is.
"When somebody stands on an empty soda can, it would support your weight, but then if you press on the sides, the can would collapse immediately."
The crew were more than two miles below the ocean surface – with a pressure of around 6,000 PSI, compared to 14.7 at sea level.
The tiny 21ft vessel was protected by a pressure chamber – a sealed pod.
An implosion could have been be caused by a leak, a power failure, or fire from an electrical short circuit, experts said.
"The pressure hull is the chamber where the occupants reside," Molé explained.
"It sounds as though they had reached the bottom when the pressure vessel imploded, and usually, when it gives way, it gives way all at once."
Dr Nicolai Roterman, a deep-sea ecologist at the University of Portsmouth, said the crew would have died in a "near instant".
She said: "If there was any kind of hull breach, the occupants would succumb to the ocean in a near instant."
Hollywood director James Cameron – who has completed 33 dives to the wreck – believes the crew would have heard creaking in the sub before it imploded, killing all five on board.
"That’s quite a horrifying prospect," he told CNN.
He also drew comparisons to the sinking of the Titanic in 1912 after OceanGate came under fire for crucial safety blunders.
The company faced a lawsuit over fears about the sub’s safety – and a former passenger revealed the vessel also went missing last year.
"I’m struck by the similarity of the Titanic disaster itself, where the captain was repeatedly warned about ice ahead of his ship and yet he steamed at full speed into an ice field," Cameron told ABC.
The director of Titanic claimed he knew on Monday there had been an implosion – days before the debris was found.
He told CNN he received "confirmation that there was some kind of loud noise consistent with an implosion event" from his colleagues in "the deep submergence community".
Cameron told BBC News: "I felt in my bones what had happened.
"For the sub's electronics to fail and its communication system to fail, and its tracking transponder to fail simultaneously – sub's gone."
The sub's owner OceanGate confirmed the five crew were dead in a statement on Thursday afternoon.
The vessel vanished less than two hours into its descent to the Titanic wreckage on Sunday.
Read More On The Sun
Single mum shares tour of HUGE mobile home & people say it’s bigger than a house
Vet’s urgent warning to dog owners over pet food bowl mistake
Search crews had been frantically looking for the vessel in the Atlantic after it lost communication on Sunday with just 96 hours of life support.
The sub failed to resurface later that afternoon – with its final "ping" to mothership Polar Prince placing the sub directly above the ruins.
Source: Read Full Article