The submersible that went missing on a trip to see the wreckage of the Titanic is getting a lot of attention on social media because it looks like it is controlled by a games system controller.
Two crew members and three guests, who each paid $250,000 for a spot on the ship, set out on Sunday morning to find the wreckage of the Titanic.
Since the Titanic sank in 1912, there has been a lot of mystery about it. It was even the subject of a big movie starring Kate Winslet and Leonardo Di Caprio.
The damage is about 12,500 feet below the surface, which means it takes about two hours for the submersible to get there.
OceanGate is in charge of the trip, and the submarine is called Titan. But the way the submarine is run has gotten a lot of attention online.
As was already said, the boat is 263 inches long, 110 inches wide, and 98 inches tall. It is made for five people.
According to BBC News, the Titan has a dome-shaped porthole at the front that lets people on board see the wrecks. The company says this is the “largest viewport of any deep-sea manned submersible.”
There is also a toilet on board for the guests, but they are told to eat less before the trip so they don’t have to use it as much.
When someone needs to use the toilet, the pilot closes a small screen and turns on some music to give them a sense of privacy.
Wall-mounted lamps are the only way to get light on board, and the walls are heated to keep from getting too cold when going deep into the ocean.
There is only enough oxygen for 96 hours, and there are many 4k cameras and computers so that people on board can see the Titanic from all sides.
The pilot uses GPS to control the ship up to a certain depth. After that, he or she is directed by texts sent from the ship that stays on the surface through an ultra-short baseline (USBL) acoustic system. In a new video that was originally shot for a BBC story, an official from OceanGate tells the reporter, “We run the submarine with this game controller,” while holding up a modified Logitech F710 gaming controller.
He also says, “It’s kind of like a Sony PlayStation controller.”
“If you want to move ahead, you have to push ahead. “To go back, you press back,” he says while showing how to do it.
People on social media have criticised using a device like this to “run the sub” after CNN and BBC News posted about it on Twitter and TikTok, respectively.
Sky News says that a businessman and guest lecturer at Sunderland University named Dik Barton has done 22 dives to the ruins of the Titanic. He thinks that the ship has either lost power or its structure has been damaged by the depth.
The Titan’s pilot, whose name has since been revealed to be Paul-Henry Nargeolet, is said to have done many deep-sea dives before.
Barton said, “He’s the kind of man who can keep them quiet, but it’s not easy in a tube at the bottom of the ocean. It’s terrible. He is an amazing traveller and person, and he knows the wreck better than anyone else I know.”
The US Coast Guard is in charge of the search for the ship. Help is coming in from all over the world, and Sky News says that about 10,000 square miles have already been looked for.
We are still thinking about everyone on board and their families.