I have not seen anybody give any specific percentages of survival. A good rule to follow is not to personally read more into statements than is actually there.
All the quoted statements from rescue personnel do indicate a sense of urgency with the implication that the search is difficult and, as always in such situations, the timeframe is critical, which belies the idea of a high probability of a fast rescue.
ETA: I mean, what are they supposed to say? “It’s virtually hopeless, why bother?”
Well, there are two possible outcomes: they are saved OR they are not saved. So 50/50 right? 
The larger point of course is that everyone loves a “people in peril with a deadline” story. Lots of viewers for that. If the first news report is “5 people died yesterday in a flooded sub”, that has no staying power at all. Doubly so if there isn’t, and won’t be for weeks, any pix or vid to look at.
At least the story is getting a lot of air.
Shame it’s all where it’s not doing them any good.
Any thoughts on this?
Partial flooding? Why wouldn’t the water keep coming in until it was completely flooded? And even if there was a small air bubble left wouldn’t the air pressure be so high as to be deadly?
A retired U.S. Navy submarine captain said on NPR Tuesday morning that (as of the time of the interview) he believed they had a 1% chance of being alive. That was Tuesday.
Yeah, regardless, I haven’t seen anyone even imply anything like a 50-50 chance of finding them alive. It all seemed pretty grim from the get-go.
It’s time to move on. Call it a “burial at sea” and abandon the rescue/recovery efforts.
There are plenty of living people with fixable problems that this attention could be focused on. This is not a fixable situation and these efforts are a waste of resources.
It’s good, coordinated training between various agencies that do need to train to be proficient at this sort of thing. I suspect this was always a training exercise for most of them, they knew from the beginning that the odds of finding them was low and actually rescuing them was nil.
It was my understanding that the crew chamber of the submersible was kept at 1 atmosphere, so any breach of hull integrity would have likely been pretty brief.
For sure if the main cabin was holed it’d fill instantly and they’d be turned into singed ketchup in milliseconds.
Without knowing more about the construction of the sub, there may be additional partitions wherein, say, an electric motor is in a dry compartment outside the main pressure hull, but with a shaft leading to a propeller outside. If that shaft seal gave way, that small compartment might flood without necessarily breaching the main cabin.
The expert speaking in the article apparently wasn’t involved in designing this particular sub, so he may just be enumerating plausible possibilities without enough detailed knowledge to rule them in or out in this event.
For their sakes, I hope the catastrophic implosion was what happened, since all the other scenarios are such slow-motion horrors. Although the banging, if indeed from them, argues otherwise.
Regarding future hypothetical lawsuits, what do our resident lawyers think about this text apparently present in the waiver all passengers had to sign?
« Before entering the sub in the CBS story, reporter David Pogue read a waiver that passengers needed to sign ahead of the adventure, which warned that Titan “has not been approved or certified by any regulatory body” and that the trip “could result in physical injury, disability, emotional trauma or death."»
They did have it stated clearly, then. I wonder if that’s enough to save their butts against lawsuits?
IANAL, but my guess is that much would depend on the judgment of the particular court and the skill of the lawyers involved – i.e.- it’s probably not a slam-dunk for either side. The disclaimer about “not approved or certified by any regulatory body”, for example, doesn’t disclose the facts that the viewport was explicitly denied certification for the intended depths, that serious questions about safety had been raised in the past, and that all other submersibles capable of going to the intended depths were, in fact, certified and Titan was the only one that wasn’t.
Those are serious issues that might not be effectively countered by legal boilerplate. Some of this legalese – excepting the “not certified” and “possible death” parts – frankly reminds me of the scary-sounding waiver I had to sign before a completely routine tooth extraction. Or the one I had to sign before a cardiac stenting operation, which actually did include the “possible death” part. It doesn’t relieve the service provider of reasonable expectations of competence and due diligence.
Unlikely, at least as far as having a lawsuit dismissed out of hand.
Years back, I posted a question about a waiver we were required to sign for a ski event, that said “you can’t sue us even if we are negligent”. The consensus was that was pretty worthless, and we would likely be able to sue anyway (luckily the question never arose!!).
In any case, with the CEO being one of the people in the thing, I expect the company will completely collapse at this point, rendering any attempts at lawsuits pretty much moot. Dunno if family members could quickly file to have any corporate assets frozen quickly to prevent the funds being used up in any other manner.
As far as the people down in that submersible: I hope they are dead already, since rescue seems impossible at this point. I cannot imagine the horror of being trapped inside something like that, knowing you are going to die, and there’s nothing you can do about it.
…I watched the video of this last night before it got scrubbed from the internet. But you can see a bit of it here:
Basically it shows how they try to remap the controller, but nobody can remember how.
Total clown show.
Maybe it’s just me - I mean, ya know, maybe I’m just a little overcautious, a little too risk averse, perhaps. Maybe even a bit chicken, a little on the fraidy-cat side. You know, just my personal position here. And granted, I’m no marine engineer. I’m not an expert in subs. But - and again this is just me talking, just my humble opinion - I don’t think I’d want to go down 3000 metres under the sea in a vehicle designed with less care and quality assurance than a guy setting up a home PC rig to play “Mechwarrior.”
Schrodinger’s sub?
If only they had remembered this, all would have been fine.