HALIFAX, NOVA SCOTIA: A ray of hope emerged in the missing case of OceanGate’s submersible, the Titan, when it was reported that “banging” sounds were heard by a search aircraft. However, according to a sonar expert, the noises cannot be taken as a positive sign as they could be of the “debris” of the Titanic, which drowned in 1912. The vessel was going towards the wreckage of the doomed ship.
Jeff Karson, Professor Emeritus of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Syracuse University, told DailyMail.com, “One possibility is that the sounds bouncing around the debris. And so it's a more complicated echo. It's just not bouncing off of one thing. It's bouncing off a bunch of things. And it's like, you know, dropping up a marble into a tin can. It's rattling around and that would confuse the location.”
‘Everybody is doing the best they possibly can’
He went on to explain, “The banging, I hear the Coast Guard talk about it. I wonder how much of this is just wishful thinking? Is it really banging or just some unidentified sound? I think that is a more accurate description right now. In past investigations, looking for loss objects on the seafloor, I know that all sorts of crazy sound was discovered. It's just one more thing we don't understand about the ocean, our own planet.”
Karson also noted that “there's no telling where the sound is coming from or how far away it is. Personally, I'm worried that sound may be coming from something that's far from where they need to be looking. But they have to follow up on it. It's the best lead right now.”
‘There are a lot more bad possibilities than good ones at this stage’
As per reports, the vessel vanished on Sunday, June 18, one hour and 45 minutes into its journey. It has been said that it could not be located after the 12,500ft dive below the Atlantic. Billionaire Hamish Harding and OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush are two of the five men onboard the Titan, apparently now left with less than 24 hours of oxygen.
Since its disappearance, jets, ships, and high-tech submersibles from around the globe have been looking for it. Reports said that most of the operation is happening around the surface area but Karson remarked, “I don't know why they're searching such a wide area at the surface. It can't go that far, the batteries are not strong enough, and it can't go very fast. It has to go pretty much straight down. The good news is if they find it and free it, they'll be on the surface in two hours.”
“If there's no sound coming from the submarine - not even banging - that's not good. Clearly, there was an electronic failure of some kind. They lost all that communication and so forth. But that suggests that there might have been a catastrophic mechanical failure. There are a lot more bad possibilities than good ones at this stage. I think there are a lot of people who will not be shocked if that, wherever that sound is that there's no submarine there. I hope it's there. Everyone does. But there's a real strong possibility that it's something else,” he mentioned.
‘Airplanes detect the sound that the sound of buoys hear’
The professor, however, did talk about some possibilities. He shared, “This noise that they've detected if that's coming from the submarine if it is, they should be able to track that sound the same way by having multiple directions from echo different echoing points. Those could be these sonar buoys that they drop at the surface. That's why the airplanes are involved, the airplanes detect the sound that the sound of buoys hear and can look could locate the source of sound if there's enough of them.”
“And I believe they're also using the ROVs, to do that on the seafloor, which also have sonar. When they drive around, they scan the seafloor, and anything that's out there, that sticks up sound bounces off of it and comes back. It's just the same way a bat navigates. This sound has bounced off objects. The problem is that even relatively small objects, sometimes they make a reflect a lot of sound. With this debris field, there's just a lot of junk down there. That's reflecting. So more hunting and pecking required, the best thing can happen is if the sounds persist, at least they can locate the source of that sound,” Karson added.
