I remember it as if it were today. April of 1963, my Dad and I huddled around a radio in a darkened kitchen on Wyandotte St..The news was bad. The nuclear-powered USS Thresher, the fastest and quietest submarine of its time, was missing. It disappeared while executing numerous deep dive tests off the coast of Cape Cod, Mass., resulting in the death of all 129 sailors aboard..It was yet another great naval mystery, and it troubled us because the US was our greatest ally at the time..Chief of Naval Operations Admiral George W. Anderson Jr. went before the press corps at the Pentagon to announce the submarine was lost with all hands. President John F. Kennedy would order all flags to be flown at half staff in their honour..I pestered my dad with questions, and he tried his best to answer — death in the deep depths troubled me, and I needed to know more..Why couldn’t they save them, I asked. My dad did his best, but he had no answers..It would keep me up awake the whole night, thinking of their terrible fate. Alas, we would not know more until classified material was released many decades later..I bring this up because a massive search and rescue operation is under way in the mid-Atlantic after a tourist submersible went missing on Sunday during a dive to the wreck of the Titanic, some 435 miles (700 km) south of St John's, Newfoundland, at a depth of 3,800m (12,500-ft.) The missing craft is believed to be OceanGate's Titan submersible, a truck-sized sub that holds five people and usually dives with a four-day emergency supply of oxygen. Contact with the submersible was lost about an hour and 45 minutes into its dive, the US Coast Guard said. There were five people aboard..Tickets cost $250,000 for an eight-day trip including dives to the wreck, according to a BBC report. Government agencies, the US and Canadian navies and commercial deep-sea firms are helping the rescue operation, which is being run from Boston, Mass..Submarine rescues are never an easy task. No-one can forget the terrible fate of the 118 crew on board the Russian navy submarine Kursk which sank between Russia and Norway 23 years ago. They all were dead when divers finally arrived eight long days later..And the Kursk was a relatively modest 350 ft down. The 20,000-ton, 500ft-long submarine sank like a stone when a faulty torpedo exploded, setting off several more in a blast detected in Alaska, the Daily Mail reported..Most of the crew were killed instantly, but 23 were alive in three sealed-off compartments when it hit the bottom, Tragically, Russian leader Vladimir Putin, keen to preserve his secrets and full of pride, hesitated before asking for help from the West. It would doom the survivors..The Kursk had an access hatch which meant it could have been entered from a deep submersible rescue vehicle — but by the time divers arrived eight days later, all hands were lost..As for the Thresher, while the official explanation states that the submarine sunk soon after getting into trouble, a newly unclassified report indicates one submarine sent to search for it thought at least some of the crew were still alive around 24 hours after the vessel was determined to have imploded. This newly released information is found among 600 pages of documents, which constitute the most recent releases of information from the previously classified investigation into the loss of the Thresher, TheDrive.com reported.. Thresher wreckageThe wreck of USS Thresher. .The Seawolf, as well as the Balao class submarine USS Sea Owl, had been called to the area after voice communications with the Thresher were originally lost and the two submarines arrived in the course of the following day. Neither was equipped to attempt any kind of rescue, but they were to help search for the Thresher. According to the documents, the Seawolf heard, via its Rycom receiver, a signal from a distress beacon, or pinger, also known as the BQC..Although it couldn’t yet be confirmed it was from the Thresher, this was clearly good news since the pingers, two of which were fitted on each submarine, needed to be manually activated in order to broadcast a signal. Using its UQC underwater telephone, the Seawolf requested the Thresher turn its beacons on and off. A few minutes later, Seawolf reported “We hear what may be interrupted keying now,” suggesting the beacons were now being switched on and off deliberately..More evidence then came to the crew of the Seawolf when they reported hearing the main sonar from the Thresher. If true, this would have indicated there were not only survivors aboard the submarine, but it still had enough power reserves to transmit actively..Eventually, of course, the crushed remains of the Thresher were located on the seafloor at a depth of 8,400 feet. But what happened in the lead-up to this catastrophe is now far less certain..The original narrative had the submarine rapidly sink at the point at which communications were originally lost, but Seawolf at least, was still trying to make contact with what it thought was the Thresher, many hours later..Ultimately, the Navy thought the Thresher underwent an implosion, which would have made any survivors of the initial accident a near-impossibility..In the meantime, the issue of what actually happened has continued to be controversial..Analysts suggested the Navy wanted to keep the prolonged demise of the Thresher a secret from the families of those who died..Whatever the reason, we still don’t know what really happened..And we can only hope the crew and passengers of the Titan do not suffer a similar fate.
I remember it as if it were today. April of 1963, my Dad and I huddled around a radio in a darkened kitchen on Wyandotte St..The news was bad. The nuclear-powered USS Thresher, the fastest and quietest submarine of its time, was missing. It disappeared while executing numerous deep dive tests off the coast of Cape Cod, Mass., resulting in the death of all 129 sailors aboard..It was yet another great naval mystery, and it troubled us because the US was our greatest ally at the time..Chief of Naval Operations Admiral George W. Anderson Jr. went before the press corps at the Pentagon to announce the submarine was lost with all hands. President John F. Kennedy would order all flags to be flown at half staff in their honour..I pestered my dad with questions, and he tried his best to answer — death in the deep depths troubled me, and I needed to know more..Why couldn’t they save them, I asked. My dad did his best, but he had no answers..It would keep me up awake the whole night, thinking of their terrible fate. Alas, we would not know more until classified material was released many decades later..I bring this up because a massive search and rescue operation is under way in the mid-Atlantic after a tourist submersible went missing on Sunday during a dive to the wreck of the Titanic, some 435 miles (700 km) south of St John's, Newfoundland, at a depth of 3,800m (12,500-ft.) The missing craft is believed to be OceanGate's Titan submersible, a truck-sized sub that holds five people and usually dives with a four-day emergency supply of oxygen. Contact with the submersible was lost about an hour and 45 minutes into its dive, the US Coast Guard said. There were five people aboard..Tickets cost $250,000 for an eight-day trip including dives to the wreck, according to a BBC report. Government agencies, the US and Canadian navies and commercial deep-sea firms are helping the rescue operation, which is being run from Boston, Mass..Submarine rescues are never an easy task. No-one can forget the terrible fate of the 118 crew on board the Russian navy submarine Kursk which sank between Russia and Norway 23 years ago. They all were dead when divers finally arrived eight long days later..And the Kursk was a relatively modest 350 ft down. The 20,000-ton, 500ft-long submarine sank like a stone when a faulty torpedo exploded, setting off several more in a blast detected in Alaska, the Daily Mail reported..Most of the crew were killed instantly, but 23 were alive in three sealed-off compartments when it hit the bottom, Tragically, Russian leader Vladimir Putin, keen to preserve his secrets and full of pride, hesitated before asking for help from the West. It would doom the survivors..The Kursk had an access hatch which meant it could have been entered from a deep submersible rescue vehicle — but by the time divers arrived eight days later, all hands were lost..As for the Thresher, while the official explanation states that the submarine sunk soon after getting into trouble, a newly unclassified report indicates one submarine sent to search for it thought at least some of the crew were still alive around 24 hours after the vessel was determined to have imploded. This newly released information is found among 600 pages of documents, which constitute the most recent releases of information from the previously classified investigation into the loss of the Thresher, TheDrive.com reported.. Thresher wreckageThe wreck of USS Thresher. .The Seawolf, as well as the Balao class submarine USS Sea Owl, had been called to the area after voice communications with the Thresher were originally lost and the two submarines arrived in the course of the following day. Neither was equipped to attempt any kind of rescue, but they were to help search for the Thresher. According to the documents, the Seawolf heard, via its Rycom receiver, a signal from a distress beacon, or pinger, also known as the BQC..Although it couldn’t yet be confirmed it was from the Thresher, this was clearly good news since the pingers, two of which were fitted on each submarine, needed to be manually activated in order to broadcast a signal. Using its UQC underwater telephone, the Seawolf requested the Thresher turn its beacons on and off. A few minutes later, Seawolf reported “We hear what may be interrupted keying now,” suggesting the beacons were now being switched on and off deliberately..More evidence then came to the crew of the Seawolf when they reported hearing the main sonar from the Thresher. If true, this would have indicated there were not only survivors aboard the submarine, but it still had enough power reserves to transmit actively..Eventually, of course, the crushed remains of the Thresher were located on the seafloor at a depth of 8,400 feet. But what happened in the lead-up to this catastrophe is now far less certain..The original narrative had the submarine rapidly sink at the point at which communications were originally lost, but Seawolf at least, was still trying to make contact with what it thought was the Thresher, many hours later..Ultimately, the Navy thought the Thresher underwent an implosion, which would have made any survivors of the initial accident a near-impossibility..In the meantime, the issue of what actually happened has continued to be controversial..Analysts suggested the Navy wanted to keep the prolonged demise of the Thresher a secret from the families of those who died..Whatever the reason, we still don’t know what really happened..And we can only hope the crew and passengers of the Titan do not suffer a similar fate.
