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The Reason Submarines Implode, According To Science

As mentioned, the Titan was a submersible — a small craft that must operate with the assistance of a mother ship, as opposed to a larger, fully autonomous submarine. Nevertheless, the principles of what might cause the implosion of each are much the same. CP24 reported that fragments of the Titan craft were found nearly 13,000 feet below the surface, and Coast Guard Rear Admiral John Mauger said (via The Guardian) what searchers discovered is "consistent with a catastrophic loss of the pressure chamber." According to the Daily Mail, water pressure at the Titanic wreckage is about 400 atmospheres — a far cry from the approximately 1 we're used to at sea level.

To get some sense of an implosion, imagine crushing an empty aluminum soda can in your fist — the pressure bearing down on the can is more than the structure of the can resist. For this reason,  Dr. Nicolai Roterman said of Titan, "If there was any kind of hull breach, the occupants would succumb to the ocean in a near instant." For some idea of what deep-sea pressure might be like at such depths, Professor Blair Thornton from the University of Southampton compared it to the weight of the Eiffel Tower (via NBC News).

In 2020, a Chinese manned submersible called "Fendouzhe" — or "Striver" — reached depths of 33,000 feet (the bottom of the Mariana Trench, known as Challenger Deep, in the Pacific Ocean.) In 2012, Titanic director James Cameron also reached Challenger Deep in a submersible, CBS News reports.

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Artie Phelan

Update: 2024-06-13