They very well may all be libertarians, but only the CEO is American. There’s a Frenchman, Brit, and two Pakistanis and three Brits.
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Yes, they are obviously quite different vehicles, as is a bathyscaphe. I was only relating my personal experience in riding a positively-buoyant near-surface tourist sub. No way would I want to go as deep as Titanic in any kind of submarine.
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Three Brits, or two Pakistani-Brits. The Dawoods have dual citizenship and live here.
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I stand corrected! The news article I read just said Pakistani.
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That’s OK, while carbon fibre has a really high tensile strength, it’s got almost no resistance against compression: it’s a rope. You can’t push on a rope.
So all that carbon fibre wasn’t doing anything structural anyway.
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Confusingly another article I read said “British-Pakistani” which would imply a person of British ancestry living in Pakistan.
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The depth of sympathy I’m seeing here is… hard to gauge sometimes.
Given the design flaws apparent so far, it wouldn’t surprise me if there was “straight through” damage to the pressure hull… nothing would surprise me with that submersible at this point. 
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Or dearth of sympathy?
Wait was that a submarine pun?
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Any EE / radio people on-thread care to chime in on whether it’s possible to have the EPIRB inside the sub and the antenna outside without making a hull penetration? e.g. through one of those hatch bolts?
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Thanks! I won’t check it out. But it does sound like an effective recipe for traffic-generation. I think of YouTubers like this the same way I think about Heels in professional wrestling.
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Drawing those in Tinkercad took less time then printing them.
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The older adventurers on this risky trip made choices. It sound like they have very few emergency protocols /options. But I still hoped they get out.
But hearing one brought his kid on this trip? That’s devastating. I really hope they save them mainly for that kid. Thats hitting me right in the feels.
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It doesn’t make it easier, but the son is 19 and was basically nepo’d into the management at his father’s company it sounds like. So a very rich, very spoiled adult as well.
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It is plausible, with modifications, to separate the transceiver from the antenna and use inductive coupling between them. However, carbon fiber tends to attenuate RF energy quite well and with a hull thickness of ~5”, it wouldn’t be realistic. Further, EPIRBs only work from the surface of the water, so the sub would have to be surfaced to be able to trigger a send.
Realistically, it would make more sense to mount the beacon device externally in a pressure vessel made of some sort of low(er)-attenuation material, and have the beacon trigger automatically upon a set of conditions (a certain amount of ascent within a certain time period in conjunction with photocell detectors, or something along those lines), as just about any hull penetration would be undesirable.
For the amounts of money involved in such an endeavor, these safety-related things are entirely the wrong corners to cut.
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Sadly, rapid hull implosion seems most likely at this point, especially considering both means of communication ending at the same time. Carbon Fiber is a great material, right up until it isn’t. Most of its failure modes are not peaceful.
Given the concerns of the former safety officer from the company regarding the previous carbon fiber hull having voids and flaws within the shell itself, and the manufacturing difficulties of making a large format shape such as the central hull of the vessel out of carbon fiber without such imperfections at that thickness, I would guess that the previous dives done by this sub have created significant stresses on the hull structure (compression at depth + release at surface) which could have created tiny new flaws in addition to flexing and weakening areas around whatever flaws may have existed from manufacturing. Each round trip would have a cumulative effect on structural integrity and would elevate the risk for future dives.
Similar sets of risks (though uniquely different due to materials) would accrue to the titanium end pieces, the connection interfaces, and the viewing portal. So far, there’s been nothing I’ve seen from the company indicating an emphasis on truly comprehensive non-destructive testing between missions, which seems to go hand-in-hand with their unusual perspectives about all things safety. Heck, the company that fabricated the porthole would only certify it to 1,400m (I think that’s the number) per published articles, and the sub company didn’t wish to pay what it would have cost to get it certified to full mission depth. Doesn’t mean it couldn’t survive the trip, at least a time or two, but again the compression & relaxation stresses would “age” both it and its mounting structure each time.
TL;DR - While it’s possible they bobbed back up to the surface and are waiting to be found, it seems highly unlikely based on the circumstances of the communication loss, the materials composition of the vessel, and the safety perspectives of the operating company.
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What occurs to me is that the billionaire tourists on this ill-fated trip would all claim to be geniuses in their businesses and supremely capable of doing the necessary due diligence (research) before committing to any new risk.
Maybe not so brilliant after all.
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CNN is reporting banging sounds having been heard at regular intervals through Tuesday, and other unspecified but related sounds as well.
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