Rescue teams are rushing as time passes to find the submarine from the tourist company OceanGate Expeditions and the five people on board. The six-meter-long craft has not given a signal since Sunday as it headed for the wreck of the Titanic, located 4,000 meters deep. The history of underwater navigation is sadly marked by numerous accidents, with the common point of a race against time to find its occupants alive.
The KRI Nanggala II, a general breakdown and a wave fatal to 53 sailors
Undated photo of the KRI Nanggala 402 at Indonesia’s naval base in Surabaya released by the Indonesian military on April 21, 2021
© / afp.com/Handout
The Indonesian submarine Nanggala II and the 53 crew members disappeared from radar on April 21, 2021 while they were to take part in exercises off Bali. Four days later, the Indonesian navy finds the wreckage broken in three at a depth of more than 800 meters and confirms that the 53 crew members are all dead. The German-built submersible was around 40 years old. No official explanation for this accident has been advanced, but according to the country’s authorities, it is likely that the aircraft was swept away by an underwater wave and that a general power failure prevented the crew from carry out emergency measures.
The ARA San Juan, technical failure and implosion, 44 missing
On November 15, 2017, during a surveillance exercise between the cities of Ushuaia and Mar del Plata, the Argentine submarine San Juan communicated on damage, “a battery problem”. It was his last appearance. After an intense search lasting several months and layoffs in the Argentine Navy, the building was found almost a year later, on November 16, 2018. According to a report by the United States Office of Naval Intelligence, the ship imploded in ” 40 milliseconds” taking with him the 44 crew members.
The K-141 Kursk, a torpedo causes the death of the 118 crew members
The Kursk submarine, pride of the Russian nuclear deterrent force launched in 1994, sank on August 12, 2000, during maneuvers in the Barents Sea, in northwestern Russia.
© / afp.com/STR
Commissioned in 1994, the Kursk was one of the flagships of the Russian naval force. On August 12, 2000, she sank in the Barents Sea during an exercise. A torpedo being launched would have exploded inside the cockpit, and caused several other detonations inside the submarine, immobilizing it at “only” a hundred meters deep. 23 men survived the explosions and took refuge in the back of the machine, while waiting for help. The Russian authorities minimized the accident and did not dispatch a support vessel until the next day. After several unsuccessful attempts, Russia finally accepts British and Norwegian aid, but it is too late and the 118 sailors on board are killed.
The Ming 361, a mysterious disappearance that claimed the lives of 70 sailors
On April 25, 2003, a fishing vessel discovered the periscope of the Ming-361 adrift in the Gulf of Bo Hai, between China and North Korea. A few days later, the Chinese Navy said that all 70 crew members had been found dead. The government remains very silent on this matter, but it seems that a technical problem caused a loss of oxygen in the submarine.
La Minerve S647, found more than fifty years later, 52 dead
The submarine La Minerve, whose wreck has just been found, docked in the old port of Marseille, in the mid-1960s
© / afp.com/STF
The French building sank off Toulon on January 27, 1968 with its 52 crew members. It was only on July 21, 2019 that the submarine was found, after a new search campaign. The discovery made it possible to establish the causes of the sinking: the submersible would have struck a surface ship, which would have damaged its air intake (the snorkel). A sudden influx of water carries the ship to the bottom, where it will remain for the next fifty years.
The AS-28, the most comparable to the Titan
On August 5, 2005, this 13-meter-long Russian rescue submarine hooked onto the antenna of a hydrophone, a sort of microphone used underwater. Caught in the propeller of the device, it is immobilized at a depth of 190 meters. This time, Vladimir Putin and the Russian Navy launched a request for international assistance less than 24 hours after the incident, much faster than during the sinking of the Kursk. The United Kingdom and the United States dispatch teams capable of participating in the rescue operation, and whose objective is to cut the cables which hinder the submarine. On August 7, 2005, after freeing the Russian submersible, the craft managed to resurface and the seven men on board were saved.