Submerged in the sadness for the loss of five people aboard the Titan submersible, and the criticism of the risky and poorly certified expedition to the wreck of the Titanic, was an extraordinary international rescue effort.
Last week saw a heartening reminder of what nations can do together, a primer in how different government agencies can cooperate both with the private sector and with each other in an all-out, no-expense-spared attempt to save lives.
In a matter of days, aircraft and a flotilla of rescue ships assembled some 400 miles off the coast of Newfoundland, searching for a craft hardly much bigger than a minivan that had been lost somewhere in one of the most unforgiving and remote areas of the planet.
The search field in the North Atlantic had a depth of some 12,500 feet, all the way down to the cold and dark place where the Titanic had rested since it hit an iceberg in April 1912. This was far different than a typical Coast Guard rescue with watercraft on the ocean’s surface, or a salvage from a few hundred feet.
The time-bound rescue effort, which captivated most of the planet, involved close cooperation between U.S. and Canadian authorities, between Navy and Coast Guards, government officials and private businesses. It involved teams and equipment from at least five countries: Canada, the U.S. Britain, France and Germany.
Search gear arrived at breakneck speed for rescue teams, including remotely operated underwater vehicles, salvage machinery capable of lifting the Titan from the ocean bed, decompression chambers and specialized health care facilities. Though distraught, family members must have felt enormous comfort and gratitude for the scale and competence of this international response, even though the chance of finding people alive was remote from the start.
There was another extraordinary aspect to this story. On Thursday it emerged that the U.S. Navy had “detected an acoustic signature consistent with an implosion” on the previous Sunday, a remarkable piece of detection in itself but also an indicator that the hope of finding the five men on the Titan alive was remote indeed.
Although the Navy relayed this information to the Coast Guard command, it was decided that the evidence was insufficiently definitive to call off the search and rescue operation. In other words, the sounds might not have come from the lost craft. So the rescue effort continued.
Remarkably, given the massive amount of media attention, all of this was kept discreet, both out of compassion for the families and as a consequence of the rescuers’ creed that where there is a chance, you keep going. It was only once a remotely operated vehicle found the debris field, which the U.S. Navy had anticipated, that the search was called off and the lives declared lost.
Questions remain about the level of danger surrounding this tourist expedition, the payoff of which appeared to be little more than the chance to gawk at a watery graveyard through a shared porthole, along with who should pay the enormous costs of the search and rescue effort.
As privately funded and operated trips into space and into the ocean’s depths proliferate, there’s a need to debate certification procedures, especially when those journeys are destined for places yet to be explored. Clearly, there are rich folks who feel like they have bought everything they can buy on terra firma, and who crave the sensation of risk and danger. Predictably, entrepreneurial outfits have emerged to serve them.
We respect the spirit of the adventurer. But paying for a costly, dangerous ride is not the same thing as genuine exploration, even if those tourists convince themselves otherwise.Perhaps some of our fellow humans need saving from their own desires.
Nonetheless, had that been your loved one lost in the Atlantic Ocean, you surely would hope for the kind of rescue effort that took place over the last several days. Many people have been educated over the role of the Coast Guard, an agency that does not always get the attention it deserves. In these kinds of situations, it is the Coast Guard that takes the lead, and the Navy that provides backup.
But the most heartening thing here was, with only minor exceptions, the absence of bureaucratic squabbling and the determination to try to save lives while holding back questions for later. This was an example of what governments do best. They moved like lightning, given the circumstances, ably supported by a private sector that had the needed technology.
Everyone wishes an outcome that did not add more deaths to the legacy of Titanic. That said, there were brave human rescuers then, and there are those rescuers now. We can be thankful for their service.
