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Debris Field Found In Submersible Search Area. Aired 12:30-1p ET

Aired June 22, 2023 - 12:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[12:30:00]

JASON CARROLL, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: That also plays into this as well.

DANA BASH, CNN HOST: It sure does, and it sure should. Thank you for that, Jason.

I want to bring back Maximilian Cremer, Director of the Ocean Technology Group at the University of Hawaii Marine Center. As you're listening to our reporters in the various areas getting information and to other experts, what is your mindset at this time?

MAXIMILIAN CREMER, DIRECTOR, OCEAN TECHNOLOGY GROUP, UNIV. OF HAWAII MARINE CENTER: Well, as a submersible pilot myself, I've been diving subs for almost 20 years, this is very concerning. But in my opinion, until some type of confirmation is obtained, all rescue efforts must go ahead at full speed. It may still turn out that, sorry, false alarm. And I don't want -- I wouldn't want anybody else that's participating the rescue effort to let go of their current activities.

BASH: Which our correspondent there, Paula Newton, says is happening. There is still search --

CREMER: Good.

BASH: -- and rescue happening as they analyze the debris that the Coast Guard found. I was just looking -- and you know these statistics very well. The deepest ever underwater rescue was that of Roger Chapman and Roger Mallinson. They were rescued from Pisces III submersible, which was only 1,575 feet down. And that was all the way back in 1973, we're talking 50 years ago. And they were trapped for 76 hours.

CREMER: Yes, that's correct. They were trapped for 76 hours and they were recovered with about 20 minutes of breathable air left. It's -- the book that came from it, the initial book, "No Time on Our Side", was a required reading in our group of submariners for everybody.

BASH: And being a pilot of these submersibles, knowing what you have know and what you have heard so far about this particular expedition, what is your sense and -- maybe this is too speculative, but just kind of go with me here -- what is your sense, knowing also about the vessel of what may have happened? CREMER: Well, Dana, we're now 96 hours into this. If this were the first day in the afternoon, four, five, eight, maybe even 12 hours after the initial contact was lost, one would still certainly have alternative explanations. But after 96 hours with no sign, obviously, the noises that were heard, they're still there. They're unexplained so far, but I think it's getting very tight, I'm sorry to say.

BASH: Yes. And just, again, to remind our viewers, it lost contact with the Polar Prince. That was the support ship that transported the vessel to the site 1 hour and 45 minutes into its descent. How long are these expeditions usually? How long are they supposed to last? I know they have 96 hours worth of oxygen, but that's certainly not the length of the expedition.

CREMER: Well, in our case, in our operation, an average dive would be seven to nine hours. We certainly didn't go as deep as these vessels go. Our maximum operational depth was 6,500 feet or 2,000 meters. Took us about an hour and a half to get down there and then spend, you know, four or five hours on the bottom and come back up.

BASH: All right, we're going to ask you to standby as well as we get more information, wait to hear more details from the Coast Guard.

And I want to go back to Paula Newton. And, Paula, you just heard Maximilian talking about his hope that the search and rescue mission is continuing. And I just want to be clear that as far as you've been told, the answer is still yes.

PAULA NEWTON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Absolutely. And Canadian officials have been very clear about that from the start in coordination with the U.S. Coast Guard. I can tell you right now, at this hour, Canadian aircraft remain in the air. They continue to put those sonar buoys in the water.

They are, as I was saying earlier there, with even a ship that has all the medical expertise on board in case they can bring those passengers up alive. Having said that, what was crucial and what we learned this morning had happened was getting that remote operated vehicle to the seabed, right? And that was going to give them their eyes onto what may have gone on here.

And again, you should remember that when the Polar Prince arrived at that site of the Titanic wreck, the submergeable -- the submersible, pardon me, the Titan, goes down in what they call a water column, right? And so that's why that would have been one of the first places that they put that remote vehicle.

[12:35:05]

And they were very encouraged that they were able to get that remote controlled vehicle down to that seabed in that four-day window, right, so that they could actually see if the submersible was there. Again, Dana, we can't assume, right? They say it's a debris field. They say they are studying it.

But right now, until someone officially calls off this search, if they do that, the search continues. And that includes being ready to accept survivors and give them the medical care right there in the North Atlantic should they need it.

BASH: And when it comes to the people on board, just a reminder, we're talking about five individuals, including the CEO of OceanGate and Founder Stockton Rush. Yesterday, Paula, the Coast Guard widened its search and rerouted some of its equipment to try to pinpoint banging sounds that were heard. Any updates on that? Anything that you're hearing from your sources about what they now think that might have been?

NEWTON: They don't know what that might have been. And they're again not going to assume and again, you've had experts on saying that could be anything. Having said that, it didn't seem to them as if these were natural noises from the ocean. What was very interesting was that yesterday we heard from a Canadian officials telling us that the John Cabot, a Canadian ship that had what they call a side scanning radar capabilities would -- mapping capabilities would be on location.

And they started to actually try and coordinate with the noises that they heard with the mapping and trying to determine and geolocate exactly where they came from and determine what they were. Could they be explained some other way or could possibly these noises be coming, you know, quite deliberately from the Titan?

And they were in the middle of that. As far as we understand, Dana, they're still doing that. But John Cabot is still out there, still working on this at this very minute. And they really tried to preposition and then deploy every resource that they possibly could, given what the U.S. Coast Guard said were challenging circumstances and a remote area.

I do want to add, no matter what they found down there right now, the weather cooperated. Dana. I've been out in the North Atlantic. It can change on a dime. It didn't. It went from kind of OK with some fog in the early hours to much better weather. And that has certainly helped for them to get all of this data back, even from that remote operated vehicle.

BASH: Yes, Mother Nature is cooperating in that sense, for sure. Paula, thank you so much.

CNN's Gabe Cohen is still with us. And Gabe, I just also want to remind our viewers, we are waiting for a press conference from the Coast Guard 03:00 p.m. Eastern. And it is going to be with Rear Admiral John Mauger, who is the first coast Guard District Commander.

Gabe, you spoke to the co-founder of OceanGate before the Coast Guard announced that they found the debris field. What did he tell you?

GABE COHEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes. So, Dana, I spoke with Guillermo Sohnlein, he is one of the founders of OceanGate, along with Stockton Rush, who, of course, is one of the five people missing in this vessel. I spoke to him this morning. He had put out a statement, and we spoke over the phone for a little while, and he was still holding out hope. He said that he believed the window of time that the crew had on board this vessel was actually longer than the amount of time that had been widely reported. He thought there was still time for a rescue. And he also really defended Stockton Rush.

I talked about some of the safety concerns that have been brought up in recent years, and he said that was one of the reasons that he wanted to speak, that he felt some of that was overblown, that Stockton was extremely focused on safety and said -- in fact, he said, the first deep dive that was done in the Titan, Stockton did alone, Stockton Rush did alone because he didn't want to put anyone else at risk.

Even though Guillermo Sohnlein told me he was willing to go on that trip, he truly believed in how safe this vessel was. He never did one of these titanic expeditions himself, but he told me that was really a scheduling thing. He was hoping to do one in the next couple of years.

But, you know, again, everyone, I think, is still holding out hope here. But he really did believe in the safety of this vessel. But again, Dana, you know, I brought up those safety concerns a little earlier that two former OceanGate employees had really raised serious concerns about how safe the structure of this vessel was.

One believed that the hole may be too thin, that it had arrived. It was only 5 inches thick, not 7 inches thick as they had been assured by the company it would be. Another in a counter lawsuit said that the hole had not gone through nondestructive testing. So there were those concerns in place that perhaps the structure couldn't handle that type of pressure.

But as we've discussed, we don't know what this debris field is. We don't know if that was the issue.

[12:40:02]

But as we understand, there was also this 2018 letter that was penned raising concerns, written by the head of a submersible organization that had said that it was not safe, that OceanGate wasn't getting this vessel certified by independent industry specialists as is the industry standard. That they didn't have to do it to go on one of these dives.

As they describe it, as sort of the Wild West out there in international waters. But that every other submersible that was making these types of dives was getting that certification. Now, of course, Guillermo Sohnlein, who I spoke with, said, look, this -- and others have said this as well, that this was a different kind of vessel, that this was not your everyday submarine.

And some believe that it needed that certification. There are others who think perhaps it didn't. For OceanGate, they defended their decision not to get it certified. They said that it would potentially -- did you have a question, Dana?

BASH: Gabe, yes, no. I'm sorry, as you're talking, I just -- as we're waiting for the Coast Guard, can you -- maybe you don't know the answer to this, or maybe you do, since you've been covering this so closely, how many times did the Titan make this kind of expedition or journey successfully prior to this one?

COHEN: I do not know an exact number. But --

BASH: But more than once?

COHEN: More than once.

BASH: Yes.

COHEN: More than once. Absolutely, over the last couple of years. And there had also been plenty of times where trips were delayed because of weather issues, because of structure issues with the vessel, potentially. We know that it had been damaged in the past.

We know that on expeditions it had gotten lost in the past, that they had lost communication, but it had done this expedition several times safely, Dana. And, you know, some of the people who have been passengers on the vessel in the past who have made this expedition talked about it, saying they knew the risk going in.

They all signed waivers in advance that that said, this is an experimental vessel. I brought up, excuse me, that 2018 letter that was so critical, and they use the word experimental. They say, you know, this experimental approach could be dangerous. Those people who signed waivers, they knew. They read on that piece of paper, this is an experimental vessel.

BASH: Yes, yes, those waivers were something.

Standby. I want to go back to Miguel Marquez. Miguel, what are you learning?

MIGUEL MARQUEZ, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: As with everybody else, we are on in a holding pattern, waiting for more information from U.S. Coast Guard. We have reached out to everybody we've talked to here. I can tell you the folks that I've been talking to in St. John's here, people who have been on the Titan who have done that dive.

You know, you were talking to Gabe there about how many times it had been down. It had gone down multiple times, a dozen, if not more. And that was one of the concerns with the safety of it. It could do it once, maybe, but could it do it over and over and over again. And that was a big concern with that particular craft.

Still waiting to hear back from some others. So I might have to jump off and take a call here in a second.

BASH: Please do.

MARQUEZ: But the U.S. Coast Guard putting out this information that a debris field was found near the Titanic wreck site raised a lot of concerns. And people that I've been speaking to here did not interpret that news as good news. One, just the term debris field and what they are hearing is not particularly promising.

Still a search and rescue as far as we know. I think we're going to find out a lot more at 03:00 p.m. Eastern. But that area around the Titanic, the Titanic itself and the area around it has been scanned and mapped very, very finely.

When these expeditions go down, they do sometimes leave gear down there, ballast and other things that is on the sea floor, but even that would probably have been scanned, you know, in the last year or two. So they know pretty much what's down there. They know the trajectory that the Titan was on when it went down.

They know basically where it might have gone down. They do have ROVs now down to depth there, so they can get much closer in. And they've been doing this side sonar scanning, which is basically sophisticated scanning that gives you a very good picture of what's on the bottom of the ocean there and on the seabed.

So all these things together and just the reception that we have heard here on the ground, it points to a very sort of bleak picture of what's happening or what has happened to the Titan. But we are waiting for absolute confirmation.

Look, if they survive this, it would be a miracle, no matter what. Whether they found them on day one or on day six. The oxygen, we have made -- talked about the oxygen a lot and how much they have. There are two experienced people on that submarine. Their first instinct would have been preservation of oxygen and scrubbing the CO2 from that sub.

[12:45:07]

So it is possible that they go beyond the 96-hour mark if they were calm and if they were able to conserve as much oxygen as possible. So there is -- until we know otherwise, there is still some hope. But I think this news today, everybody is going to be watching it very, very closely. Dana?

BASH: All right, Miguel, we're going to let you go, look at your phone. If and when you get a call or a text, you come right back and let us know what you're hearing.

I want to go now to Stephen McGinley, who is still with us. He is the author of "The Dive: The Untold Story of the World's Deepest Submarine Rescue". So, Stephen, they knew the general area that this -- where this submersible was. Explain the depth of the ocean and how that impacts the search.

STEPHEN MCGINLEY, AUTHOR, "THE DIVE: THE UNTOLD STORY OF THE WORLD'S DEEPEST SUBMARINE RESCUE": Well, the rescue that I wrote about Pisces III was at a depth of 1,700 feet, so that's the equivalent of the Empire State Building plus 10 stories, and at times 73. That was the deepest rescue that had ever been pulled up. As we know, they are at the depth of the Titanic, which is 13,000 feet, 14,000 feet. So 2 miles at some point or 2.5 miles, which is almost an unfathomable distance from the surface. You know, people talking about it can take two and a half, three hours to get to the bottom effectively. And when you're down there in an advisory -- on you?

BASH: Yes, no, and the fact that the ship that was supporting them, the Polar Prince, lost contact at an hour and 45 minutes into its descent, and it should take about 2 hours to get to the bottom of the ocean where the Titanic wreckage was. As somebody who knows about what it takes to rescue somebody or some vessel at the bottom of the ocean, what does that bit of information tell you?

MCGINLEY: Well, it obviously tells you that something has gone drastically wrong. I mean, first, the fact that they lost track and they lost communication, you would hope that there was some kind of malfunction and that there were still -- the submarine was still operational to some degree.

But the fact that we're now hearing about the debris field indicates that they reach that depth, you know, an hour and a half down. So potentially 8,000 feet, 9,000 feet was there -- the fear would be that there was a catastrophic depressurization and that the submarine or the vessel would have effectively collapsed and then they would have been killed instantly.

Obviously, that's what we don't yet -- that's not been confirmed. But that would be -- that has to be one of the hypotheses that people are working to.

BASH: You heard Paula Newton, I believe, talk about that the weather has actually been pretty good during this search and rescue mission. How does that play into this in addition to the incredibly freezing temperatures where this submersible was?

MCGINLEY: Well, the -- I mean, if they -- if, you know, God willing, they still find them, and if the vessel is intact, the submarine is intact, the fact that the weather is good would be incredibly beneficial, because when they did perform the rescue back in '73, the weather was stormy, and when they actually started lifting them from the seabed, the ship that -- the winch was attached to was going up and down by maybe 20 feet, 30 feet.

So they were being smashed about inside the submarine. So if the fact that it is good weather on the surface means that if, God willing, there is still a potential rescue operation, then that can only be in their favor. And the fact that at the moment, miles down has no difference to them in terms of the weather -- the inclement atmosphere in which the vessel (INAUDIBLE) and there's no difference. But the weather only makes a difference for the rescue operation. And good, stable, still weather is obviously what you wish.

BASH: Right. Obviously, when you're that far down, the weather above water doesn't really matter that much. It is about the search --

MCGINLEY: No.

BASH: -- and rescue system. The -- MCGINLEY: Absolutely.

BASH: The rescue that you wrote about from 50 years ago, right, the one that you wrote about --

MCGINLEY: Yes.

BASH: -- Pisces III, 76 hours, that is a long time, and that was a miracle. And what we're looking for now is even more of a miracle.

MCGINLEY: Undoubtedly. Because the thing that we know from the rescue of Pisces III was, it was roughly about 40 hours before the rescue could even begin. So what you had was a very similar position. In fact, one of your correspondents mentioned the John Cabot, a vessel, and that was a vessel, if it's the same one that was involved or may have carried the name on that was involved in the actual rescue back in '73.

[12:50:06]

So what you had then was vessels from America, you had that submarine, the remote operating vehicle from San Diego, you had one of the submarines from Canada, you had one of the submarines from the UK. And the fact was that when they initially began the rescue, they thought they could do it in two hours.

And they felt once they located the vessel, the Pisces III, they could get it to the surface in two hours. And yet it took them about 14 or 16 hours even to find the vessel, the sub Pisces III. And then there was numerous attempts to get the proper ropes on board and they only just managed to get them to the surface after a number of failed attempts with minutes to spare.

So they were Roger Mallinson and Roger Chapman, were incredibly lucky.

BASH: Yes, they sure were.

Standby, please. I want to go back to our correspondent Jason Carroll at Coast Guard headquarters. Jason?

CARROLL: Well, Dana, we are awaiting the press conference, which should be getting underway at about 03:00. And until we wait, there are certain things that we just have to say. First and foremost, this is still, at this point, still a search and rescue operation.

Those ROVs, the remotely operated vehicles, that we've been talking so much about, continuing to go into the water even as we speak. So still a search and rescue operation. But since the suite went out by the Coast Guard, a tweet indicating that debris was found neither Titanic that that debris is being evaluated.

And that the Rear Admiral John Mauger, is going to be out here to talk about that specific debris, that raises clearly a number of questions about the fate of those who were on board. And we're talking about five people who are on board. Stockton Rush, the CEO, of course, of OceanGate. In addition to that, British Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood, his 19-year-old son Suleman. Also on board the Titan, Paul- Henri Nargeolet, the French national, and Hamish Harding, the British billionaire.

Five lives, five people on board the Titan. Their families, of course, watching for everything that's going on. We've been told all along that the Coast Guard has been keeping close contact with the families as they've been going through all this.

The Titan went into the water 96 hours ago, four days ago, and this was the day, quite frankly, that the air was literally running out for them. So one has to wonder, with so much going on with this new Tweet going out. We are just sitting here waiting to see what the Coast Guard is going to be telling us when that briefing gets underway at 03:00. Dana?

BASH: OK, Jason, thank you so much.

I want to bring in Mike Welham, marine operations specialist, to give us some perspective. Can you talk about the ROV that -- multiple ROVs, I believe, that are going down to try to figure out what is going on there and how it connects to the debris field that was found.

MIKE WELHAM, MARINE OPERATIONS SPECIALIST AND AUTHOR: OK. The ROVs are purpose built to go to those depths. They are very large. They're quite powerful with their motors, and they will be equipped with lights, cameras, and manipulators. And the manipulators can be controlled by a surface operator.

They're connected to the surface vessel with an umbilical. And so they will go down. They will reach the seabed. And once they've reached the seabed, they will then to -- they've got to locate exactly where they are and identify where they are. So once that is done, they will then begin a search pattern.

Now, the lights -- it's pitch black down there, so the lights are going out in front of it. And the camera will be recording everything that happens in front of them. And the pilot of the vehicle who is up on the ship, he will manage it and fly it in a grid pattern, an agreed pattern, where they can search and look for anything untoward on the seabed.

They've obviously gone along, and they have -- when they're close to the Titanic, from what we understand, they will lock on to finding this particular debris. Initially, they will get video of it. And the main thing there is to determine, is it new debris or is it part of the Titanic itself?

[12:55:07]

If they identify that it's new debris, then -- they then have to determine whether it is --

BASH: Right.

WELHAM: -- you know, the mini-sub or debris that has turned up there from somewhere else. BASH: Which is what they're doing right now.

WELHAM: They can do this by video -- sorry?

BASH: Which is what they're doing right now, that the Coast Guard announced that they're doing. They're trying to determine what that debris --

WELHAM: Yes.

BASH: -- actually is. I want to ask you, there's a Canadian Navy ship carrying a medical team specializing in dive medicine and hyperbolic recompression chambers that has arrived on the scene. Can you put that in plain English, what exactly does that mean?

WELHAM: Well, it's -- what it says, really, it's a diving vessel, it's got medical people on board who are versed in diving medicine. It will have recompression chambers on there. And these are used for divers, conventional divers that will go down. They would be of no value in -- those personally in this particular operation.

The depth is beyond anything that a human being could even exist in. That depth, if you're exposed to the water, you will just be squashed. The pressures are immense. And even if you can get them to the surface, unless there has been a leak on board the submarine which would have affected them anyway, once they come out, they're atmospheric pressure, so they won't have been under any sort of pressure, so they won't need a recompression chamber.

If they bring recover, say, for example, they found the mini-sub and recovered it and they had to get it near the surface, they might have divers on board a ship and they put them down to attach a cable to the sub because it's in --

BASH: Mike, I'm sorry to interrupt.

WELHAM: Yes.

BASH: Mike, I'm sorry to interrupt you. I just want to go back to our correspondent, Miguel Marquez. Miguel?

MARQUEZ: Yes. We -- everything we know here on the ground is that this information that a debris field has been discovered near the Titanic wreck site has been met with -- you know, it's not great news for those people who are familiar with OceanGate, who have been down in the sub, for people who have been following this very closely.

The wording of that dashed a lot of hope that they would find them alive. But right now, what we understand is that the -- those remote operated vehicles, there was one that went down early this morning. A second one should be down in that area now.

It's not clear if they're going to trade out. And the first one that was down needs to come back up to recharge. And the second one that would tend to take over. But if they have found that debris field, it certainly indicates -- they wouldn't put that out unless they knew it was a new debris field separate from the Titanic itself or separate from other expeditions that had been down there and dropped ballast or other gear that may be down there.

It is an area that is researched quite a bit and looked at quite a bit. And so they -- people know that in this industry, it's a very small, very tight knit group of people who are in this world --

BASH: Yes.

MARQUEZ: -- and they know what's down there. And this news right now is not being received well. Dana?

BASH: Yes. Listen, Miguel, you're being appropriately cautious, but clearly communicating what you're hearing from the people around you who you've been talking to for the last several days, and we appreciate that.

Want to bring back Maximilian Cremer, director of the Ocean Technology Group at the University of Hawaii Marine Center. What's your response quickly to what you just heard from Miguel?

CREMER: Yes, that totally makes sense to me. There's really not much to add. He's, obviously, a very competent expert on the matter.

BASH: And when you look at this, it is still remarkable. You probably can't see it, but just looking at how small this vessel is to people, which is most people who are not familiar with this kind of expedition, with the science behind all of it and what is needed.

Just a reminder, it is, I believe, only 21 feet long. And it goes so much further down, I mean, to the bottom of the floor than a submarine. Probably the kind of vessel that most of us are most familiar with.

CREMER: Yes. So it's -- for our -- in our context of the Hawaii Undersea Research lab and our deep submergence community in Hawaii, this is actually fairly large in terms of the space that people had. And our submersibles were -- the pressure vessels had 7 foot in diameter and it was packed with electronics and with three people in it. So it was basically a space capsule.

Hello?

BASH: I'm sorry to interrupt you. We are going to have to ask you to stand by. I want to go to my colleagues to talk about more breaking news on the missing submersible. And it's going to continue right now on "CNN NEWS CENTRAL".