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Debris Field Discovered Near Titanic Wreckage. Aired 1-1:30p ET

Aired June 22, 2023 - 13:00   ET

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

[13:00:00]

MAXIMILIAN CREMER, UNIVERSITY OF HAWAII: This is actually fairly large in terms of the space that people had in there.

Our submersibles were -- the pressure vessels had seven foot in diameter, and it was packed with electronics, and with three people in it, so it was basically a space capsule.

Hello?

DANA BASH, CNN HOST: I'm sorry to interrupt you. We're 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."

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: Breaking news into CNN.

The U.S. Coast Guard says a debris field has been discovered on the seafloor near the Titanic wreckage, which was the destination for that missing tourist submersible. It was spotted by an ROV, a remote- operated vessel.

We're going to get an update from the U.S. Coast Guard just two hours from now at 3:00 p.m. Eastern.

And we have CNN's Jason Carroll, who is standing by in Boston for that. CNN has a team in all of the key places involved in this mission. CNN's Miguel Marquez is in St. John's Port in Canada. And while we don't yet know if the debris that's been located is indeed the Titan vessel, we do know that the crew trapped inside has exhausted their estimated oxygen supply.

Officials, though, are preparing for all scenarios. There are doctors, a hyperbaric recompression chamber all at the site right now.

Meantime, CNN's Veronica Miracle is in Washington state, where OceanGate is headquartered. And she just spoke to a former employee. You're going to hear his explosive comments about the Titan's experimental design.

Also, CNN's Paula Newton is getting more details about the five people trapped inside the Titan.

We begin, though, with CNN's Jason Carroll in Boston.

So, Jason, what are you hearing from the U.S. Coast Guard right now?

JASON CARROLL, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Boris, we are waiting to hear from the U.S. Coast Guard. That briefing is scheduled to get under way at 3:00.

Rear Admiral John Mauger will be the one heading up the briefing. Previously, Boris as you know, when we have been out here, it's been another one of the captains that's been doing the briefings. But, today, the rear admiral will be conducting it, this after they released a tweet saying that a debris -- that debris was found near the Titanic.

That debris field is now being analyzed. We will have more information about that analysis once that briefing gets under way. The Titan, as you know, went down 96 hours ago, four days ago, the oxygen supply at this point all but exhausted.

Throughout this, there's been a huge, massive effort by sea, by air to search for the missing submersible. There -- throughout the past 24 to 48 hours, we have been hearing reports of banging, reports of noises coming from the area, this after a Canadian search plane dropped sonar buoys on the surface and detected noises.

Now the question becomes, what happened? What were those noises? Did that play any role in what happened here? We don't know. Again, still waiting to hear what's going to happen when the rear admiral gives his briefing. That's going to be getting under way, again, at 3:00 here at Coast Guard headquarters -- Boris.

SANCHEZ: And, as you pointed out, Jason, significant that it is going to be a rear admiral who we're going to hear from, obviously, potentially delivering the fate -- or the news of the fate that we all were fearing for days, as a debris field is discovered.

Let's go now to CNN's Miguel Marquez, who is in Canada for us.

And, Miguel, there are a lot of assets out there at this site several hundred miles away from where you are. What happens next in this effort?

MIGUEL MARQUEZ, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, an enormous number of assets.

And I can tell you that that tweet by the U.S. Coast Guard shot through this area. People who know OceanGate, who know Stockton Rush, who know P.H. Nargeolet, it was not received well. The information in that -- in that short tweet indicated perhaps the most catastrophic situation for the individuals, for the capsule, for the sub and individuals on it.

There is -- this is still, as far as we know, a search-and-rescue mission. They have an absolute massive number of ships both in the air and on the surface on this. They have two ROVs, or remote operated vehicles, that are down where they believe the wreck -- the site would be where the Titan would have gone down.

It -- remember, it -- communications cut out a minute and 45 into -- pardon me -- an hour and 45 minutes into what was meant to be about a nine-hour dive for them. When they didn't come back up at 6:00 p.m. on Sunday or 6:10 p.m., that's when they alerted the authorities, and that's when this -- it kicked off of this search.

[13:05:08]

They know it was -- it was descending in a water column to the area where it had been before around the Titanic. And then they lost those comms an hour and 45 minutes into it. So the ROVs today were able to go to the point where they were they presume it would have gone to if they had just continued to descend into the ocean, and then do a search.

What is significant about this is that there is a lot of debris with the Titanic. There's a lot of vehicle -- submersibles that have been down there over the years.

They do leave gear behind. But this is an area that they know well, that has been mapped before. There's a lot of sophisticated sonar gear that can map the bottom of the seafloor, map the seafloor itself and see if there are changes, see if there is something new on the seafloor that wasn't there before, that can discriminate against stuff that was there from the Titanic or other missions previously.

So, the news among the -- it's a very small, tight-knit community, you realize very quickly, this -- this deep sea submersibles community, and it shot through with as it interpreted it as very, very bad news. I think we're all now waiting very closely to see what the U.S. Coast Guard comes out with, what they say.

People are still hoping. But it -- hope has been dwindling for a while. There's less hope now. With regard to the oxygen, if they are in there, they believe, because you have experienced oceanographers on that craft, that they would have -- first thing they would have done was would be to try to save oxygen, even though we have eclipsed the 96-hour mark, which they believe they had enough for.

But if people slept, if people were very calm, if they didn't breathe heavily and weren't excited, they might be able to get another 12 hours, 20 hours out of the oxygen they have as long, as they can clean the -- and sweep the carbon dioxide as well, which they can do and which people who are -- go down on that are trained to do.

So it's possible. It is possible, but this news not being received very well right now amongst the community here in St. John's -- Boris.

SANCHEZ: And understandably so.

Miguel Marquez from Newfoundland, thank you so much -- Jim.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN HOST: We should be clear, there's a lot we do not know at this point. That's important to say.

And as we work to find out more details after the U.S. Coast Guard said that debris field was found near the search area, we're hearing more from friends and family of the Titan's passengers, of course, toughest for them throughout.

CNN's Paula Newton, she's in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

Paula, no one can absorb this latest news with more difficulty than the folks who knew the people on board. Well, what are you hearing there?

PAULA NEWTON, CNN INTERNATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Well, what we are hearing, in fact, is that they will be briefed first, no matter what the news is, right, before we actually hear from the Coast Guard in the coming couple of hours here.

But I want to go back to something Miguel had just said. And that's the expertise. The families had been taking comfort in the fact that, if you were going to have experts on board, that two of them right, the CEO, the founder, the person that designed this Titan, was on board. That is Stockton Rush.

And that was of comfort not only to the other families, but his family and friends. We heard some of them speak to CNN to say he would know what to do. He would know the best way to survive. And other than that, you had the person nicknamed Mr. Titanic. You're talking about more than 30 dives to that Titanic site.

It is P.H. Nargeolet. He is that French -- French expert who is legend when it comes to trying to explore the depths of the deep sea and, specifically, the Titanic. Right now, the families in the last 48 hours when they had heard there were those noises and the fact that they may not have been natural noises really kind of thought, yes, there is a chance.

And as they saw more and more resources deployed, resources that could actually get to the bottom of the sea, they thought to themselves, OK, we might have a chance here, given the expertise on board. And, again, it's worth repeating what the conditions would have been, already quite stark.

It's dark. It's cold. You're running out of oxygen. You're trying to really save your energy at that point. What we are waiting for now is to learn from the U.S. Coast Guard exactly what they have found, exactly what it is, and then keeping in mind that, no matter what happens, an investigation will start here.

I will say it will be a measure of peace if the families can get any information at all. What has been so unnerving for so many has been the lack of information in the last few days.

SCIUTTO: Let me ask you this. And maybe we don't know at this point.

But would running out of oxygen or running low on oxygen affect the structural integrity of this at all, or that's not -- those two things not related?

[13:10:02]

NEWTON: It's absolutely two separate issues, as I understand it from experts.

SCIUTTO: OK.

NEWTON: It's not related.

Having said that, there is this issue of this whole carbon dioxide issue as well. And, scientifically, we have had some people trying to explain that on CNN. It does become complicated. But this is when I go back to the expertise, right, Jim?

Even Hamish Harding, who is an incurable explorer who has a lot of experience, the British billionaire who was on board there as well, they would have known what to do because they had two experts by their side actually giving them advice on what to do to conserve that oxygen.

Again, in listening to our experts, you had something that was built from carbon fiber and titanium, right? And we don't know if there had been some kind of catastrophic incident immediately when they lost communication at an hour and 45 minutes in.

SCIUTTO: Understood.

Paula Newton in Halifax, Nova Scotia, thanks so much.

Our Veronica Miracle has been covering the story as well. She's in Everett, Washington.

I understand you spoke to a subcontractor who worked on the Titan submersible. There have been so many questions about safety protocols taken and others not taken by this team leading up to this, and by choice. And they were public by those steps they didn't take.

What have you learned from the folks you have spoken to out there?

VERONICA MIRACLE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, I think it's really interesting that D.J. Virnig, the subcontractor who worked on the Titan, he said that he worked on the development and also the testing of the Titan back in 2018 here in Everett, Washington.

In fact, he was part of the team that actually was testing the Titan and went down in the Everett Bay Marina about 30 feet or so. And he said that, as this development was happening, it was moving very quickly. And he knew at the time and the team knew at the time that these design choices that they were making were controversial, innovative, however, not tried-and-trued methods.

He explained to me that what they were trying to achieve was a really lightweight submersible that could fit a lot of people, like five people, in this case, in the Titan. And in order to do that, they had to make specific decisions, like using carbon fiber.

Here's what he had to say about that controversial decision.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DOUG "D.J." VIRNIG, SUBCONTRACTOR: The pressure hull itself on Titan is made out of primarily carbon fiber. Various people from around the world felt like that was a very experimental choice.

Now, to Stockton and Titan and OceanGate's credit, they actually answered that to the best of their ability. But then the question is, well, if you do that repeatedly, then what happens? But if you really are pushing the envelope, there's no time to -- you're answering those questions in real time.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MIRACLE: And another decision that they made was to not have a conning tower.

And that's one of those towers that you generally see on some submarines. It would allow people to go in and out of the submersible. If they made it to the surface, it would have allowed them to open the hatch and let oxygen in. But, as it is now, the Titan had to be -- has to be opened from the outside, which is another controversial decision.

I think one thing that was interesting, he said that this was never the -- excuse me -- adventure tourism was never the goal of OceanGate. In fact, it was a means to an end. What -- the mission he felt and what he believed from Stockton Rush and the company was to really go out and explore the undiscovered parts of the ocean.

And selling high-ticket items like going to the Titanic would allow them to do that. Lastly, I did ask him if he himself would have been comfortable going down in that submersible in the Titan down to the Titanic in those depths.

And he said, with somebody as a -- who has an engineering background, knowing everything that could go wrong, he would not feel comfortable -- Jim.

SCIUTTO: But let me ask you, just so I'm clear on his analysis here, he's saying this was an unusual substance to use to build this, carbon fiber.

But he said that, in effect, the more times you use it, the more time you went down, that, over time, that might compromise the structure. Was that his point?

MIRACLE: That's exactly what he was saying.

But he was also saying that they just don't know...

SCIUTTO: Yes.

MIRACLE: ... because there hasn't been enough testing and it hasn't been done before.

So, because this is so innovative, there's just not -- there hasn't been enough time and enough research in order to actually know for sure.

SCIUTTO: Well, and there have been other questions raised about whether they did all the testing necessary prior to deployment of this.

Veronica Miracle in Everett, Washington, following one of the angles of this story.

We're going to continue to follow the latest on this. As we mentioned, we are going to have a press conference at 3:00 Eastern time by the Coast Guard. We're going to bring that to you live. And we will be answering as many questions as we can in the meantime.

[13:15:04]

Please do stay with us.

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SANCHEZ: The breaking news we're following this hour, the U.S. Coast Guard says a debris field has been found near the Titanic wreckage in the search area of that missing submersible.

As we work to find out more details, it's difficult to imagine the harsh conditions the five passengers on board have been facing, not only limited visibility, cold waters, no communication, but the Coast Guard says the crew has limited rations of food and water.

And besides running low on oxygen, they'd also be breathing out carbon monoxide (sic). And inhaling all of that carbon dioxide can cause headaches, upset stomach dizziness, and confusion.

This animation shows how the mission to the Titanic should go. They were only supposed to spend 10 to 11 hours total on board the sub, a two-hour journey to the bottom of the Atlantic, reaching a depth of more than 12,000 feet.

[13:20:04]

The Titan would then spend some four hours surveying the wreckage and then take another two-hour trip back to the surface. Of course, in that process, something went horribly wrong.

Joining us now to discuss all of this is Max Cremer. He's the director of the Ocean Technology Group at the University of Hawaii Marine Center. He was also a submersible pilot for some 20 years.

Max, thank you so much for sharing part of your afternoon with us.

First, I just want to get your reaction to the news that a debris field has been discovered near the wreckage site.

MAXIMILIAN CREMER, UNIVERSITY OF HAWAII: Well, from all our dealings with the Coast Guard, this would be quite a serious statement to make.

I'm sure that they are aware that, being near the Titanic, there will be a gigantic debris field and one would expect to find such items. However, if they say that they found a debris field, that means, to me, that it's possibly a debris field that is not associated with the Titanic.

I'm not sure if they would otherwise make a statement.

SANCHEZ: Could you walk us through what the process might be like when a debris field like this is discovered? How do officials go about determining what to do next?

CREMER: My understanding is that they have deployed a deep-diving ROV, a robotic vehicle that is equipped with cameras and sonar. So they would have seen it first on sonar, which doesn't really tell you what the materials are.

Then they go closer and get video footage office of it, which is instantly transferred to the control room surf -- topside. And then maybe the operators don't know exactly what it is. And so they would be then contacting specialists and people with -- that are very familiar with what should be down there and ask them for their opinion to verify if or not, in fact, this has anything to do with the stricken sub.

SANCHEZ: Max, as someone who has spent significant time at depth, we mentioned some of the conditions that they were facing.

Can you walk us through what's significant to you about having spent so much time for these folks potentially underwater?

CREMER: Well, it's really something that, very fortunate -- fortunately, has not happened to myself. The longest time that I spent in a submersible was about 17 hours.

It gets very cold down there. So, that's a factor, hypothermia. If you have sufficient CO2 scrubbing materials, then, in -- periodically, somebody, presumably the leader of the expedition, will have to move to change out the scrubbing materials or the scrubbing cartridges.

Maybe they have the newer lithium hydroxide curtains that are a little bit easier to handle. Otherwise, everybody would have to go in a semi- hibernating, trancelike state, if they can, to conserve as much oxygen as possible.

Then, of course, there are human needs that needs to be considered. So, it's a very severe situation.

SANCHEZ: And, Max, as someone who has dived to many wreckage sites, there are a lot of dangers just outside the sub as well, the potential for entanglement, et cetera.

Obviously, we're still waiting for details on exactly what happened here. But can you talk about the difficulties of navigating at that depth on a site that has so many dangers lurking on it? CREMER: Yes, certainly.

The premier hazard around large wrecks, especially if they were not scuttled, is entanglement. At Hawaii Undersea Research Lab, we operated two submersibles in tandem. So, one submersible would go in, as we said, to get closeups, or do the work in and on around the wreck, where the other submersible would stand off and back and observe the site and advise the other submersible if there were, in fact, entanglement hazards anywhere near it.

So, that -- we were fortunate in that way that we had -- that we could do tandem dives, sort of like a buddy dive system. I mean, no professional diver would go all by themselves. You always go with one or more -- two or more. Sorry.

SANCHEZ: Did it surprise you, Max, that this vessel didn't appear to have any kind of backup?

CREMER: Yes, I'm sorry, I can't really speak to that.

I did see some images of it, and I didn't really see what I would expect, in terms of sensors or hydrophones or tracking beacons on it. But that doesn't mean that they're not mounted on it. It would be very surprising if such equipment would not carried by the -- by the sub.

[13:25:15]

SANCHEZ: Max Cremer, we very much appreciate your perspective. Thank you for being with us.

CREMER: Thank you.

SANCHEZ: Of course.

We will stay on top of this breaking news, a debris field discovered near the wreckage of the Titanic in the search area where that submersible with five people aboard went missing. We are awaiting a press conference at 3:00 p.m. from the Coast Guard.

We will, of course, bring you the very latest on CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

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[13:30:00]