Since the announcement of its disappearance, intense searches have been undertaken to try to find the Titan and its passengers. Wednesday morning, we learned that sounds had been picked up underwater by Canadian planes during search operations. “Canadian P-3 aircraft have detected underwater sounds in the search area. As a result, ROV operations have been moved to attempt to explore the origin of the noises,” the US Coast Guard First District announced on Twitter. ROV searches “have yielded negative results but are continuing,” he added.
A story that reminds us that, underwater, the outcome can be dramatic as with these three previous ones.
On January 27, 1968, off Toulon, the Minerve, this French diesel-electric attack submarine, disappeared. Taking his 52 crew with him as he departs for his last day of training. That day, bad weather conditions forced the crew to reduce the exercise to radar calibration alone. Radio contact ceases in a manner described as “abrupt” by the investigation report, after the submarine’s last request: confirmation of the end of the exercise. The wreckage was discovered in 2019, but the cause of the sinking could not be established with certainty.
Commissioned in 1994, the Russian nuclear cruise missile submarine lived only 6 years. On August 12, 2000, he and his 118 crew sank in the Barents Sea. Vladimir Putin, newly elected President of Russia, wants to show the Russian people that the fleet is operational again with the help of great maneuvers. During the exercise, a torpedo on board the submarine caused two explosions. This shipwreck has been used in popular culture such as the video game Tomb Raider: In the Footsteps of Lara Croft, where the third part of the game takes place in the submarine.
The San Juan was in service with the Argentine Navy from 1985 to 2017. While the aircraft was carrying out a maritime surveillance exercise in the Puerto Madryn area, the Argentine Navy Command said it lost contact with the submarine on November 15, 2017. According to a report by the United States Office of Naval Intelligence, the ship imploded in “40 milliseconds” taking all 44 crew members with it.
