Michiganders had prayed for a miracle, but Titanic-bound sub search ends in tragedy

Hope had run out for the Titanic-bound Titan and the five men aboard.

OceanGate Expeditions, the Everett, Washington-based company that provided the submersible and voyage, said Thursday afternoon that it believed the passengers had "sadly been lost," and news outlets started reporting that a remote-operated vehicle had found a "debris field."

Experts had estimated that passengers had enough air for only four days, giving the unfolding story real-life suspense as Michiganders like Bruce Lynn — and the others at the Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum in Whitefish Point who had worked with Paul-Henri Nargeolet, one of the voyagers — prayed for their survival.

But, Lynn said even before the OceanGate statement, he and his museum colleagues understood from their experience with Great Lakes shipwrecks the danger Nargeolet faced. The titanium and carbon-fiber-clad Titan began its deep-sea dive Sunday, and the 22-foot vessel would be hard to find in the vastness of the ocean.

"They might as well be in outer space; it’s that remote," Lynn said. "So few humans go to depths like that."

More: All five passengers on missing Titanic submersible dead after catastrophic implosion

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In many ways, Oakland University psychology professor Virgil Zeigler-Hill said, the world became fascinated with the lost sub, in part, because the rescue attempt played out like a Hollywood movie: There was a countdown to when the oxygen would run out, and those aboard were trying to see the Titanic, one of history's most tragic lost ships.

Deep below the ocean's surface

In addition to Nargeolet, the Titan's passengers were OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush, British explorer Hamish Harding and Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood, who had brought his 19-year-old son, Suleman Dawood, along for the ride.

Nargeolet, a renowned French maritime expert who had worked with Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum on various underwater research projects over the years, had considerable experience with such missions, having been on more than 35 dives to the Titanic wreck.

Lynn, the museum's executive director, said he and Nargeolet spoke via conference calls and met once, in person.

"He's absolutely one of the nicest people," Lynn said. "I hope there's a miracle — of some kind."

Zeigler-Hill said it's hard to know why those on the sub would attempt such an adventure, considering the danger.

"There are different motivations for taking these sorts of huge risks," the professor said, adding that people have had a desire for adventure for a long time, and when they go well, they are stories they can "tell others at dinner parties for the rest of their lives."

But when they don't, they are terribly tragic — for everyone.

A tragic end to the story

Michiganders, who are surrounded by lakes, are all too familiar with the sorrow of being lost while on the water. The Great Lakes are full of heartbreaking stories of lost mariners, and their vessels, some of which have never been found.

The Titanic's sinking was tragic. The Edmund Fitzgerald was, too.

The freighter went down during a storm in 1975. The late Canadian singer and songwriter Gordon Lightfoot immortalized the crew in "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald." The sailors all died when the ship sank, and Lightfoot's lyrics noted that Lake Superior never gives up her dead.

Still, the Fitz is something like 530 feet under water, and has been legally protected from tourists since the 1990s, Lynn said. Sunlight can penetrate up to about 650 feet, and the Renaissance Center, the tallest building in Detroit, is about 700 feet.

The Titanic, which sank in 1912, is even deeper under water, at about 12,500 feet.

The deepest scuba dive is 1,090 feet, and the world’s tallest building, the Burj Khalifain, in the United Arab Emirates, is about 2,720 feet. At the depth the Titanic is at, the force on every square inch on its broken hull is about 5,500 pounds.

Noises detected underwater earlier this week briefly gave the Titan rescuers some hope. But by about noon Thursday, the search had covered about 10,000 square miles, about the area of Massachusetts. It turned up no vessel, and some began speculating that the Titan's air supply had been exhausted.

The U.S. Coast Guard said later Thursday the submersible appeared to implode, and wreckage had been found.

"There's that curiosity, that fascination, people must have to want to go down and look at a wreck like that," Lynn said of the deep-sea dive. The shipwreck museum looks at wrecks with a robotic vehicle and camera. But, he added, it's not quite the same as "seeing it with your own eyes."

Contact Frank Witsil: 313-222-5022 or fwitsil@freepress.com.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Missing Titanic submersible found: Michiganders react to tragedy