The saga of the RMS Titanic started on 12th April 1912, and 111 years later is still headline news.

When the Titanic sunk after hitting that iceberg in 1912, the journalists and early radio broadcasters who covered the tragedy would never have thought their successors would still be reporting about the effects of the sinking over 100 years later.

But the Titanic is still news and will continue to be for some time yet after the latest incident involving a ‘submersible’ which is lost somewhere in the depths of the North Atlantic ocean with minimal oxygen on board, and frankly not much hope of rescue. That 5 people have gone down in that sub and paid $250000 for the privilege of possibly dying in it beggars belief. They might call themselves ‘adventurers’ or thrill seekers but whatever, it seems a bizarre way to become a member of the Darwin group, that is people who kill themselves in the most unusual way possible.

Now of course, I hope the passengers and crew are rescued and they return to the surface unharmed, but the situation they are in does not auger well. It takes some strength of mind to enter a vessel where you will be bolted into it, with no way of exiting it from the inside, and dropped to a depth of 3800 metres to look at the wreck of the Titanic through a tiny window and computer screens. It is controlled by a computer games hand control and the passengers sit on a hard surface for the duration of the four hour journey to the bottom. But each to his own, and most people would probably say no thanks, even if they had unlimited funds to achieve this trip. But as I understand it, one of the passengers, a British multi-millionaire has already had a trip into space and taken part in other high risk ventures. I hope his family think it’s worth the risk, but unfortunately his son was with him, so they could have lost them both. I’m not trying to spread doom and gloom, but one has to be realistic, their chances of survival are pretty slim.

Titanic had a short chequered career, and sparked feature films, conjecture, expert opinion and has an everlasting fascination for most of the world. There have been several cinematic visions of what happened to Titanic among them A Night to Remember and the 1997 Titanic directed by James Cameron which made stars of Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet. That one is probably the most realistic re-enactment of the actual events and was a multiple Oscar winner. Cameron was able to get down to film Titanic on the ocean floor, and spliced those images with a fictional up-to-date story about a passenger on board the ship when it sank. I wonder how he got down to the wreck and managed to shoot miles of film which was cleverly mixed with the live action. So, if that was successfully achieved 25 years ago, without mishap, what did they do right?

Anyway we await the outcome of the rescue attempt with trepidation and hope against hope that the occupants are returned unharmed

So the latest news is that the sub has suffered a catastrophic implosion, the end caps of the submersible were found blown off the main body. This would have caused the submersible to flattened within a couple of seconds, so those on board would have not had a chance to feel anything. This has been seen several times in films and their reconstruction seems quite realistic. My condolences to all on board, I guess they all knew what dangers they faced, and signed waivers for what could happen to the sub. RIP the five men who persished.