‘MythBusters’ video reveals deep-sea implosion’s effect on body
An old clip from the Discovery Channel show “MythBusters” demonstrating how a deep-sea explorer could implode in a depressurized diving suit has gone viral after the Titanic sub disaster.
The 2009 clip has racked up more than three-quarters of a million views after being posted Thursday, when it was discovered that the five passengers had died aboard a Titanic wreckage-bound submersible that imploded.
In the show’s science experiment, a human-shaped mannequin was recreated from pig parts including bones, muscle, fat, skin and guts.
It was then sunk about 300 feet underwater — where pressure is roughly nine times greater than at sea level — and its diving suit was depressurized.
Over a gruesome roughly 30 seconds, the rapid change in air pressure forced the meaty contents of the fake diver into the helmet as the suit collapsed in on itself.
In reality, the reenactment has very little in common with the last moments of the doomed Titan sub passengers, who authorities have said were instantaneously killed at much greater depths and under much higher pressure.
The Titan submersible is believed to have imploded near the 12,500-foot-deep ocean floor where the ruins of the 1912 shipwreck lie.
Pressure levels at that depth would be up to 400 times greater than normal, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, meaning the five men aboard would have imploded in a fraction of a second.
Investigators are still looking into what caused the OceanGate sub to implode, instantly killing Hamish Harding, 58, Shanzada Dawood, 48, and his son Sulaiman, 19, Paul-Henri Nargeolet, 77, and company CEO Stockton Rush, 61.
Authorities had said there would not be a recovery mission, as the “catastrophic implosion” would have obliterated any human remains.
At least some of the victims had paid Rush $250,000 each for the opportunity to see the famous shipwreck up close, even after former company employees had raised “quality control and safety” concerns before the doomed voyage. The Titan had made two prior successful trips to the Titanic site.