What Happens When a Submarine Sinks | Last Moments

for many people being in a submarine is a pretty frightening prospect and you can understand why there's a lot of very common phobias that could potentially be at play claustrophobia being the most obvious a lot of the spaces in a submarine are pretty restrictive and they're all enclosed in what is essentially a big capsule that you literally cannot escape once you get in you're not coming out until you resurface and maybe you're not afraid of enclosed spaces but you're afraid of open spaces and well it doesn't get any more open than the ocean I don't suffer from this personally but even I feel a little uneasy looking at these pictures of sailors just outside the ship there's nothing above you nothing around you nothing under you you're just floating in a massive void I imagine being submerged in a submarine is a little like an experience I had as a kid in the all.we cave in the West of Ireland you're just surrounded by tons of rock and the further you get from the entrance the deeper you get into the cave you start to feel a little uncomfortable you're traveling through a tiny crack between these giant masses that could easily crush you quickly or slowly and there's nothing you or anybody else could do about it and of course water is much the same as soon as you enter the water there's force being applied all over you and the deeper you get the more pressure you'll be subjected to eventually the water will crush you as easily as the rocks in the cave avoid submarines have to be built with water pressure in mind now with submarines we have reached the deepest depths of the ocean the challenger deep in the Mariana Trench but only specially made research submarines can go down that far every other submarine has a limit the Challenger Deep is about 10 kilometers deep military attack submarines which is what we'll be looking at today have a test depth of only about half a kilometer the exact depths are classified but there are around that even if we're generous and double that it's still not very far now the test step is just the depth that the submarine can safely operate at they can go even deeper but they're in dangerous territory my to them that you can bring these submarines to and still have a chance to bring it back up is generally about double the test depth so that is still not even close to the bottom during the Cold War numerous nuclear submarines sank today we're going to be looking at the first nuclear submarine to be lost at sea the USS Thresher commissioned in 1961 the USS Thresher was a nuclear-powered fast attack submarine in service with the United States Navy being the lead ship of its class the thresher spent a large amount of time in trials testing and training in 1962 the submarine entered a scheduled assessment period where engineers would examine the onboard systems and make repairs and modifications this work went on for nine months with the work done in April 1963 the USS Thresher set off to perform post overhaul diving trials off Cape Cod Massachusetts the submarine was accompanied by a submarine rescue ship the Skylark which would monitor the trials and maintain contact as the thresher dove down below it the submarine first made a shallow dive and resurfaced before performing a test dive to half the test depth around 150 meters where she remained overnight at 6:30 a.m. on the 10th of April the USS Thresher re-established communications with the Skylark about an hour later they began the dive to full test depth 300 meters which was dozens of meters beyond skylarks rescue capabilities thresher began slowly circling further below Skylark with intermittent pauses to check that all systems were ok about 9:00 a.m. thresher was just about at the test decks when they contacted the Skylark to say they were having minor difficulties on what attempted to resurface the Skylark asked if everything was under control to which they received no response two minutes later the Skylark picked up a garbled transmission which was barely intelligible except for the phrase exceeding test deck this was shortly followed by a sudden low frequency and the Thresher was never heard from again so what happened onboard the thresher the thresher was commanded by Lieutenant Commander John Wesley Harvey during the descent to the full test depth of 300 meters commander Harvey and his crew were inspecting the ship for any possible malfunctions and found none they continued the pattern of diving 30 meters checking all the systems and relaying information to the skylark until they reached the test deck on which point a malfunction caused the nuclear reactors powering the sub to shut down and they lost propulsion the exact cause of the malfunction is disputed at this point the thresher begins to sink tail first commander Harvey reports the following status to the Skylark we are experiencing minor difficulty have positive of angle attempting to blow Harvey was referring to blowing the ballast tanks of the sub a ballast tank is a compartment in a submarine which holds water the tank can be flooded or blown to control buoyancy of the ship typically submarines only use these near the surface to emerge or submerge otherwise they use hydro planes and propulsion to control whether they go up or down blowing the ballast tanks at any great depth can cause a submarine to shoot up to the surface uncontrollably however given the emergency circumstances commander Harvey ordered to blow the ballast tanks to avoid sinking any further the Skylark acknowledges this decision and informs the Thresher that there are no ships in the area to fear collision with however as the high-pressure air traveled through the valve blowing the water from the ballast there was a buildup of ice blocking the flow of air realizing the ship is still sinking commander Harvey orders another attempt at blowing the ballasts but this too fails commander Harvey sends one last transmission informing the Skylark the submarine is sinking below the maximum test depth of 300 meters a Skylark continues to contact thresher the submarine implodes between 400 and 600 meters killing all 129 personnel on board so what is it like to be on a submarine when it implodes well it's hard to know for definite as obviously no one has ever had the experience and lived to tell the tale before the implosion the crew would have known what was about to happen as they were sinking the ship probably would have began to groan and creak as the whole fitting started to weaken I imagine that's a pretty terrifying sound but the implosion itself is instant the thresher was torn apart pieces of it lay scattered across the ocean floor once the hole is ruptured the pressure inside the sub increases massively the air is compressed so quickly that it's like being inside a diesel engine cylinder the air becomes hot enough to ignite there's a shock wave that's like an explosion if you were subjected to this you'd be destroyed if you were somehow shielded from the shock wave of course the pressure would instantly crush the cavities in your body for example your lungs would collapse then of course there is the matter of the ship itself flying around you if any of that hits you it's going to do a lot of damage and also the tons of water that would crash into you from all sides basically you are killed several times over in very extreme conditions it sounds very grisly but the good news is this all apparently happens faster than the human brain can perceive so you'd be dead before you knew it was happening of course the crew would have still had to deal with the impending dread of slowly sinking to their doom after the loss of the USS Thresher the Navy implemented a more rigorous program of design review on safety inspections called sub safe since its inception only one other submarine the USS scorpion has suffered the same fate as his custom for a ship lost at sea the USS Thresher was never decommissioned by the US Navy and remains on eternal trol I'll end this video which is the inaugural video of this new series with two questions did you enjoy this video I know it's a bit of a departure from the usual tone of my other series but I think variety is a healthy thing to have to keep the content fresh and interesting and my second question born of morbid curiosity do you think it is possible that anyone on the USS Thresher was not killed instantly rather they would have been aware of the implosion even if just for a second could there have been any part of the ship that would have somehow shielded them from the worst of the damage that they would have heard the horrifying sound of the ship being destroyed and felt themselves being crushed personally I don't think that would have been possible I think and well I hope it would have instantly killed everyone no matter what but I'm obviously not an expert and I'd like to hear what you guys think it's just an unsettling thought that has been in my mind all throughout the creation of this video and now I must bid thee farewell [Music] you [Music]

Channel: Qxir

Views: 2,736,143

Rating: 4.8929648 out of 5

Keywords: uss thresher, submarine, sinking, sink, nuclear, powered, explained, narrated, documentary, sank, submarines, sub, cold war, us navy, navy, military, animated, creepy, creepypasta, scary

Id: fjTIq3NC6JI

Length: 10min 1sec (601 seconds)

Published: Sun Nov 17 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/porno_the_clown]

The same YouTuber made a scary af video of a failed diving rescue with footage of a divers final moments however it clearly violates the rules and I will not post it here.