Blog 157 - TITANIC - PART XVI - Chapter 2 - Of Miracles, Evacuation Chutes and the Entry of the “Tysla”

What Had Gone on Before

Captain Anantharam Srinivas (Andy) was a very highly regarded officer of the US Navy, known widely for his intelligence, courage in face of danger, with an Admiral’s rank awaiting him. Son of immigrants from India, he had no choice but to study and excel in his academics and, later, in his Naval career.

In the meantime, the Radio Room in the Communications Centre had latched on to the same transmission and were hurriedly searching for a Morse Code book. Only a grizzled veteran, on the cusp of retirement, calmly took a notebook and pencil and transcribed the Morse message that was still being transmitted. A minute later, the message went up to the Bridge, to the Captain.

Captain Andy had been half suspicious, not wanting to believe Sgt Goodsir, thinking it was some kind of extreme hoax.

But now, he had the proof in his hands.

The USS Gerald R Ford, a Nimitz Class Air Craft Carrier, one of the latest and largest in the world, operates with a crew of 4500 and has about 75 aircraft on board.

The XO ( Executive Officer) and the CAG (Carrier Air Wing Commander), who had been alerted, came to the Bridge almost simultaneously.

Capt Andy’s instructions were precise.

– Turn the ship around and head for the target. The USS Gerald R Ford was capable of close to 30 knots.

– Two jets to scramble immediately and flyby the area in question, relaying their reports.

– Two VTOL aircraft to be readied.

– Four helicopter crews were to be readied.

– Two of the Fleet’s Battle Cruisers were to immediately turn around and head for the target, as their speeds were in the range of 40 knots.

– Half the crew were to report for duty and assist.

– A “Limited Emergency” was declared.

He went back to Sgt Goodsir, who could hear the wheels churning on the Bridge of the Gerald R Ford, over the still connected telephone.

He asked her to remain on the line for any further information.

He pointedly asked her “How did you come across this Wireless Transmission?”

Theodora introduced Alex to the Captain, who gave him a brief outline of his Ham Radio operations and how he had latched on to the Morse transmission.

(For information, Morse Code had been officially buried in 2000).

Capt Andy : “Son, whatever be the circumstance of this transmission, you and I are going to meet up soon. You too Sgt Goodsir.”

To The Story

By a remarkable coincidence, there were two entities on board the Gerald R Ford who were present, in one way or the other, to enhance the US Navy’s capabilities in different sectors.

One of them was NUMA - National Underwater Maritime Agency - who had been contracted by the US Navy in some secret underwater training operations, mainly involving super training of already trained divers in diverse classified activities.

The head of NUMA was ‘Ganny’ - Bala Ganapathy - a Marine Engineer turned trouble shooter for the quasi government agency, NUMA. His trusted deputy, Biswajit Basu - ‘Bish’ - his inseparable deputy, was also with him, both hoping that this would be their last assignment prior retirement.

The second entity was a tie up with the Indian Navy, where a secure defense contractor, “Chidambaram Consultants for Rescue”, had been involved with the Indian Navy. Being experts in the field, they had been consulted and retained by the Indian Navy to advise them on which manufacturer was the best, after checking the product, evaluating on the basis of strength, ease of use, reliability. The systems involved were Mass Recovery and Rescue Systems on board ships, meant for both, naval and merchant marine. The success of their evaluation of the demonstration had piqued the interest of the US Navy, who had asked for Chidambaram Consultancy to evaluate and demonstrate all 4 Rescue and Recovery products on board the Gerald R Ford.

Ganny and Bish had been called to the Bridge in a consultant capacity. They both watched the scenario unfold before them.

It was now nearing 12.35 (35 minutes past midnight) in their time zone.

On the Titanic

At 12.25 am, Capt Edward Smith ordered ‘Abandon Ship’, knowing that there was no way the vessel could be saved. Advised by his Second Officer, he ordered the evacuation of ‘women and children first’ in the life boats.

The Wireless Operators of the Titanic, Jack Phillips and Harold Bride, started to send out ‘CQD’ and ‘SOS’ messages and kept repeating the transmission at intervals, expecting some return transmissions.

But, strangely, there had been no response at all. It was as if they were all alone in the world.

The Event

In a sense they were all alone.

The white, halo circle of light that they had passed through immediately after the collision was, in actuality, a kind of a ‘Time Gateway’, a ‘Star Gate’ device presumably left behind by alien visitors long ago.

They never realised it nor did they know they had gone through a Time Warp and emerged into the same date and time, but a different year, 2020 - 108 years later.

They emerged from a moonless night into a night sparsely lit by a near full moon playing hide-and-seek with the clouds.

By 12.40 the first boats were starting to be lowered.

The Engineers had found that they had to douse the fires in the boilers of # 6 Boiler Room, as the water level had risen to the furnace levels.

They did so and retreated to # 5 Boiler Room, closing the water tight doors, but the rise of the water level was relentless. So they had to abandon # 5 Boiler Room too.

They kept retreating from the continuous onslaught of the rise of water levels. But they were sturdy of mind to provide steam to power the DC Generators, so that lighting was available in the labyrinthine corridors of the vessel, without which the passengers would have been floundering around in the dark.

On deck, as evacuation of women and children were going on, one of the Officers sent up white flares - probably mistakenly, instead of red - in the hope that ships in the vicinity will respond.

Enter the “Tysla” into the area of operations

Hardly 8 miles away from where the Titanic had come through the “Time Gate”, the Wilhelmsen Car-and-Truck Carrier “Tysla” was on a westerly course, bound for Verolme Dry Dock in Rotterdam after discharging all her cargo in the eastern ports of the US coast. Managed by Wilhelmsen Ship Management, she was under the command of Capt Bobbie Abraham, the senior most of Captains in the Company. Her Chief Engineer was Mani Lakshmanan, a quiet, unassuming but no-nonsense excellent Engineer. Bobbie Abraham and Mani Lakshmanan were an inseparable duo and had sailed together for many years and were fast friends. Lakshmanan had been busy with the Dry Dock specifications in his Office when, taking a break, he went out on deck next to his cabin and was the first to see the flares sent up by the Titanic, somewhere on the port quarter of the “Tysla”.

Rushing to the Bridge - just a deck above - he alerted the Officer of the Watch, the Second Officer. Though the Titanic showed up on the ARPA, she could not be identified as there were no signals from her AIS (Automatic Identification System).

Capt Abraham was called up and an immediate decision to change course and head for the ship that had sent up the flares was taken.

Including the time to turn around and speed up, she expected to be at site within fifteen minutes.

Alerting all vessels in the vicinity over VHF Channel 16, she received more details from the USS Gerald R Ford, who had caught her VHF transmission.

As the others on board were coming to life, 2 jets flew close to them, on the way to the Titanic.

The Scene on the Bridge of the USS Gerald R Ford

It took hardly 3 minutes for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighters to overfly the Titanic at low altitude and transmit reports over the Radio.

The jets observed a vessel in distress, many lifeboats in the water.

Close on the heels of the two F-35s, two F-35 Bs had taken off, practically on the tail of the F-35s. The advantage of the F-35 Bs - they were STOVL capable - Short Take Off and Vertical Landing and she could hover over a spot.

Source : You Tube

The F-35Bs did exactly that. They, hovering over the Titanic and using their powerful lights, could send in a versatile report of what was the actual situation.

Their report:

-They were looking at a four funnelled passenger ship, unlike any of today.

– Counted 16 Open Life Boats of which 4 were in the water, 2 on the port side, 2 on the starboard side. Others were being prepared for lowering.

– Easily more than a thousand persons were on deck, including many women and children.

-Their clothing looked old-style, like from the silent movies’ days.

– Looked like not enough boats for all.

– All were wearing life jackets of the type that the pilots had not seen at all. Though some wore warm clothing, none had Immersion Suits.

–The Titanic was ‘down by head’ quite a bit, shows ingress of water in forward sections.

–Difficult to say, but she would not be afloat for long.

The terse report from the F-35 Bs were quickly digested and a plan formulated.

4 large sized Helicopters - CH-53 E Sikorskys - were immediately commandeered, filled with as many Inflatable Life Rafts as possible.

CH-53 E Sikorsky - Source - Wikipedia

The Divers who were under training with NUMA under Commander Ganny were immediately deployed with their gear and distributed to the 4 helicopters, each now carrying 7 x 30 man life rafts.

2 Life rafts in their casings - ready for deployment and inflation - For Representation

The plan was to drop the Life Rafts close to the vessel, with the Divers - in the water in wet suits - helping any and all who jumped from the ship to be assisted into the Life Rafts.

Life raft for 30+ persons

The 4 helicopters were up in the air in under 8 minutes and were hovering close to the Titanic in 5 minutes, where they dropped the Life Rafts. The Divers descended and inflated the rafts by the simple expedient of pulling on a rope that started the whole process of the raft getting inflated and ready for use.

The moon was nearly full and, by itself, provided light to a certain extent. The helicopter pilots and the STOVL pilots, both of whose under carriage lights were spot lighting and illuminating a scene that, otherwise, would have been depressing, quickly sent in an estimation of the numbers to be evacuated and the availability of life saving devices. It fell far short of what would be needed. They also mentioned the fact that those on board would have to jump about 70 to 80 feet to reach the water.

So far, about 7 boats had been lowered, accounting for less than 300 on board. Another 9 boats were remaining + 2 rigid rafts with collapsible sides.

The passengers and crew of the Titanic, already in a state of shock, were further shocked and astounded by the sight of jet planes - never seen before - followed ten or more minutes later by helicopters - another shock - deploying what were round shaped boats in the water. A few of them slowly assimilated what was happening and, without trying to decipher where the miraculous help had come from, understood that their chances of survival had increased manifold. But, yet, no one jumped into the water, as the jump from the Life Boat deck would mean a heart stopping 70 foot drop and certain death for some.

While the Bridge occupants of the Gerald R Ford were mulling over how to speed up the process and collating all the data, Ganny of NUMA latched on to the ‘70 foot drop’ that the evacuees would need to face, which could mean certain death for the less healthy.

While on board the Gerald R Ford, Commander Ganny had kept a close watch on the ‘Chidambaram Consultants for Rescue’ staff and activities, more out of interest than anything else.

The Chidambaram people were involved in testing out the efficacy of the recovery systems of 4 different manufacturers’ latest products - the consultancy and the ‘in situ’ on-board tests of Rescue and Recovery products a brainchild of their boss Chidambaram - where mass evacuation of over 200 people from a stranded or sinking vessel could be disembarked in less than a few minutes, depending on the number of chutes and rafts deployed. Each manufacturer had slight variations of the same name, which was, for convenience, presently designated as “Enmasse Life Saving System” (ELSS for short). It had been a major success in the Indian Navy, with each manufacturer competing for supremacy, wanting to acquire the contract. The friendly relations between the two Navies meant that, once the US Navy heard of it, they had wanted a demonstration. If tested under various terrains and circumstances and proved successful, it had the hallmark of revitalising ‘Abandon Ship’ procedures in all of shipping and also high rise buildings.

There were 4 deployable systems under tests and examination, each with two chutes.

With his aide, Biswajit Basu, he chalked out an on-the-fly plan to rescue as many as possible out of the ship, using the Mass Recovery System. Once the plan was presented, it was accepted with alacrity, as most were fresh out of ideas.

The helicopters were called back, the Recovery Systems quickly loaded. Each raft was lifted by a helicopter. Five minutes down the line, 2 of the massive rafts were set down on the port side and two on the starboard side of the Titanic. 8 of the divers climbed aboard the Titanic, using the many ropes that were hanging on the hull of the Titanic, to quickly set up the ELSS and moor it to any part of the ship that it could be attached to. Quickly getting rid of the railings that would intervene, they moored it and pushed it out into the sea. With the attached gas cylinders, it inflated and opened, much like the escape chutes that passenger aircrafts have.

Ganny on one side on one raft and Bish on the other side on another raft, co-ordinated the alignment of the chutes from the raft to the deck of the Titanic, using the helicopters, where they were secured on deck.

The passengers suddenly found that all they had to do was enter the chute and they would slide down the 70 feet on to the massive raft that was waiting for them at the end of the chute.

While the rigging of one chute was completed, the second chute rigging was started. The first chute already had passengers sliding down.

With chutes for each raft rigged up, the evacuation started to proceed smoothly.

As each evacuee landed on the raft, an odd looking plastic - glass, more like dark sunglasses was waved in the face of each person and quickly clamped on to the left wrist, like wrist bands.

Even those in the Life Boats of the Titanic were not forgotten. The Sixth Fleet’s Zodiacs were busy distributing these sunglasses look-alike to all.

(They were one of the latest of innovations designed by Google. Multi faceted, they could take photographs and, when worn on the wrist, monitor your health functions. A small pinprick and blood samples are analysed. Using the small pencil attached, one can write on the glass. It could be linked to a computer, lap top or a keyboard. All this information, including the photograph, gets automatically uploaded to a secure satellite from where it flows down to dedicated computers of various governmental agencies. AI is then used to sift and segregate).

As each passenger or crew member landed on the raft, he or she was directed to the other end of the raft to enter one of the 30 man life rafts that had been dropped down previously by helicopter.

As each inflatable liferaft was filled to capacity, it had to be towed away from the exit, so that the next 30 person life raft can be brought alongside.

Several of the battle cruisers that accompanies all Air Craft carriers had sent their Zodiacs to tow away the now-filled life rafts, so that the empty one can come alongside for the next batch of survivors.

Within minutes, people caught on to what was required of them. The able bodied ones helped the lesser abled ones.

The evacuation proceeded smoothly.