Titan, the Sub

The Titan submersible has been in the news lately. That's the submersible that was descending to the Titanic wreck and was crushed by the pressure of the ocean. All five persons inside Titan were killed instantly. So what, exactly, do I mean by instantly?

Did the passengers on Titan have any awareness of what was happening?

No, not at all.

The body surface area (BSA) of an average adult male is 22.173 square feet. That is 3193 square inches. Let's round it to 3000. The water pressure at the depth of Titanic is 6000 pounds per square inch (psi). Therefore, the total pressure on a human body at the depth of Titanic would be about 6000 x 3000 or about 18 million pounds, equal to 9000 US tons. 

Titan is believed to have imploded at 13,000 feet below sea level. The water pressure at that depth would be 13/19 of Titanic pressure, or 4100 psi. The crush force on a body would be the psi multiplied by body area, which is 4100 x 3000 = 12.3 million psi, or about 6000 US tons.

Your body would be obliterated in one millisecond. It takes about 15 milliseconds (or longer) for the human brain to recognize a nerve impulse. Your body and brain would be gone long before your brain could know that anything unusual was happening.

It's like sitting on an atomic bomb when it explodes. You don't have time to say, "Ow!" You just disappear.