泰坦号内爆，真相何时浮出水面？ | BBC新闻

Titan investigation: How will they find out what happened?

“泰坦号”事故调查：真相如何才能水落石出？

After the grim discovery of debris from the Titan submersible on the ocean floor, the focus of the rescue efforts will now be turned towards understanding what caused the accident.

在传来于海底发现“泰坦号”潜水器残骸这一令人沮丧的消息后，救援工作的重心如今将转向调查事故发生的原因。

According to Rear Admiral John Mauger, what they found was consistent with a "catastrophic implosion". This is because they found two patches of debris, one containing Titan's tail cone and the other its landing frame, suggesting that the vessel blew apart.

海军少将约翰·莫格（John Mauger）称，他们的发现符合船只“灾难性内爆”的情况。他们找到的两块残骸——一块包括“泰坦号”潜水器的尾锥，另一块是起落架，均表明潜水器发生了爆炸。

注释：

1. implosion: the act of collapsing into the centre. (Oxford Learner’s Dictionary)

2. blow something apart: to completely destroy sth. in an explosion. (Oxford Learner’s Dictionary)

To answer the question of why this happened and what could have been done to prevent it, the authorities will be gathering every piece of the debris they can find, according to Ryan Ramsey, former submarine captain in Britain's Royal Navy. "There is no black box, so you are not going to be able to track the last movements of the vessel itself," he says, but otherwise the process of investigation is not dissimilar to that of an airplane crash.

前英国皇家海军潜艇艇长瑞安·拉姆齐（Ryan Ramsey）表示，为查明事故原因并避免灾难再次发生，当局将尽全力收集每一块船体碎片。他说：“潜水器没有黑匣子，所以无法追踪其最后的动向。”不过除此之外，事故调查流程类似于调查飞机失事。

Microscopic tears

显微镜下的裂纹

Once investigators bring the pieces back up to the surface, they will look for the break structure in the carbon fibre structure, which is key to helping them understand what happened in those last moments, he says.

瑞安·拉姆齐指出，一旦调查人员将这些碎片带回地面，他们将立刻查找碳纤维构件中的断裂结构，这对了解潜水器最后时刻的情况至关重要。

Each piece will be closely examined under a microscope to examine the direction of the carbon fibre filaments, looking for tears which suggest the exact place where the rupture happened.

每一块碎片都将在显微镜下仔细检查，观察碳纤维丝的走向，寻找断裂处，用以定位船体破裂的确切位置。

“泰坦号”潜水器

资料来源：“海洋之门”勘探公司

The big question investigators will be trying to answer is whether the cause was a structural failure. If it was, then the submersible would have been subjected to incredibly high pressures, equivalent to the weight of the Eiffel Tower, says Professor Blair Thornton from the University of Southampton. "We're talking about a very powerful implosion of the main housing," he says.

调查人员要努力厘清的一大问题是，该事故是否归咎于结构破损。南安普顿大学的布莱尔·桑顿（Blair Thornton）教授指出，如果情况属实，潜水器当时应承受着非常高的压力，相当于埃菲尔铁塔的重量。他强调，“我们谈论的是主舱体的剧烈内爆。”

The critical question is if this did happen, is whether it was because of a lack of proper testing, as some experts have suggested. "Carbon fibre fails from internal defects in its construction," says Professor Roderick A Smith of Imperial College London. The joints between the carbon fibre and the titanium need very careful inspection, he says.

关键问题是，如果真发生了内爆，是否如一些专家所说，这是由先前的测试不充分所致。帝国理工学院的罗德里克·A·史密斯（Roderick A Smith）教授指出，碳纤维会因其结构存在内部缺陷而破裂，（因此）需要仔细检查碳纤维与钛的连接处。

The violence of the implosion means that it may be very difficult to determine the sequence of events, he adds. "Hence the need for retrieval and painstaking examination if possible." It is unclear at this stage which agency will lead the investigation as there is no protocol for such incidents with a submersible.

史密斯教授说到，由于内爆产生了巨大破坏力，确定事故发生的经过可能非常困难。他补充道：“这就是为什么需要尽可能收集残骸碎片并进行仔细检查。”由于针对这类潜水器事故还没有相关的处理流程规定，所以目前尚不清楚哪家机构将负责牵头此次调查。

Admiral Mauger said that it was particularly complex because the incident took place in a remote part of the ocean involving people of many different nationalities. But since the US coastguard has played a leading role in the operation so far, it is likely to continue to play an important part.

莫格少将表示，由于这起事故发生在偏远海域，且涉及多位不同国籍的人员，因此情况异常复杂。不过，由于美国海岸警卫队一直在搜救行动中发挥主导作用，所以他们很可能会继续担负重责。

Titanic sub search: US Navy detected implosion sounds after sub lost contact

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-65994405

搜寻“泰坦尼克号”沉船观光潜艇：美国海军在潜艇失联后探测到内爆声

The US Navy detected sounds "consistent with an implosion" shortly after OceanGate's Titan submersible lost contact, a navy official has said. Five people were aboard the vessel when it went missing during a dive to the Titanic wreck on Sunday. The loss of the sub was confirmed on Thursday after a huge search mission.

据一位美国海军官员透露，海洋之门（OceanGate）公司的“泰坦号”潜水艇失联后不久，海军探测到与“内爆”相符的声音。上周日，该观光艇在潜向“泰坦尼克号”沉船的过程中失联，艇上载有5人。经过大规模搜救后，“泰坦号”已于本周四确认失事。

The official told CBS News their information about the "acoustic anomaly" had been used by the US Coast Guard to narrow the search area. According to CNN, it was deemed to be "not definitive" and therefore the search and rescue mission continued.

该官员告诉CBS新闻，美国海岸警卫队已知悉这一“异常声响”的信息，并由此缩小搜救区域。据CNN报道，该信息“不能确定”，因此仍继续开展了搜救任务。

Earlier on Thursday, Rear Adm Mauger of the Coast Guard confirmed that all five people aboard Titan had been killed following what was probably a "catastrophic implosion", based on patterns of debris discovered.

周四早些时候，美国海岸警卫队的海军少将莫格宣布，根据所发现的观光艇残骸形态，“泰坦号”可能发生了“灾难性内爆”，5名乘员已全部遇难。

However, he said no sounds had been detected during the search mission that were consistent with this. "We've had sonar buoys in the water nearly continuously and have not detected any catastrophic events when those sonar buoys have been in the water."

但他表示，搜救过程中没有探测到与内爆相吻合的声音。他说：“我们几乎持续在水中部署声纳浮标，但这期间并未监测到任何灾难性事件。”

On Wednesday, the US Coast Guard confirmed that a Canadian P-3 aircraft had detected "underwater noises" in a search area for the missing vessel. This brought new hope that the Titan's crew might be found alive and caused the Coast Guard to relocate operations.

周三，美国海岸警卫队曾确认一架加拿大P-3巡逻机在搜救区域监测到了“水下噪音”。这一度带来了“泰坦号”乘客可能还活着的希望，警卫队也为此调整了搜救地点。

注释：

Canadian P-3:

(1) Canadian P-3 refers to a maritime patrol aircraft operated by the Royal Canadian Air Force, based on the Lockheed P-3 Orion airframe.

（来源：https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_CP-140_Aurora）;

(2) https://www.lockheedmartin.com/en-us/products/p-3.html;

(3)https://baike.baidu.com/item/P3%E5%8F%8D%E6%BD%9C%E5%B7%A1%E9%80%BB%E6%9C%BA/8900988?fr=aladdin

According to CBS, those noises are now thought to have been coming from other ships in the area. Paul Hankin, an undersea expert, said the first indication that the sub might have imploded came after a large debris field was found on Thursday. "Essentially we found five different major pieces of debris that told us that it was the remains of the Titan," he said.

据CBS报道，现在人们认为这些噪音可能来自搜索区域的其它船只。水下专家保罗·汉金（Paul Hankin）表示，周四搜救人员发现了一大处残骸区域，这是证明“泰坦号”可能已经内爆的首个迹象。“实际上，我们发现了五块大型碎片，表明正是‘泰坦号’的残骸，”他说。

Efforts are continuing to map the debris field and to search the sea floor around the Titanic. Contact with the vessel was lost about an hour and 45 minutes into its dive nearly a week ago. Titanic's wreck lies some 435 miles (700km) south of St John's, Newfoundland.

目前仍在进行对“泰坦号”残骸区域的测绘，并搜寻“泰坦尼克号”沉船周边的海底。“泰坦号”在近一个星期前潜入海中，约1小时45分钟后失联。“泰坦尼克号”沉船遗骸位于纽芬兰岛圣约翰市以南约435英里（700公里）。

Aboard the vessel was British billionaire businessman Hamish Harding, who had written on social media ahead of the dive that it was taking place because a "weather window" had opened up. He said that because of the "worst winter in Newfoundland in 40 years" the mission was "likely to be the first and only manned mission to the Titanic in 2023".

“泰坦号”搭载的乘客之一是英国亿万富翁哈米什·哈丁（Hamish Harding），潜海前他曾在社交媒体上发帖，称之所以进行这次探险是因为遇上了理想的天气状况。他说纽芬兰即将迎来“40年来最糟糕的冬天”，因此这次“很可能是2023年第一次、也是唯一一次参观‘泰坦尼克号’残骸的载人潜水活动”。

British father and son Shahzada and Suleman Dawood were also part of the crew. They were from one of Pakistan's richest families. OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush also died on Titan, alongside former French navy diver Paul-Henry Nargeolet.

“泰坦号”还搭乘了沙赫扎达·达伍德（Shahzada Dawood）和他的儿子苏莱曼·达伍德（Suleman Dawood），这对父子来自巴基斯坦最富有的家族之一，拥有英国国籍。剩下两名遇难的乘客是海洋之门公司的首席执行官斯托克顿·拉什（Stockton Rush）以及法国海军退役潜水员保罗-亨利·纳吉奥莱特（Paul-Henry Nargeolet）。

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