CBS News' David Pogue on his experience diving on now-missing sub

we're going to begin this hour with the

race to find a missing subcarrying five

people in the North Atlantic this is

very serious stuff the Titan was

reported overdue on Sunday after diving

toward the site of the Titanic shipwreck

shipwreck it's pronounced CBS News David

Pope went on board the Titan last year

for a story about the sub and the

company that owns it the name of the

company is Ocean Gate Expeditions here's

a clip from David's story

Titan is the only five person sub in the

world that can reach Titanic depths 2.4

miles below the sea and yet I couldn't

help noticing how many pieces of this

sub seemed improvised so the pressure

vessel is not MacGyver at all because

that's where we work with Boeing and

NASA and the University of Washington

everything else can fail your thrusters

can go your lights can go you're still

going to be safe

well in a statement Ocean Gate says this

they're exploring and mobilizing all

options to bring the crew back safely it

went on to say that it's quote thankful

for the extensive assistance that we've

received from several government

agencies and deep sea companies in the

search David Pogue joins us now David I

mean this is just terrifying and so

scary we're all thinking about the

people on board when you heard that they

were missing and there was no contact

what were your first thoughts as someone

who's been there I mean this entire

industry this travel Adventure travel

industry is dangerous going up in the

Rockets visiting the volcanoes everybody

knows the risks involved and I can tell

you that these submersibles are one-offs

it's not like iPhones there are

thousands of them that they can perfect

there's one of it and so there are

certain improvised you know he got the

lights from camper world he he drives

the thing with an Xbox joystick uh game

controller so but this is all standard

in the field and you you know that it's

a risk so but when they when they first

lost contact why were why wasn't their

effort to make made to get to them

immediately how long was this trip

supposed to last number one usually it's

10 to 12 hours it's two and a half hours

down a few hours at the Titanic and then

a couple hours back up

um why didn't they send the alarm sooner

I I can only guess it's because things

go wrong all the time in this business

the the time I was there my dive at the

Titanic only lasted 37 feet down and

then it had a mechanical problem and had

to be hoisted back onto the ship that's

very standard so they probably thought

well

the comms will come back David to expand

on Gill's question are there any outside

bodies outside of Ocean Gate that they

pay to keep eyes on the sub just in case

something like this happens no uh it's

an international water so this this sub

as you sign on the waiver you say I

understand that this sub has not been

inspected or certified by any

third-party body but if you know that if

you're paying that much money wouldn't

you want to have a backup plan to the

backup plan to ensure your safety I mean

I should tell you that there are many

safety features of this sub and of the

procedures it's run like a rocket launch

there are these long checklists and

they're twice daily briefings that

everybody has to attend

um there are seven different ways to

come back to the surface and why haven't

they that's the real question why have

we not seen this thing come back it's a

good question into the sunlight that is

the question that makes my BUN blood run

cold of those seven different ballast

systems several of them work even if

there's no electricity one of them even

works if everybody's passed out it's a

Time release sandbag wow that after 14

hours drops off by itself so this thing

should be bobbing on the surface if it

isn't it could only mean two things

either they got snagged on something on

the bottom of the sea which is pretty

unlikely there's nothing there but the

Titanic

or there was a breach in the hall and it

instantly imploded wow what do you what

do you think has happened when you look

at the two

none of those are good none of those are

good the fact that they lost the signal

two-thirds the way down to the floor

that's really bad that means something

probably catastrophic happened to the

whole thing the pressure is intense but

of all the things you say were you know

picked up a camper world or Xbox the the

hall itself was supposed to be Boeing

and NASA and impenetrable the hall

itself is it was co-designed with

University of Washington and NASA it's

five inch thick carbon fiber never been

done before everybody told Stockton Rush

the CEO and designer of the sub that he

was crazy because that doesn't work that

way but in theory the deeper you go as

the pressure builds the tighter the

water is pushing in on those silver end

caps and making it more and more

waterproof so that's why I I didn't

worry about implosion what can you tell

us about this company and the people

that run it do you think they're being

transparent here

Stockton Rush is a really interesting

guy he's built and designed airplanes

he's built and designed previous

submersibles he's a direct descendant of

two of the signers of the Declaration of

Independence

he is I won't say Cavalier but he did

say

safety is relative if you want to live

in perfect safety don't gotta go don't

get out of bed wow but they've had

successful Dives doing this right they

have they've been operating more than

the Summers and they've been down about

25 times let's end on hope you have some

what is it why the hope is quickly

fading I'm afraid because in theory they

have four days worth of oxygen it's

never been tested nobody's ever measured

it and we're now two days into that so

it's half of that is gone if they're at

the bottom of the seat no one has ever

been down for four days correct no one's

ever put five people in there and said

start the clock let's see how long is

supposed to have four days worth of

oxygen

right that's that's a calculation

um so either they're underwater which is

devastating because even if we find them

there's no way to rescue them the the

deepest sub submarine rescue ever

performed was 1500 feet that's like this

this is 13 000 feet there's no one other

craft that can get down there in time

but everybody has an idea about where

they are why can't they just send

something down to look in that area even

if there's an explosion as you think

could have happened because there's only

three or four

machines that can go to that depth in

the world yeah wow and they're not they

take weeks to prepare and they're not on

site and and suppose we had one what

would we do try to tow this thing up I

mean the difference between a submarine

which is a torpedo shaped thing that

drives out a port on its own and this

thing a submersible is that this has to

be carried everywhere it has very little

power you can see in the picture it's

just these little plastic fans basically

so it's supposed to drop down and then

just pop pop back up that was that's

right they released the ballast they

released the weight and it just Rises

the surface on its own the other thought

I think this part of the hope is if it's

on the surface now and it's located it

cannot be open from the inside so it has

to be found in time they will run out of

oxygen even then open from the outside

yeah that's right we were open we were

bolted in from the outside there's 17

bolts on the outside so the the running

out of air problem still affects us even

if they're at the surface right now we

need to find them well we heard someone

say you need a miracle and you know

we'll have a follow-up on CBS Sunday

Morning this Sunday all right thank you

David