[RajT88]

> There's little other explanation for why contact would be abruptly lost.

You'd think - but past passengers have said that when they dove they lost contact as well.

Mutiple trip passengers said they lost contact every time.

So multiple anecdotes of loss of contact with the same vehicle without an implosion. The jankiness of this operation continues to be discovered bit by bit.

ETA:

https://abcnews.go.com/US/former-titanic-submersible-passeng...

[danso]

I listened to Reiss's (the passenger cited in that story) account on his podcast [0], and it's somewhat ambiguous. There are periods of spotty communication and long periods of the sub just getting lost. But not comms system/transponder abruptly going out and not being heard from again.

David Pogue seems to concur with this [1]. He saw them lose track of where the sub was located (wrt to the Titanic wreck), but he said the support ship never lost the ability to communicate with the sub.

[0] https://bleav.com/shows/what-am-i-doing-here-with-mike-reiss...

[1] https://twitter.com/Pogue/status/1671524465736335366

[dTal]

In addition, note that despite losing contact while the sub was on its way down, they did not report it missing until it was overdue after the full mission length.

That indicates a certain blase, routine attitude to communication loss.

[Lukas_Skywalker]

This is consistent with this video of a trip. Comms were lost, and the pilot even jettisoned some of the ballast in order to resurface. They continued the descent later though.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=RAncVNaw5N0