The catastrophic implosion of a submarine and its effects on the fragile humans within is a rare but captivatingly macabre subject. As the hull violently fails under immense pressure, the physics unleashed and traumatic destruction of the crew inside defies belief. While a horrifying way to perish, our fascination with the gruesome details also speaks to the incredible power of nature and human curiosity around demise in extreme environments. This article will provide a compelling glimpse into that morbid intrigue.
Physics of Submarine Implosions
Before examining the gruesome human impact, we must appreciate the immense forces involved when a submarine hull integrity fails at depth. Most submarines operate at around 400-700 feet beneath the surface. At even just 300 feet down, the pressure exerted on a vessel is already over 100 PSI. Compare this to average air pressure at sea level of 14.7 PSI. As depth increases in the ocean, that external pressure rises exponentially. At 1500 feet, the pressure can crush a human body down to half its size and exceeds 300 PSI pushing in on a submarine hull.
Eventually as the submarine ventures deeper, the colossal growing pressure reaches a point that metal and composites can no longer withstand. When a hull breach or failure occurs, the physics of rapid equalization takes over. Water instantly floods into the lower pressure air cavity inside the submarine, releasing tremendous explosive energy in the process. According to naval documents, the pressure wave and impulse forces generated by an uncontrolled flood into a submarine can far exceed anything human bodies were designed to endure. The shockwave itself may vaporise flesh or blast limbs from torsos within milliseconds. Entire submarines can be crushed inwards by the overwhelming pressure differential within a second.
While the challenge of withstanding these undersea pressures has lessened thanks to stronger hull materials in modern submarines, history shows accidents still occur. When they do, the effects unleashed mimic explosions in force and trauma inflicted. Physics makes clear that humans caught within a stricken vessel compression would experience injuries more consistent with bomb blasts than simple drowning.
Grisly Injuries Sustained
If the initial shockwave from an implosion does not kill crew members outright, they still face milliseconds of horrifying demise. Beyond ruptured lungs and eardrums from the pressure spike, the torrent of incoming water is powerful enough to break bones and accelerate bodily destruction. Fragile humans stand no chance against thousands of pounds of water flooding in faster than their nervous system can even register. The submarine social media video highlighting this article simply states that the flesh may be vaporised in the process – a chilling but likely realistic outcome.
For some more disturbing perspective, we can examine submarine accident reports that note actual bodily trauma found. Declassified documents from past disasters noted crew remains forced through small openings by the intense implosion impact, remains shredded by debris churned up in the flood vortex, and body parts strewn hundreds of feet away from the wreckage site. While grim reading, these real-world cases underline the extreme trauma unleashed in a submarine implosion sequence. Outward evidence fits with the immense physics involved when high pressure water meets lower pressure air in an uncontrolled fashion. The soft organs of the crew simply have no resilience against forces of thousands of pounds behind walls of water flooding in faster than the blink of an eye.
Within the Stricken Vessel
While actual survivor accounts are impossible, we can piece together the hellish sequence those doomed crew members likely endured. The initial hull breach would sound like a thunderous impact, rapidly followed by a growing rumble felt through the vessel. This would culminate in a violent implosion shockwave ripping through sensitive organs and launching crew against the hard walls and floors around them.
If they survive this traumatic blast injury phase, they then experience several hellish seconds as cold sea water surges through the submarine. In the darkness and loud cacophony of the flood, they would be tossed around violently by powerful currents with no frame of reference or chance of orientation. Jagged debris swirled around this vortex would further batter and lacerate their bodies. The sensation of drowning is well-studied to spark an intense primal fear response. Yet in this case, the violent circumstances heighten that terror. Their dying moments would capture some of the most horrifying experiences imaginable.
This entire internally destructive sequence likely lasts less than a minute before the submarine is crushed and flooded beyond capacity. The console lights flickering out to silence and blackness would mark the final seconds before unconsciousness. While this violent, loud and grim demise seems unimaginably traumatic, there is the small consolation that it is also extremely rapid. Such small comfort to those undergoing such horrifying extremes in their final moments though.
Rescue Challenges & Pressure Effects
For potential survivors of the initial blast or veterans underway in other sealed parts of the stricken submarine, their fight for life continues after the actual implosion. Naval submarine rescue requires quickly pressurising an escape pod or chamber to equalise pressure with trapped sailors before they can safely transfer. Without properly depressurising them first, a rapid rise to surface pressure would inflict critical barotrauma and tissue damage as air in their bodies expands dangerously. Rescue divers must literally race against nature’s physics before this equalisation effect causes further traumatic injuries or death.
History shows that even crew who miraculously survive a disaster sequence with potential rescue pending still perish due to the challenges of rapid repressurisation. After the tragic loss of submarine SQUALUS in 1939 from flooding, some crew were located still alive yet deceased by the time rescuers gained access. The human body can only withstand so much physiological trauma, as the pressure variances themselves can prove lethal. Between explosive implosion physics and unforgiving pressure injury timing, crew survival likelihood after even localised breaches remains heartbreakingly low.
Submarine Implosion Examples
While exact data is scarce across different naval forces globally, experts estimate around 300 submarines lost in accidents since 1900. Some of these involved gradual seafloor wreck site compression from pressure over years. Others occurred much more rapidly, causing traumatic crew demise within seconds to minutes of a flood initiating. According to an Australian submarine expert quoting confidential Navy loss records:
“Submarine casualties involving rapid flooding account for about 80% of all submarine losses – well over 200 boats since 1900. Rapid flooding due to external hull valve or hatch failure, damage from depth charging or surface collision, and other causes, allows little if any chance to recover from the resulting bow-down angle and sinking. But internal flooding caused by burst pipes, fractured welding or failure of a fundamental structural component is just as deadly as seawater gains access to the boat’s interior in quantities that inevitably overwhelm any fit submariner’s ability to stay alive.”
While more historical data remains classified, those staggering tallies underline that implosions and flooding account for the vast majority of submarine crew deaths over the past century involving hundreds of vessels.
Certain examples like the tragic loss of USS Thresher in 1963 stand out with 129 sailors perishing. Heroic efforts allowed 32 men to miraculously survive the HMS Thetis disaster of 1939 against all odds. Yet most cases end with total crew loss and shattered remains testifying to the horrific destructive forces unleashed by physics underwater. Even today with all our technological advances, naval services continue simplifying submarine hazard drills down to just three frightening firefighter-like priority calls – “contain the leak/flood”, "organise escape" and "surface the submarine!" Easy to shout yet so complex to execute with success in the dark stressful abyss.
Improved Safety Design Elements
While history shows too well the risk of submarine travel at depth, much focus in marine engineering has gone towards enhancing safety and survivability. Modern submarine hulls utilize improved steal strength and composite materials to better withstand water pressure extremes. Escape pods with dedicated pressure chambers provide improved likelihood surviving an incident. Locating mechanical equipment internally in modern “atomic” nuclear submarines also eliminates historical external valve issues causing floods.
Most submarines today have numerous independent hull isolation mechanisms and back-up systems too. These help contain even large-scale breaches or leaks using emergency bulkhead doors to keep non-flooded sections intact. Sensitive water sensors also quickly identify leaks unlikely to be noticed by crew in noisy confines. So while total trauma-inducing implosions may be reduced today, the threat persists if multiple safeguards are overwhelmed or fail at once. Physics always favors pressure equalisation and water ingress over fragile human bodies within metal cylinders hundreds of feet below raging seas.
Other Submarine Calamities
While this article focused on disastrous hull integrity failures causing implosion and flooding trauma, other submarine calamity types also present horrifying risks. Accidents like intense battery fires, oxygen poisoning causing crew unconsciousness, or even missile explosions can each turn stable vessels into death traps. Once a cascade of failures occurs hundreds of feet down with no chance of rapid surfacing, grim outcomes become inevitable.
Yet even across the spectrum of undersea accidents, physicists and emergency experts agree – nothing intensifies absolute terror like tons of frigid ocean bursting uncontrollably into a submarine to crush everything and everyone inside. While modern safety systems help enormously, crew still train today for managing flooding events. And the core priority after hearing the frightening phrase “we have large volumes of water coming in!” remains launching emergency buoyants and surging a stricken submarine back above waves as rapidly as ballast tanks can humanly carry them.
Our Morbid Curiosity
Given this perspective on destructive physics in play and traumatic human outcomes, what drives such persistent intrigue with submarine disasters across so much literature and screen fiction? Why does video footage showing a toy submarine imploding underwater still captivate millions of views on social media?
Some factors appear clear. As land-based humans, the alien undersea world itself fosters mystery and awkwardness. Confined submarine interiors also lend themselves to claustrophobic horror fiction. Yet the sheer explosively traumatic lethality of actual accidents seems the core fascination. The forces at play and gory outcomes stir innate human curiosity with mortality and shocking events. Even from the safety of dry land, we find our minds drifting to “morbidly imagine if I were inside that situation”. And online comment trails clearly show we collectively cannot resist pondering our own helplessness inside a tragedy of this immense scale and suffering.
So while we may never fully satisfy why submarine disasters impart such unique traumatic fascination, plumbing those depths literally and psychologically continues compelling us. This reality seems unlikely to change in our human nature – no matter how far underwater technology carries us over the coming generations. Because deep down, we all feel innate relief yet cannot fully escape the reality that inside a stricken submarine crushed by the cold darkness, each of those dead sailors once feared their fates too just as desperately as you and I do in our final moments.
Conclusion
The horrors unleashed when physics fails between a submarine’s fragile human occupants and the immense pressures outside still captures grim fascination unlike many other tragedies. While fortunately rare today thanks to improving technology, the traumatic scale involved when water uncompressed by tons of ocean wins against air-filled metal tubes hundreds of feet below the surface leaves no chance for crew to survive.
Yet the very rarity of individuals knowing their final seconds will be so explosively painful and powerfully destructive to all they are keeps us captivated about the fates of those who have faced such a frightful demise. Morbid yet scientifically intriguing all the same. These disasters remind us that however big our manned achievements under the seas grow thanks to human innovation, physics itself will always remain the permanently undefeated enemy for those who embrace risk deep within submarines of war. The cold darkness below beckons pioneering souls yet stands ready to claim them forever as a price for attempting such defiant forays into its formidable abyss.