Trapped at the Bottom of the Sea: The Pisces III Rescue

Take a breath. You didn't have to count it. But in August 1973, two men sealed inside a tiny steel sphere at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean had to count every single one. This is the true story of Pisces III, a small submersible laying telephone cables off the coast of Ireland. In this video we follow pilots Roger Chapman and Roger Mallinson as a towline rips open their sub's rear hatch and sends them falling 480 meters to the seabed in total darkness. We find out how they stretched three days of air past three days by barely moving or talking, how Pisces II, Pisces V and the US Navy robot CURV-III failed again and again to reach them, and how they were finally pulled up with only about 12 minutes of oxygen left — the deepest successful submarine rescue in history. ⏱️ TIMESTAMPS 0:00 Take a Breath 0:46 Why This Should Have Been a Tragedy 1:27 Laying Cables Across the Atlantic 1:55 The Two Pilots 2:15 The Oxygen Tank That Saved Them 2:30 Dive 325 2:46 The Alarm 2:58 The Missing Tail Fins 3:23 The Fall Into Darkness 3:40 Hitting the Seabed at 480 Meters 3:49 Still Alive 3:58 The Math of Air 4:23 Don't Move, Don't Talk 4:44 One Sandwich, One Can of Lemonade 5:03 The Race to the Rescue 5:42 Peter Messervy's Second Chance 6:02 Failure After Failure 6:29 Found 6:41 Alone Again 6:54 The Last Morning 7:21 The Violent Lift 7:46 The Jammed Hatch 7:59 12 Minutes Left 8:01 The Whole Picture 8:29 Take Another Breath 📚 Topics mentioned: the Pisces III accident of 29 August 1973, 240 km south-west of Cork, Ireland; Vickers Oceanics and the transatlantic telephone cable job; pilots Roger Chapman and Roger Mallinson; the 84.5-hour ordeal at 480 meters; the rescue by Pisces II, Pisces V, the US Navy's CURV-III robot, HMS Hecate and the Canadian Coast Guard ship John Cabot, led by Peter Messervy; the 2023 Titan submersible disaster; and Roger Chapman's book "No Time on Our Side". #deepsea #pisces3 #submarine #ocean #truestory