[suspenseful music playing]
[Patrick] This is the mother of them all,
I mean, it is the deepest of them all.
So, we've got a lot on the line.
We're going to be assaulting the challenger deep
with more technology and more capability
than anyone has ever done in history.
You realize how deep we are, right?
[Alan] Oh, my word, look at that!
It's going up!
[Victor] Oh! This is really hard.
[Alan] Whoa! Up, up, up up!
What the hell was that?
[machine beeping]
Got a big battery fault.
Surface, LF has lost power.
[suspenseful music playing]
[Demetri] Humankind has explored
every continent on Earth.
We've climbed its tallest mountains,
and even journeyed into space.
[man] Thank you, Mr. President.
[Demetri] But there's a vast swathe
of our own planet
that has remained a mystery.
The deep ocean.
Stretching down over 35,000 feet
into crushing pressures,
it's been near impossible to reach...
until now.
New engineering breakthroughs are driving
an audacious global mission
to dive to the deepest points
of all the five oceans,
for the first time in history.
These pioneers will push technology
to the limit...
[Patrick] What the hell was that?
We have leak in hatch
[Patrick] Oh, my God.
[Demetri] ...to open up this final frontier,
as never before.
[Cassie] Trying to like mentally put yourself
at the bottom is just mind blowing.
[Demetri] Mapping hidden landscapes
discovering unknown life forms...
[Alan] What on Earth was that?
[Victor] There is something there.
[Demetri] ...and unlocking the secrets
of how life in the extreme deep ocean
affects our entire planet.
[dramatic music playing]
[suspenseful music playing]
[Demetri] Ex Naval Commander Victor Vesco,
is now getting ready to face
the ultimate challenge of this expedition,
the deepest dive on our planet.
[Kelvin] Roger that. You are free to dive.
[Demetri] So far he's travelled 20,000 miles
half way across the world
and completed three record-breaking dives.
[Victor] And I just wanted to say thank you all
for getting us to this point.
It's been four years since we first started
thinking about this overall mission.
[Demetri] But now,
he will be pushed to the limit
by the largest and deepest of the Earth's oceans.
The Pacific.
[Rob] I mean, this is
the mightiest ocean of them all,
this is a third of the surface of our planet.
The Pacific Ocean is different than all the others
in that it has the oldest seafloor in the oceans.
It is just much deeper, much older ocean.
[Demetri] It is also home
to the deepest place on Earth,
the Mariana Trench.
[Victor] From a very young age
I loved just looking at atlases
and one of the most prominent features in any Atlas
is the deepest point in the world
which is the Mariana Trench.
This deep dark place,
of course it captured my imagination.
[Demetri] It's 8,000 feet deeper
than any dive Victor has attempted before,
and it will subject the sub to enormous pressure.
[Patrick] Just come up on the A-Frame.
Let me know when we're clear for straps, Kelvin.
[Kelvin] Yeah, we're clear for straps.
[Rob] It's as an extreme environment
as we have on planet Earth.
This is the major league,
you know, this is as difficult,
as technically challenging
as submersible diving gets on planet Earth.
[Demetri] The bottom of the Mariana Trench
has only been only visited by three people
and one of them is on board.
Okay, good. Thank you guys.
[Demetri] Captain Don Walsh.
In 1960 he and a fellow deep-sea explorer
took an experimental craft
to the uncharted depths of our planet.
[Don] I never had any fear.
Why have fear?
What are you gonna do about it?
You're committed.
You're gonna go down there as far as you can,
if something doesn't work, too bad.
And there's nothing you can do about it.
[Demetri] Fifty-two years later in 2012,
Don witnessed a solo dive by Hollywood director
and deep-sea explorer, James Cameron,
who recorded a depth
just 10 feet shy of Don's record.
[phone ringing]
[James] Hey, Victor.
Hi, Jim, how are you?
[James] Hi, good, good.
[Victor] It's great sitting next to the first person
to go down to the Challenger Deep
and it's just so wonderful
to be able to talk to the second person
and hopefully we can continue passing the baton.
[James] Yeah that's great.
I mean, you've really kicked the ball further
down field in terms of the technology.
And the only other piece of advice I would give
is give yourself a moment, stop,
and just look at the window
and just think about where you are
and what it means.
That's great, Jim.
I appreciate that.
[Demetri] But now,
Victor is on a mission to find a spot
even deeper than Don Walsh and James Cameron,
and break a record that has stood for 60 years.
[Cassie] We have one of the best sonars
in the world right now
and we're going to produce
the most accurate map of the Mariana Trench
that's ever been done before.
[Demetri] The deepest section of the Mariana Trench
is in a hollow known as the Challenger Deep.
But the team also want to take on
a deep ocean exploratory dive,
a hundred and forty miles east
in the Sirena Deep,
where no submersible has ever been before.
[Patty] So, the deepest part is right in here.
Nobody's been down there.
[Demetri] The team will be on the hunt
for vital new scientific data
that may help find alien life
elsewhere in our solar system.
Because there are frozen moons,
like Europa orbiting Jupiter,
that NASA believes could hold life.
Beneath the surface ice,
deep oceans might nurture organisms
able to exist in environments
as extreme as the Mariana Trench.
[Patty] NASA's search for life efforts
are looking for the limits of life.
They are very interested
in looking at the deep trenches
to see if microbes can live
in these most extreme environments on the planet.
[Demetri] If they can find colonies of bacteria
in the Mariana Trench,
then extreme forms of life could also exist
in the oceans of those alien moons.
The general conception I have for this dive
is that this is very much a science focused dive.
One thing that I am concerned about
and that's recovering the samples.
First priority is a rock with some stuff on it.
Fingers crossed.
Just be vigilant
as you're approaching the bottom.
That, that depth sounder,
once it starts picking up
and as you know Victor giving you
- reliable data... - Mmm-hmm.
...you gotta pay attention to it,
you can't ignore it.
I mean, I don't know if there's pinnacles
or haystacks.
Who knows what we'll find.
[Kelvin] We're gonna leave that one down.
[Demetri] Even though the dive is not the deepest
in the Mariana Trench,
at 35,000 feet
it will put the sub's engineering
under massive strain.
[Patrick] It's a substantial pressure,
so we've got a lot on the line.
We basically got all the poker chips
in the center of the table.
[Demetri] Chief scientist, Alan Jamieson
is joining Victor on this pioneering dive.
- Welcome back, sir. - Hello.
[Kelvin] LF, LF, SO.
[man] LF, LF.
[Kelvin] Hey, we're gonna go for release here.
We'll let the sub off the hook.
- Do it. - Perfect.
[Stuart] And we're currently
about 900 meters from the drop zone.
[Kelvin] Okay. Roger that.
[Patrick] We can tow him for a couple of minutes,
no worries.
[Stuart] Twelve, before a few minutes
until we're ready to let him go.
[Demetri] To dive Victor will pump water
into empty ballast tanks at the top of the sub.
But now the waves are picking up
and flooding them early.
[Rob] Seventy-five to go.
[John] They're spending a lot of time under the water.
The tanks are gonna be filling all the time.
[Patrick] Son of a [bleep].
[Frank] With that much weight on the sub.
That [beep] goes down quick.
[Rob] Fifty meters to go.
[Patrick] That's gotta be it.
We can disconnect now.
[Rob] Release, release!
[Patrick] It's tied off.
Get that [bleep] tow line.
[man] Grab on that tow line.
[Patrick] Get her loose.
[Rob] Release.
[Patrick] When those tanks filled up,
- she's diving. - [Rob] Release.
[Demetri] Swimmer Tim's got just seconds
to release the towline
and must avoid getting entangled
and dragged to his death.
[Rob] Release, release, release!
[suspenseful music playing]
[Patrick] Those tanks filled up.
She's diving.
[Rob] Release, release, release!
[Patrick] Come on, Tim, get her loose.
[suspenseful music playing]
[Tim] As I am taking handrails off,
I could feel the sub going out
from underneath me.
In a bit of a panic,
I tried to get out of there as quick as possible
to make sure I wasn't tangled up in anything.
[Demetri] On their way down,
Victor and Alan pass through
the top layer of the ocean,
called the Sunlight Zone.
Home in the Pacific
to one of the nature's greatest survivors,
the nautilus.
It's remained virtually unchanged
for half a billion years.
As the sub goes deeper, the light dwindles,
and they enter the Twilight Zone.
Here, out of the darkness emerges
one of the wonders of the deep ocean,
creatures that generate their own light.
[Alan] Wow, look at the bioluminescence,
can you see it?
- Yeah? That was great... - [Victor] Oh, that's so cool!
- [Alan] ...isn't it? - [Victor] Yeah.
[Alan] Bioluminescence is the most commonly used
communication on planet Earth.
In terms of the number of species that use it.
[Demetri] In the Pacific
the Twilight Zone holds
other extraordinary creatures
adapted to live in the gloom.
Like the Cock-eyed Squid.
Its larger left eye can pick out
camouflaged prey in the waters above.
While its smaller right eye points downwards
to spy any predators lurking below.
The sub is now passing 3,000ft.
Beyond here a US nuclear sub
would be crushed like a tin can.
This is the Midnight Zone,
where some of the most bizarre animals
on the planet are still being discovered.
This is a Gulper Eel,
which can detach its jaw
and inflate its body to swallow much larger prey.
[Victor] Somewhere between 3,000 and 6,000 years
just as the pressure decreases
the size of the sphere, it tightens
and it happens suddenly.
It makes a little wrapping noise
on the capsule,
it's a little unnerving.
We've been in the submersible now for...
three hours and nine minutes.
[Demetri] The sub is now
in the deepest ocean region of all,
the Hadal Zone.
And finally their goal is in sight.
[Victor] I can see it,
see it slowly getting lighter?
Eleven meters of the bottom,
we should see it very shortly.
Four meters off.
It's one meter off the bottom.
That's the bottom of the Sirena Deep.
Incredible.
[Victor] Surface, LF.
Surface, life support good at bottom.
Repeat, at bottom.
By the way, congratulations.
First man to descend the Sirena Deep.
As are you.
[Demetri] The sub is now
under some of the most extreme pressures on Earth.
Victor and Alan are the first humans
to see this unexplored landscape.
Now they need to look for communities of bacteria,
the kind of extreme life
that NASA might find beyond our planet.
[Lynne] Finding a microbe
in the bottom of the Mariana trench
is important to me
because deep at the bottom of the ocean
you don't have access to sunlight
and so these organisms have to use
some other source of energy other than sunlight.
[Demetri] Some bacteria have developed
to feed on chemicals seeping from the Earth's crust,
but none have been found in these extreme depths.
[Victor] What should I be looking for?
[Alan] You're looking for bacterial mats
of very distinct color.
[Victor] What do they look like?
[Alan] Some of them are white.
Some of them are really strikingly orange and yellow.
Okay. Your eyes are outside,
- I'm on the inside. - [Alan] Yeah.
[Victor] Been down here two hours, fifteen minutes.
- Already. - Yeah.
[Alan] How long do we have?
Yeah, we're below 50% on the batteries.
Oh, [bleep].
All right. stop, stop, stop.
What is that.
Woah, up, up, up, up up, up.
What on Earth is that?
[Victor] Is that a bacterial mat?
Look at that. Look, look.
[Alan] Yep that's it!
See the yellow?
[Demetri] The yellow growth on the rocks
is in fact millions of bacteria
feeding on chemicals
seeping from the Earth's crust.
And it's the deepest ever observed.
High five.
[Alan] I knew patience would reward us.
[Demetri] The team have visual evidence
of the kind of extreme life
that could exist in deep oceans
elsewhere in our solar system.
Now they need to bring back a first-ever
physical sample.
[Victor] The current is pushing us to the right,
it's heading it's... Woah! [bleep]
[Demetri] But now a strong current
is making this delicate task near impossible.
[Victor] Flying a submarine in a current with one hand
and trying to get a rock with a manipulator.
This is really hard.
Oh, my God, my heart is going faster!
Wow!
Let's give it one more try.
I got a [bleep] rock!
I got a rock!
I can't believe I got a rock!
It fell apart... Damn it.
[machine beeping]
- [Alan] What was that? - [Victor] The batteries.
We have been here three hours.
Okay. That's it, I tried.
All right. I'll drop the weights.
Surfacing weight, we're on our way.
I'm sorry, I didn't get a rock for you, doctor.
I tried, I tried like hell.
Surface, Surface, LF, how do you read?
[man] We got you, buddy, we are on the hunt.
[Demetri] The team failed to obtain a rock sample,
but as the sub comes back on board,
the crew make a surprising discovery.
[Shane] Holy [bleep].
[Patrick] Nice and easy, nice and easy.
[Demetri] After the first ever dive
to the Sirena Deep,
the team find an unexpected piece of evidence
inside one of the battery compartments.
[Patty] This is so cool
that you guys found this rock in here.
Can you show me where?
[Shane] Basically just down in the bracket there.
It was sitting on the flat spot.
- Ah yep, that makes sense. - Yeah.
- Okay. - Yeah.
The mud got us thinking, let's keep an eye out.
[Patty] This is great.
What a find.
This is the first rock
that has been recovered in the Sirena Deep.
[Demetri] Microscopic analysis of the rock surface
shows intricate bacterial growth.
[Lynne] For us as astrobiologists,
to know that there is life deep in the ocean,
gives us confidence when we start to look
at other places in our solar system,
that there are organisms that can survive
on another planet without sunlight,
and live under very high pressures.
At least we know it's possible
and it's worth going looking.
Wait. Hold on a minute. I'm gonna grab that line.
[Demetri] But now the team discover a problem
that could jeopardize any further dives
into the Mariana Trench.
One of the three navigational probes,
called 'landers', is missing.
Alan said that the one of them is still not
on its way up.
That means it must be stuck.
[Patrick] [bleep] me, man.
[bleep] lander stuck in the mud down there.
Bad news, man.
You know what you've got to do, don't you?
- [Victor] Go down and get it? - [Alan] Yeah.
[Demetri] To save the mission they must risk
an unprecedented deep-sea rescue.
[Rob] If we are able to actually rendezvous
with a dead target.
We are attempting the deepest salvage operation
that's ever been attempted by man.
So, no pressure.
The big challenge is to find the lander
that has now ran out of battery
so it's not able to signal to us where it is.
Once we find it, uh, with the sub
the sub will need to either work it loose
by using the manipulator to free it.
If it needs to remove the weight from the bottom
it will need to put the manipulator arm in underneath
and cut the wire that's attaching the weight
to the lander itself.
[Demetri] At the helm of this risky operation,
Victor puts one of the most experienced sub pilots
in the world, the builder of the sub itself,
- Patrick Lahey. - [Patrick] If we find it
we are going to try and get it off the bottom.
You know, whatever it takes we'll release it.
[Demetri] But grappling with the lost lander
holds a terrifying danger
of the sub itself getting trapped irretrievably
on the seabed.
[Patrick] The thing you worry about is entanglement.
You have to be vigilant as a pilot, you have
to be to paying attention of your surroundings.
- All right, McGee... - [Kelvin] Get it done buddy,
- get it done, get it done. - Thank you. All right.
[Patrick] Bring us home safe buddy, thank you!
- Thank you, Frank. - [Jonathan] Okay.
I'm getting ready.
See you later.
[Demetri] Accompanying Patrick
is deep ocean submarine specialist,
Jonathan Struwe.
[Victor] It's really dark and deep
and difficult down there to navigate.
I just hope they find it.
What an accomplishment that would be.
- Let's have a good dive. - Let's have a good dive.
[Victor] They're a long way from home down there.
And you feel it, I tell ya.
Let's launch the sonar.
I am going to go ahead, I'm going to increase
the scanning speed.
[Demetri] Once on the bottom, they start the search
for the lost lander, codenamed "Skaff".
Oh, yeah. That's something.
So, we are two meters off the bottom.
We'll get you Skaff, careful.
[Demetri] They use the sub's sonar
to ping the surrounding landscape
in the hope of a return echo.
Here you go,
now it should be in your window.
Just a second and it'll be in your window.
There. You can see him.
[Patrick] Oh yeah, here we go.
[Jonathan] Skaff.
There we are.
[Patrick] Okay. We are on it.
[Jonathan] Yeah. No. It's...
-It's ahead of us -[Patrick] Yeah,
- dead ahead of us. - [Jonathan] It is dead ahead
of us.
Yeah, get right over there,
get the lights on it.
[Jonathan] There we are.
[Demetri] Having landed at an awkward angle,
one corner of its base is wedged in the sediment.
Jonathan must now work the robotic arm
to release it.
This is the most dangerous part of the operation.
Ah [bleep], what's going here?
Index again and try to straighten out.
Try, try, try doing that.
[Jonathan] I can't, for some reason.
Ah.
[Patrick] Okay allow me just to come ahead
I'm going to push you.
Yeah. I am going to push the lander.
[Demetri] If the arm gets entangled with the lander,
and the emergency arm-release fails,
they could be trapped beyond any hope of rescue.
Back up just a little bit.
Let's get into the right position.
[dramatic music playing]
What was that?
[Demetri] Patrick and Jonathan are attempting
a daring rescue mission seven miles under water.
[Patrick] Get into the right position.
[Demetri] One wrong move and the sub
could get snagged on the trapped lander.
[Jonathan] He's going up!
We hit him.
He's on his way!
Aaah! [laughs]
Patrick! [laughs]
Woooh!
[Patrick] Surface, LF,
the lander has released
[cheering]
[Victor] This is the deepest
maritime salvage operation ever attempted.
And to say that we actually had
a marine lander trapped on the bottom
and then sent two men submersible to the bottom,
found it and released,
it is simply a technological tour deforce.
It's extraordinary. I am so proud of the entire team.
[chuckles]
[Demetri] With all three landers on board,
the crew is now getting ready
for the deepest dive on the planet.
And the scanning team has made
a ground-breaking new discovery.
Their high-resolution data
reveals a location on this planet
that's deeper than any found before.
[Cassie] We estimate to be 10,920.
Plus or minus 15 to 20 meters.
[Demetri] At nearly 36,000 feet deep,
it's a staggering 117 times
the height of the Statue of Liberty.
If Victor is successful in his mission,
he will become the deepest-diving man
in history.
[Victor] We're going to be assaulting
the challenger deep with more technology
and more capability than anyone
has ever done in history.
We have the most advanced sonar in the world
and we have a submarine with a two-person
titanium sphere that can do multiple dives.
No one had this before.
One, two, three.
[Demetri] This will be the sub's ultimate test.
[Victor] The challenger deep here in the Mariana trench
is the mount Everest of deep ocean diving.
The pressure is 16,000 psi.
The viewports they compress
almost a quarter of an inch
under that intense pressure.
[Patrick] Ready for Victor.
500 meters from the site.
[Victor] It's three and a half to four hours
- down and up. - Have a great dive Victor.
[Victor] So it stresses every part of the submersible.
Good luck to us all.
What's really worrying is that
something might not work.
[Demetri] If something serious goes wrong,
Victor is on his own, where no other craft
can possibly reach him.
[Tim] Sub's clear!
All comes down to this
after 4 years of planning, building, testing, diving,
this is the big one.
[dramatic music playing]
[Kelvin] Fantastic, have a good one Victor.
[Victor] Thank you. See you all on the other side.
Let's get the oxygen going here...
[Demetri] To keep Victor alive deep under the water,
the sub is equipped with enough oxygen
to last for 4 days,
but the carbon dioxide Victor exhales
could be lethal.
So two high-tech devices called "scrubbers",
packed with absorbent materials,
work relentlessly to keep the carbon dioxide
below dangerous limits.
[Victor] Surface, LF present depth, 833.
Heading 045.
- Life support good. - [Patrick] Roger LF,
understand life support good,
we have you loud and clear, Victor.
[Victor] You can hear the outside of the sub creaking
just a little bit as it just kind of settles in.
[Demetri] Every 60 seconds, the pressure
on the sub increases by 400 tons.
The equivalent of one jumbo jet
added on top of it every minute.
Victor is aiming for a lander,
located in the deepest part of the trench.
He will then ping the other two
to determine his exact position on the seabed.
My three companion robots are probably
on the bottom now.
[beeping sound]
[Tom] All right. Patrick, we've got an issue.
Lander on the way up.
[Demetri] The release mechanism
on one of the landers has triggered early
and it is now hurtling up under the sub.
Captain be advised, we appear to have a situation.
The lander has left the bottom unexpectedly.
At this time just about 400 meters
below Victor and on its way up.
That's weird, the lander is closer to 'em.
Wrong reading?
Something wrong with its modem?
LF, LF.
LF.
Roger, go ahead.
Be advised,
lander has left bottom.
Has left bottom.
[Victor] Oh [bleep] there is a collision risk.
I mean, I'm going down right on top of it.
Hope it doesn't hit me.
[Demetri] If there's a collision,
it could rupture mission-critical components
of the sub.
[Patrick] They are not even 200 meters apart now.
Hundred and fifty meters apart.
They are hundred meters apart.
- Within 50 meters. - [Victor] [bleep]
[Demetri] On his way down to the deepest place on earth,
Victor is in danger of crashing
into one of his own robotic landers,
now heading up beneath the sub.
[static radio]
[Demetri] If Victor collides with the lander,
it could be the end of the mission.
I've always worried about mid-air collisions
as a pilot, but I never thought I could have
that deep in the Mariana Trench.
[Patrick] Within 50 meters.
I am certainly not gonna be jamming thrusters down.
I don't want to run into him.
[Patrick] They're probably very close to one another.
[dramatic music playing]
[Victor indistinct on radio]
[Patrick] It's above him.
[Victor] Yep, looks like it has passed me.
Strange things happen down at this depth.
Woah, seeing 10,000 meters is pretty interesting.
That's a big number.
Can't help but to be a little bit nervous.
[Demetri] The sub is now under
the greatest pressure in our oceans.
Equivalent to having the largest aircraft carrier
in the world sat on top of it.
[Victor] Altimeter is at 237.
Looking out the portal just make sure
that I don't slam in the bottom here.
[dramatic music playing]
Thirty-four meters to go.
Should start coming into view...
Come on. So close.
Eighteen meters.
[dramatic music playing]
I can see the bottom on my display,
there's the brown of the bottom.
Touchdown.
[dramatic music playing]
There is the bottom of the entire ocean.
Surface LF,
at bottom.
[cheers and applause]
Congratulations Victor, congratulations.
[Victor] Congratulations to you all.
[Demetri] Victor is now 35,843 feet
below the surface, deeper than anyone else
before him.
Beginning exploration of the bottom.
Outstanding. What a moment...
Wow, it's so soft.
In some respects this is such an alien environment.
Eleven thousand meters down,
16000 PSI, no light.
This is almost like an alien world.
Oh, wow, wow, what's that guy?
Whoa, whoa, we've got to go back and check that out.
That looked like something really interesting.
Who are you little guy?
What in the hell are you?
You're like a... a jellyfish snake.
[Demetri] This sea cucumber uses its transparent tube
feet to forage for food in these crushing depths.
Definitely some life down here.
I saw it with my own eyes.
[Demetri] During their operations
below 13,000 feet in the Mariana Trench,
the science team has gathered footage
of even stranger animals.
- Look at that. - [Johanna] That is cool.
[Alan] This fish is a cusk eel.
What makes this one really interesting
is that it has a transparent head
made of a gel like substance.
It's almost certainly a new species.
- Well, that's not a fish. - [Joanna] I know.
What the hell is that?
This animal that is drifting past the camera
is a colony or collection
of lots of little small animals.
It's kind of like a jellyfish
but there is lots of, if you imagine thousands
of little jellyfish holding it together,
and we call that a siphonophore.
[Johanna] Oh, that's a really good shot.
[Alan] I would say that's the best video
of a snailfish we've ever got.
The Mariana snailfish is quite an iconic fish.
These fish are right on the absolute limit
of what all fish in the world can cope with.
If they were to go any deeper
than where we have seen them
their cells would start to implode.
[Demetri] It is a rare glimpse
of the elusive creatures of the deep,
but soon Victor makes a more disturbing discovery.
[Victor] What the hell is that?
I saw something that looked like
a triangle and nature doesn't do straight edges,
they don't do straight lines,
and I saw something that looked like
a piece of refuse.
[Demetri] Close examination reveals what appears
to be a letter "S",
evidence of the unstoppable impact
of human pollution.
[Victor] It's unfortunate that even there
at the very bottom of the ocean,
that there is, you know, contamination of some kind.
[Demetri] Victor has broken a record,
but extreme conditions are taking their toll.
I've been here for 4 hours.
We're running out of power.
Challenger Deep.
Let's go home.
Surface weight release.
Here we go.
Like a moon launch.
[beeping sound]
What was that? That's a new one.
Well that ain't good.
It looks like we've got a big battery fault, yeah.
I wonder if I hit something on the bottom
that might have caused an issue.
Oh, that's great.
Now everything is black in here.
[dramatic music playing]
My heart rate is up a little bit.
Surface, LF has lost power,
is on emergency battery power only.
Do not have good communication.
[Patrick] Roger, understand, we will track you
from the surface.
[Demetri] Still three hours from the surface
and with no main battery supply,
the sub's systems start shutting down.
First goes the heating
and the temperature quickly drops
to near freezing.
Got my warm gloves.
[Demetri] But things are about to get
far more serious...
[beeping sound]
CO2 alarm 0.5.
[Demetri] Normal carbon dioxide levels
in the air are 0.04%.
In the sub they are now rising rapidly.
[tense music playing]
[static radio]
CO2 is 0.72? Is it?
[Demetri] Every breath Victor takes
releases more toxic carbon dioxide
into a sealed environment.
If the levels keep rising,
Victor may not have long
before he loses consciousness.
[dramatic music playing]
[Steve] Still 40 minutes from the surface,
carbon dioxide levels inside the sub
are reaching alarming levels.
[beeping sound]
The CO2 is rising rapidly.
At 1% CO2 you start to feel ill effects,
at 2% I believe you pass out.
[Demetri] If the levels keep rising,
Victor might not reach the surface in time.
0.5 is the alarm condition.
LF, what is your O2 reading?
Confirm, both scrubbers are running?
You do have a secondary analox unit
you can power that up.
[tense music playing]
[Patrick] LF, what is your reading?
Control be advised CO2 level 0.32.
Roger. Say again, say again your last Victor.
[static radio]
Control be advised, CO2 level
back down to 0.32.
Roger that, okay man,
will see you on the surface.
[Demetri] 12 hours since his early morning launch,
Victor returns from the deepest place on earth.
[Rob] LF, this is Xeno, welcome back, Victor.
[Tim] Swimmer in the water!
[Rob] LF, LF Xeno This is Xeno.
Yeah, Victor, we are taking the odd wave
across the top of the sub, if you could thrust up.
[Victor] Surface, be advised,
using thrusters overloaded
my remaining batteries, batteries are dead.
[Demetri] With no power left,
the sub can't fully resurface.
Swimmer Tim once more has to put his body
- on the line. - [Tim] I got it, back away
[man speaking indistinctly]
[man] Okay. Standby with the handrail.
[Patrick] Keep an eye on that towline, boys.
[Tim] Towline has come loose!
Towline has come loose!
[Rob] Give him slack! Give him slack!
You okay Tim?
[tense music playing]
Tim? You look good?
You okay, Tim?
[tense music playing]
[Patrick] LF is on the hook.
That was [bleep] sporty boys.
[dramatic music playing]
[cheers and applause]
[Victor] Thank you, guys, well done!
Thanks for coming to get me!
[Demetri] Despite an electrical failure
and a carbon dioxide scare,
Victor has conquered the fourth
of the five oceans.
[Victor] Well done.
[Patrick] You did it buddy, you did it!
- [Don] Congratulations. - [Victor] Captain Walsh,
well done sir. Thank you for showing the way.
- [Don] You're my hero. - Thank you.
No, you're mine.
[Patrick] Victor Vescovo,
world's deepest diver!
Whoo!
[Victor] It was a... It was an amazing dive.
I think almost exactly 12 hours
but I must confess that there is more life
down there than I expected.
I thought it was gonna be completely dead,
and it is not.
[dramatic music playing]
I'm just glad to have you...
- It's good to be back. - ...back home safe.
It's great to have him back.
It was a great dive.
[Don] It's an inspired clever design.
And even it's been 60 years since we did ours,
this is like stepping into the future.
[Victor] Looking at a map you can take a look
at the Mariana Trench and its very dark and blue,
even black. Its intimidating.
I have seen the sandy bottoms,
I've seen the rocky ledges,
and it's not a deep dark scary place,
it's tough to get to
but there's an incredible amount of things
to discover there and we now have a tool
that can bring us there.
[dramatic music playing]