East Aurora, N.Y. (WBEN) - A little over two weeks ago, the folks at Pelagic Research Services (PRS) were called into action in an attempt to rescue the Titan submersible that was lost near the site of the RMS Titanic in the Atlantic Ocean.
Pelagic, a company with impressive credentials, calls East Aurora, N.Y. its base of operations and was largely unknown to most in the Western New York region until the submersible incident played out.
Unfortunately, in the hours after the Pelagic embark team arrived on site and lowered its ROV Odysseus 6k subsea asset to the sea floor on June 22, they discovered the debris field of the Titan, changing the course of the mission from a rescue to a recovery mission.
Related
While PRS has a few different offices around the country, including Massachusetts and California, the firm calls East Aurora its home base. A large reason for that is because of Jesse Doren, who is the firm's ROV manager and director of operations.
While East Aurora is Pelagic's operational base, CEO Ed Cassano says the firm is a mobile system, which means they can be anywhere they're needed.
"We've always known, and we've always wanted to be available for these types of situations. I wish the call never came, but we wanted to be ready when it did," said Cassano during a press briefing on Friday.
"We're designed for mobility, so in a sense, we can be anywhere."
LISTEN LIVE TO WBEN:
While PRS offers its services for deep sea missions like the Titan recovery, the firm also brings expedition planning, execution and state of the art subsea research tools to the ocean community on a global basis.
"Explorers, people who seek to be on the ocean, to go to depth, it's very compelling. We certainly share those desires," Cassano said. "Our whole company is designed to support research and science at depth. There was a passion and a joy for exploration."
The team at Pelagic was honored to be called in to assist in the recovery of the Titan submersible, although it ended tragically. While Cassano believes there is still a lot to learn from their efforts during the recovery mission, he says the team is very proud of the performance of its ROV Odysseus 6k system.
"It performed, our team performed. It actually achieved the mission at hand," Cassano said. "We're very saddened we couldn't recover a viable sub, but beyond that, the system performed. Down the road, there are certainly things that we'll think about, but we haven't had time to assess.
The ROV Odysseus 6k system is described as "an easily transportable, extremely capable and highly affordable deep sea system that integrates into ships of opportunity and is available on a global basis." Designed by PRS and built by MPH Engineering in Largo, Florida, Odysseus is capable of supporting the installation and maintenance of ocean observation systems, surveying and performing work tasks for industry, and more including the execution of time-critical searches and rescue and recovery operations.
According to Cassano, the Odysseus first became operational in 2016, and has been utilized in work with the University of Victoria, Ocean Networks Canada, NOAA and other groups.
"Odysseus 6k is a remotely-operated vehicle, meaning it operates from a ship through a tether," Cassano said of his system. "It's a compact, mobile 6,000 meter deep water system, and that's one of its key design characteristics. ... It's designed to withstand depths up to 6,000 meters. All the equipment, everything on there has to operate at that depth. Importantly, it has seven function manipulators, high definition 4k cameras, heavy lift capability, and a multiplicity of tools to allow us to do work at depth."
When Odysseus is not in service, it is actually housed in East Aurora and maintained by Doren.
"Normally, you wouldn't be able to stand where you're standing," Cassano said to the media at Friday's briefing. "We like it when it's not here, because it means it's working. But we also like it when it is here."
After being utilized in the recovery of the Titan, Cassano said the Odysseus will return to East Aurora sometime Monday.
When the Pelagic team arrived on site in St. John's Newfoundland for the Titan operation, they became the primary identified asset to effect rescue among the fleet of ships there. The team was asked to make the decisions about how the various assets would move in the operation.
Cassano says in order to be able to integrate with other professionals in an environment such as the Titan mission, one not only has to trust and work with other professionals, but you also have to have good leadership.
"The folks that are great at this come from a variety of communities. They can be auto mechanics that have a passion for the ocean and have a skill of their hands. They can be trained formally as pilots, they can have a passion for engineering. It's a combination of skills and personality that make for success," he said. "You have to have experience. There's no question that you have to gain experience, because it's a very complex operation fraught with danger, but high reward.
"A ship environment, at sea, operations are structured, there's hierarchy. There's a level of communication and action, and that's true whenever you're operating in a dangerous environment. It's especially true when you're at sea. I mean, the captain is, in fact, ultimately in command. So working very closely with Adam Myers, we had to form an immediate bond and level of trust with each other, and that was incredible."
With PRS and the Odysseus 6k being based in East Aurora, they are not far from either Lake Erie or Lake Ontario in the Great Lakes to be able to do some test work and other operations. Cassano is certainly hopeful that one day they can go to the Great Lakes under the right circumstances.
"We haven't been there yet, there's some great things to look at," Cassano said. "We have a test tank that's outside, so we actually test our vehicle just in that tank out there. That allows us to run it and be prepared. In a sense, that's what we did. The vehicle was in a ready state. We'd need an invite. Moving 70,000 pounds of equipment is not inexpensive."
Hear more from Friday's press briefing available in the player below: