Enlarge (credit: NOAA/Institute for Exploration/University of Rhode Island) Was that surprisingly fast or excruciatingly slow? The search to discover the fate of the Titan submersible took place against a backdrop of hopes for survival and dwindling oxygen supplies. Given that, the time it took to confirm the fate of those on board may have seemed excruciatingly slow. At the same time, the extreme depths of the Titanic's wreck posed a lot of challenges, and it's extremely difficult to find anything on the ocean's bottom if you don't know exactly where to look.