The ability to locate, identify and recover objects from the deep ocean has expanded dramatically over the recent years. This paper will review one company's demonstrated capability for deep ocean search, survey and recovery with a detailed review of a recent successful project. Oceaneering International, Inc. (OII) operates and maintains deep search sonars and ROVs for the US Navy Supervisor of Salvage (SUPSALV) as well as owning and operating deep water ROVs for commercial work. In August 1994, Oceaneering Technologies (OTECH), a division of oil, was contracted by the Ministry of Defence (UK) Directorate of Marine Services (Naval) for the search and recovery of an RAF Tornado F3 fighter which crashed in the Mediterranean Sea south of Cyprus. This paper will review the successful location and recovery of critical parts of the aircraft, focusing on the different recovery techniques, including the use of a recovery spooler and special salvage tools
OTECH provides broad based advanced engineering, development, seafloor survey and mapping, and search and recovery services to numerous international customers m the telecommunications, insurance, salvage, nuclear, theme park and other non-oilfield industries Services range from high-level conceptual design and computer analysis to construction and operation of sophisticated deep-diving remotely operated vehicles and sidescan sonar search and survey systems, specialized underwater tooling, and land-based robotic hardware. OTECH designs and builds fiber-optic control systems and software-intensive electronic equipment to support these operations Deepwater operations include search, recovery, underwater inspection and seafloor mapping to depths of greater than 7,000 meters From 1974 to 1992, OII has an eighty-eight per cent success rate in search and survey operations, with 188 successes in 213 searches OII has performed ninety per cent of all search and recovery operations deeper than 1,500 meters of sea water (msw), in every major body of water worldwide and in depths to 5,425 msw
Oceaneering's deepwater roots began in 1983 when OII developed the HYDRA 2500, a drill rig support Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) delivered in 1983. This ROV has made hundreds of dives to depths to 2,200 msw in support of drilling operations in the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico Hydra 2500 was the first commercial ROV to incorporate fiber optics in its umbilical cable in the late 1980s, OII designed andmanufactured a series of deepwater cable maintenance ROVs for the US Navy and a consortium of telecommunication companies. After delivery, OII has maintained and operated the SCARAB IV and Pacific Scarab I
Oceaneering maintains and operates the CURV III ROV and ORION search system for the US Navy SUPSALV. OII owns and operates GEMINI, Magellan 725 and Magellan 825 ROVs as well Ocean Explorer 6000 and DOSS search systems to perform commercial work and complement the SUPSALV equipment All of these systems are depth rated and capable of conducting operations in > 6,000 msw A sample of OII's most notable operations using these systems follow.
