The Chinese oceanic institution announced that the Jialong submersible has achieved the lowest ever dive.
The manned submarine, with three men onboard managed to dive down to a depth of more than 16,404 feet in the space of only three hours. This is the first underwater craft to be able to reach a depth of 7,000 meters (22,965 feet) and it is going for a rerun next year to see if it can reach the rated figures.
Liu Feng, the commander in chief of the project had to delay the dive last week, due to weather conditions in the Pacific Ocean which were not suitable for such a risky dive.
The Jiaolong craft is going to spend 47 days at sea and the dive was conducted in the Pacific Ocean in accordance with a contract signed between the China Ocean Mineral Resources Research & Development Association and the International Seabed Authority (ISA) according to reports filed on the World Maritime News.
Kitguru says: the pressure at 7,000 meters will be the ultimate test.
I translated the text on the side, it says ‘We dive at five’. 🙂
why they don’t count this one
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bathyscaphe_Trieste
it was manned and went as deep as 35,797