Use cases

One problem, many missions: someone has to look inside first.

A penetration dive is any dive into a space with no direct way up to air: inside a wreck, a flooded cave or mine, a sunken vehicle or aircraft, or the tanks and intakes of an industrial plant. Surface-supplied air protects a diver only while every component works. It does not prevent entrapment, entanglement or differential pressure (Delta P) accidents; Delta P alone has been identified as the cause of death in about one in four diving fatalities.¹ During the search of the ferry Sewol in 2014, one diver died when his air hose became entangled and another died while cutting into the hull.^2,3

Whatever the mission, Fanal^™ lets your divers see the hazards and objectives in a space before they go in. They make fewer dangerous entries, and the entries they do make are safer.

Lead example

Salvage and wreck removal

Before a wreck can be raised, cut up or have its fuel removed, the salvors need to know what is inside, and that often means sending divers in. In 2015, salvage divers entered the sunken ferry Sewol’s vehicle decks to survey its condition and buoyancy before the lift; inside, silt up to 50 cm deep covered the decks.^4,5 On the car carrier Golden Ray, divers worked inside the wreck to reach its 26 fuel tanks.⁶ The unknowns carry risk: the Costa Concordia salvor said “we may not know the extent of the damage 100 percent beforehand.”⁷ That job, first estimated at US$300 million, finished at an estimated US$2 billion.⁸

Who: Salvage firms, and the owners and insurers who pay for the job
Mission: Map holds, decks and compartments before cutting or lifting the vessel or removing its fuel
Value: Fewer, safer entries, better plans, and a schedule that holds

Run salvage or wreck-removal jobs? Tell us how you survey a wreck today.

Concept simulation, not yet demonstrated. Time-lapse: Fanal maps two vehicle decks and returns to the divers at the door.

Defence

Counterintelligence

When a warship sinks, its sensitive equipment and documents go down with it, and they must be found and secured before anyone else reaches them. Navy divers do this work inside flooded compartments where the stakes are high. They can know a ship’s layout from its drawings, but not what the sinking did to it: collapsed deckheads, shifted fittings, blocked doors. In 1982, Royal Navy clearance divers worked for months inside the sunken destroyer HMS Coventry, more than 100 m down, recovering cryptographic equipment and top-secret documents so no hostile navy could reach them first. One diver became trapped by wiring in a cluttered passageway and had to be freed by a colleague.^9,10 Fanal travels in a diver’s kit, needs no tether or surface support, and maps the wreck so divers go straight to what matters.

Who: Navy fleet diving units and defence research agencies
Mission: Map warship wrecks and flooded naval spaces; locate sensitive equipment and documents for recovery
Value: See what changed before you commit the team

In a fleet diving unit or defence research? Let’s talk.

Fanal is designed and built in Canada and offered only to vetted buyers in Canada and allied countries. It is not designed or offered as a weapon or weapon platform.

Concept simulation, not yet demonstrated. A generic warship, not any real vessel. Time-lapse: Fanal searches the rooms ahead of the divers and finds the secure room (amber).

Public safety

Search and rescue (SAR)

When a vessel capsizes or an aircraft goes into the water, people can survive for days in air trapped inside. In 2013 the cook of the capsized tug Jascon-4 survived about 60 hours in an air pocket 30 m down, until divers searching the wreck heard him.¹¹ Rescue divers must search a dark, upside-down maze to find them, and every wrong turn costs time and risk. Fanal can search ahead of the divers and show them where the air pockets and the survivors are.

Who: Coast guard, police and search and rescue dive teams
Mission: Search a capsized vessel or sunken aircraft for survivors in air pockets, ahead of the divers
Value: Divers go straight to the survivors, with fewer dangerous entries

On a rescue dive team? Tell us how you search today.

Concept simulation, not yet demonstrated. A generic capsized tug, not any real vessel. Time-lapse: Fanal searches ahead of the divers and finds an air pocket with two survivors (amber).

Also in reach

The same vehicle, other flooded spaces.

Industrial intakes and penstocks

Map water intakes, penstocks and tanks before a diver enters, for the contractors who maintain them.

Fuel and pollution removal

Find fuel, oil and hazardous cargo inside a wreck before anyone goes in to remove it.

Exploration and science

Map flooded caves and historic wrecks. We plan a community programme to make Fanal available to non-profit rescue and exploration teams.

Do you work in one of these fields, or one we have not listed? Tell us how you work today.

Sources

Water Power Magazine. (2022, September 7). Cutting diver risk with ROVs.
Agence France-Presse. (2014, May 6). Diver killed at scene of ferry search after air hose becomes entangled. TheJournal.ie.
Reuters. (2014, May 30). Second diver dies at Sewol wreck site. gCaptain.
Yonhap. (2015, August 28). 중국 잠수사들 세월호 첫 선체진입…수중조사 속도 [Chinese divers make first entry into Sewol hull; underwater survey speeds up]. Seoul Shinmun.
Hankook Ilbo. (2015, September 16). 세월호 선체 부식 정도 인양에 영향 주지 않을 정도… 본격 작업 돌입 [Sewol hull corrosion not enough to affect salvage; full-scale work begins].
Schuler, M. (2019, December 13). Lightering of Golden Ray completed in St. Simons Sound. gCaptain.
Kerr, M. (2013, September 1). Raising the Costa Concordia. Risk & Insurance.
Professional Mariner. (2014, October 3). Titan, Italian salvors complete $2 billion Costa Concordia job.
Navy Lookout. (n.d.). Protecting the secrets of a wreck: diving on HMS Coventry.
Wikipedia. (n.d.). Operation Blackleg.
The Maritime Executive. (2013, June 12). Nigerian cook survives 2 days under sea in shipwreck air bubble.