Quote:
Originally Posted by Jolly Amaranto
Objects like broken wreckage would sink to the bottom relatively unaltered. It is not like it is being run over by a giant steam roller. Anywhere that water can seep into an airspace it will fill the inside and push out at the same pressure as the water pushing in. Things like spent oxygen bottles will be squashed flat if they were well sealed but a section of broken fuselage would remain intact. If the entire cabin of the aircraft remained air tight, it would probably float and not sink anyway. However, if it were somehow (very unlikely) dragged down under and remain completely sealed it would reach a depth where it would collapse catastrophically.
When I was working in deep sea seismic research, we would sink ocean-bottom seismometer units to the ocean floor where they would remain for a week or so recording data before detaching from their anchor and bobbing to the surface to be retrieved. The delicate electronics was enclosed in a crush resistant aluminum sphere. For fun we attached a Styrofoam coffee cup to one of the OBS before it was deployed. When it was retrieved, the cup was a miniature replica. The gas in each of the foam cells was compressed until it dissolved through the foam and into the water leaving behind only a tiny plastic blob for each of the cells, still attached to each other in their original shape. Only thing, the shape was reduced in size.
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When I saw the Titanic exhibit they had a styrofoam cup that they introduced to the same pressure as the depth the Titanic sank at. It was just like you described, a miniature version of the full size up, like the size of a thimble.