Nautile

Nautile is a manned submersible owned by Ifremer, the French Research Institute for Exploitation of the Sea. Commissioned in 1984, the submersible can be operated at depths of up to 6 km.

Nautile is capable of housing three people. She has a length of 8 m, still imaging cameras, two colour video cameras, and a number of flood lights. She is fitted with two robotic arms to allow remote manipulation. Nautile can stay under water for up to eight hours at a time. Two ships can act as mothership to Nautile: Pourquoi Pas? and Atalante. In its early days Nautile was launched from RV Nadir.

The vessel has been used to examine the wreck of the RMS Titanic and in the search for the flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder from the ill-fated Air France Flight 447

External links and references

 * Nautile &mdash; specification from Ifremer website
 * Nautile: miniature submarine &mdash; BBC news article
 * Submarine to examine sunken oil tanker &mdash; New Scientist article
 * Le Nautile &mdash; technical information from Ifremer website