The Chinese have plunged to a record depth of 10909m!

Last Tuesday, November 10, China’s Fendouzhe underwater vehicle descended to a depth of 10,909 metres, a new record for Chinese manned vehicles. The plunge was carried out in the Challenger Deep, of course, where the crew’s target was the bottom of the Mariana Trench – the deepest place on Earth.

The manned vehicle was driven by a crew of three. According to available information, in addition to just reaching the record depth, the research team worked for six hours collecting data and collecting samples for study from the bottom of the western Pacific.

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Although reaching a depth of 10909 metres is an extremely impressive feat, it should be noted that the absolute record was missing… 18 metres! It was to a depth of 10927 metres that American Victor Vescovo managed to reach, during one of the dives carried out as part of the Five Deeps project in May 2019.

Nevertheless, the feat of the Chinese crew is unusual and rare. Until now, people have only visited the bottom of the Mariana Trench five times, which shows how little we still know about our planet and especially about the depths of the oceans that cover most of it.

Previously, this feat had been accomplished in 1960 to the duo Don Walsh and Jaques Piccard, w 2012 James Cameron repeated the feat, and in 2019 and 2020 Victor Vescovo twice. It is worth noting that during the 2020 plunge together with Vescovo, Kelly Walsh went down to the bottom, son of Don Walsh.

Among other things, the aim of the Chinese crew was to survey the seabed to identify and determine the abundance of deposits found in the ocean depths, which is expected to help create a kind of ‘treasure map’ of natural resources.

The journey from the surface to the bottom alone took less than 200 minutes. In addition, public information shows that the vehicle’s arms are extremely precise, allowing it to collect samples of rocks, water, sea creatures and plants.

The feat described today also shows the power of China, which has reached the deepest point on Earth, less than five years after setting up a project to create the Fendouzhe vehicle. We can also be sure that the Chinese have not yet said their last word on the subject…