ABOARD XIANGYANGHONG 09, Jan. 10 -- China's first female pilot trainee dived onSaturday as copilot with deep-sea manned submersible Jiaolong, China's first such sub, inthe southwest Indian Ocean.
Zhang Yi, 27, was in charge of communicating with the sub's support ship, operating thecamera and observing obstacles through the left window during the dive.
"I piloted Jiaolong in testing pool last year and it was very cool," Zhang said prior to thedive, "I think it will be more exciting to dive in ocean and I have been looking forward tothis dive for months."
In this dive, Jiaolong was expected to collect some samples of rocks, sulfide, hydrothermalfluid and living beings in this hydrothermal area, said Yu Hongjun, chief commander of theexpedition.
"Today Jiaolong is going to dive in hydrothermal area, where topography and environmentare very complicated, so I think I will learn a lot from the pilot, Tang Jialing," said Zhang,who graduated with a master's degree in engineering last summer.
China recruited six pilot trainees for deep-sea manned sub out of 130 candidates in 2013and two of the six are female. The other female pilot trainee is Zhao Shengya, who isscheduled to make her first dive with Jiaolong in a week.
The six trainees will be qualified to pilot deep-sea manned sub after a two-year-training,according to Yu.
For the time being, China has two pilots of deep-sea manned sub, Tang and Fu Wentao,who were recruited in 2007.
Being on a 120-day expedition, Jiaolong will conduct 20 dives to research polymetallicsulfides, biological diversity, hydrothermal microbes and genetic resources in thesouthwest Indian Ocean.
