ABOARD XIANGYANGHONG 09, Feb. 4 -- China's deep-sea manned submersible Jiaolong floated for a whole night in the Indian Ocean due to the breakdown of the crane on the support ship, before being taken back to the ship early Wednesday.

The crane could not take the sub back as its left motor broke down.Engineers fixed the machine at daybreak on Wednesday and took the sub back after it floated for 12 hours in the ocean.

The floating was aimed to prevent collision between the ship and the sub, which just finished a 10-hour dive with three pilots.

All three people in the sub were all right when they got to the ship. "We had faith that engineers on the ship would be able to take us back, and we chatted and slept for a few hours last night," said Chen Yunsai, a pilot trainee of Jiaolong.

"I am very hungry and it is lucky that we are not late for breakfast," said Fu Wentao, who piloted Jiaolong in this dive.

"The crane has never broken down before and we should learn a lesson from this serious accident," said Li Xiangyang, assistant commander of the expedition.

This is the 100th dive of Jiaolong, which is on a 120-day expedition in the southwest Indian Ocean. The sub reached its deepest depth of 7,062 meters in the Pacific's Mariana Trench in June 2012.