The submersible that vanished two days ago while carrying five people to the wreckage site of the Titanic has “about 40 hours of breathable air left,” a U.S. Coast Guard spokesman said in a briefing Tuesday.
Coast Guard Capt. Jason Frederick said rescue teams have searched 7,600 square miles of the Atlantic Ocean since Sunday. “To date, those search efforts have not yielded any results,” he said. More search ships were traveling to the area, but he said the effort was “an incredibly complex operation.”
Still, Frederick vowed the search would continue. “We know there’s about 40 hours of breathable air left,” he said.
The carbon-fiber submersible, named Titan, had a 96-hour oxygen supply when it went to sea at about 6 a.m. Sunday, according to David Concannon, an adviser to OceanGate Expeditions, the deep-sea exploration company that owns the vessel.
The five-person vessel was reported overdue Sunday night about 435 miles south of St. John’s, Newfoundland, according to Canada’s Joint Rescue Coordination Center. Authorities have yet to formally identify those on board, though some names have been confirmed, including OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush, who the company said was serving as a member of the crew.
The Canadian research icebreaker Polar Prince, which was supporting Titan, lost contact with the vessel about an hour and 45 minutes after it submerged.
“It is a remote area, and it is a challenge to conduct a search in that remote area,” said Rear Adm. John Mauger, commander of the First Coast Guard District.
Mauger said Sunday afternoon that the submersible has a 96-hour emergency sustainment capability, which would include oxygen and fuel. “So we anticipate that there’s somewhere between 70 and the full 96 hours available at this point,” he said.
A challenging search operation
Mauger told NBC’s “Today” show on Tuesday that his crews were working to prioritize underwater search efforts and get equipment there. Experts told The Associated Press the challenges are difficult.
Alistair Greig, a professor of marine engineering at University College London, said submersibles typically have a drop weight, which is “a mass they can release in the case of an emergency to bring them up to the surface using buoyancy.” A power failure would leave the vessel “bobbing” on the surface, he said.
There could also be a leak in the pressure hull, he said.
“If it has gone down to the seabed and can’t get back up under its own power, options are very limited,” Greig said. “While the submersible might still be intact, if it is beyond the continental shelf, there are very few vessels that can get that deep, and certainly not divers.”
What you need to know about sub:Maps, graphics show last location, depth and design
Where is the search area for the submersible?
The U.S. Coast Guard in Boston is combing the ocean surface and below water in search of the 21-foot-long submersible, using tools including sonar technology and aircraft.
The location − about 900 miles east of Cape Cod and up to 13,000 feet deep − complicates the task, as does the need to look both on the ocean surface and below, the Coast Guard said.
“We are deploying all available assets to make sure that we can locate the craft and rescue the people on board,” Mauger said.
When did the Titanic submarine go missing?
The craft launched Sunday morning, but its support vessel lost contact with it about an hour and 45 minutes later, according to the Coast Guard.
The Titan disappeared in the North Atlantic Ocean, the remote area where the massive ocean liner the Titanic struck an iceberg and sank in 1912. All but about 700 of the roughly 2,200 passengers and crew died.
The Titan was being launched from an icebreaker hired by OceanGate and formerly operated by the Canadian Coast Guard. The ship ferried dozens of people and the submersible to the North Atlantic site, where the Titan makes multiple dives.
Where is the wreckage of the Titanic?
This was OceanGate Expedition’s third annual voyage to the Titanic since 2021. The ship is at a depth of nearly 2½ miles. The Washington-based deep-sea exploration company has taken archaeologists, marine biologists and tourists to the site of the wreckage.
Who is on board the submersible?
The Coast Guard said one pilot and four “mission specialists” were aboard. “Mission specialists” are people who pay to come along on OceanGate’s expeditions. They take turns operating sonar equipment and performing other tasks in the submersible.
An initial group of tourists in 2021 paid $100,000 to $150,000 apiece to visit the wreck site. OceanGate’s website described the “mission support fee” for the 2023 expedition as $250,000 a person.
British businessman Hamish Harding, who lives in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, was one of the mission specialists, according to Action Aviation, a company for which Harding is chairman.
Closer look at the people on board:Who is on the missing Titanic submersible? Passengers include Hamish Harding, Shahzada Dawood
Harding is an adventurer who holds three Guinness World Records, including the longest duration at full ocean depth by a crewed vessel. In March 2021, he and ocean explorer Victor Vescovo dived to the lowest depth of the Mariana Trench in the western Pacific. In June 2022, he flew into space on Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket.
Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman, members of one of Pakistan’s most prominent families, also were on board, according to a family statement sent to The Associated Press. The family is known for investments in agriculture, industry and the health sector. Shahzada Dawood also is on the board of trustees for the California-based SETI Institute, which searches for extraterrestrial intelligence.
French explorer and Titanic expert Paul-Henry Nargeolet also was on board, according to David Gallo, a senior adviser for strategic initiatives and special projects at RMS Titanic. Gallo identified Nargeolet, a friend who has led multiple expeditions to the Titanic, on Tuesday during an interview with CNN.
CBS correspondent describes getting ‘lost’ on previous submersible trip
CBS News correspondent David Pogue tweeted about his experience last year joining the crew and a group of tourists to see the wreck, but he said the submersible “got lost for a few hours” on that trip.
“There’s no GPS underwater,” and communications between the submersible and a surface ship guiding it broke down on part of that trip, too, Pogue said in his report, which aired in November.
“An experimental submersible vessel that has not been approved or certified by any regulatory body could result in physical injury, disability, emotional trauma or death,” Pogue read from a form he signed on camera in the report.
The submersible has about as much room as a minivan, Pogue said. “I couldn’t help noticing how many pieces of this sub seemed improvised,” Pogue said, showing viewers what he described as a small “sort-of” toilet.
OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush showed Pogue a video game controller and said it was used to “run the whole thing.”
Rush said important components of the submersible like the pressure vessel were solidly engineered alongside NASA, Boeing and the University of Washington. “Everything else can fail. Your thrusters can go, your lights can go, you’re still going to be safe,” Rush told Pogue.
One member of that trip, bank executive Renata Rojas, said she had been booked on three Titanic dives that were all canceled.
What is a submersible?
A submersible is a vessel in the submarine family but smaller and less self-sufficient than the classic military sub.
Contributing: Francisco Guzman, Donovan Slack, USA TODAY; The Associated Press
