A massive rescue operation is underway deep in the waters of the Atlantic Ocean in search of a submersible vessel that carries people to view the wreckage of the Titanic.
Fears are growing for the five people on board OceanGate Expeditions' five person submersible named Titan as hours pass with no contact from the sub.
What we know about the Titan submersible
- Designed to take passengers to a depth of 4000m (13,000ft)
- Can hold five people, one pilot and four crew
- 22 feet long and 8 feet high
- Made from carbon fibre and titanium
- Weighs just over 10 tonnes
- Top speed of 3 knots (5 km/h)
- 96 hours of oxygen if fully crewed
According to OceanGate, the Titan is "the only manned submersible to employ an integrated real-time health monitoring system".
The system is designed to let the pilot know to assess the "integrity of the structure" and return to surface if any issues are detected.
It also has a toilet on board, all though the tight quarters mean guests have little privacy.
A CBS podcast host who went on a previous Titanic sightseeing trip aboard the Titan is holding out hope due to the safety systems on board.
"They have SEVEN different ways to rise to the surface—multiple redundant ballast and air-bladder systems," David Pogue tweeted today.
The missing trip
The Joint Rescue Coordination Centre in Halifax, Nova Scotia, said the vessel was reported overdue about 9.13pm on Sunday (local time), about 700km south of St John's, Newfoundland. Lt Cmdr Len Hickey said a Canadian Coast Guard vessel and military aircraft were assisting the search effort, which was being led by the US Coast Guard in Boston.
David Concannon, an adviser to the company, said Oceangate lost contact with the sub-Sunday morning. It had a 96-hour oxygen supply, he said in an email to The Associated Press.
"Now 32 hours since sub left surface," Concannon said, who said he was supposed to be on the dive but could not go due to another client matter. He said officials are working to get a remotely operated vehicle that can reach a depth of 6000m to the site as soon as possible.
Action Aviation confirmed that its company chairman, UK businessman Hamish Harding, was one of the tourists on board. The company's managing director Mark Butler told the AP that the crew set out on Friday.
The expedition was OceanGate's third annual voyage to chronicle the deterioration of the iconic ocean liner that struck an iceberg and sank in 1912, killing all but about 700 of the roughly 2200 passengers and crew. Since the wreckage's discovery in 1985, it has been slowly succumbing to metal-eating bacteria, and some have predicted the ship could vanish in a matter of decades as holes yawn in the hull and sections disintegrate.
The initial group of tourists was funding the expedition by spending anywhere from NZ$161,000 to NZ$242,000 apiece.
The latest trip was scheduled to depart from St John's, Newfoundland, in early May and finish up at the end of June, according to court documents filed by the company in April with a US District Court in Virginia that presides over Titanic matters.
Unlike submarines that leave and return to port under their own power, submersibles require a ship to launch and recover them. OceanGate hired the Canadian vessel Polar Prince, a medium-duty icebreaker that was formerly operated by the Canadian Coast Guard, to ferry dozens of people and the submersible craft to the North Atlantic wreck site.
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