According to OceanGate Expeditions, a search is still going on for one of its submersibles that went lost in the Atlantic Ocean.
To locate a missing submersible with five persons on board that lost communication close to the Titanic wreck, a search and rescue operation is under underway.
According to OceanGate Expeditions, one of their submersibles vanished in the Atlantic Ocean while transporting tourists to the renowned wreck.
In the Atlantic, 435 miles south of Canada’s Newfoundland, the submersible vanished on Sunday.
The Polar Prince, an icebreaker rented by OceanGate and formerly run by the Canadian Coast Guard, participated in an expedition that included The Titan.
The Titan was slated to make many dives at the North Atlantic crash site, and the ship transported scores of people there as well as the submersible vessel.
According to OceanGate, Titan has a 96-hour supply of oxygen in case of emergencies, which means only about two days of “life support” are left.
The Titan: What is it?
OceanGate, a US-based corporation that provides crewed submersibles for business, research, and exploration, operates the Titan, a small submersible.
Tickets for an eight-day excursion with dives to the wreck cost $250,000 (£195,000).
The Titan, according to the manufacturer, can dive 13,120 feet “with a comfortable safety margin”.
The ship descends from 12,500 feet, where the Titanic wreck is located in an Atlantic trench, in about two hours.
The ship, which is about 23,000 pounds (10,432 kilograms) in weight, communicates with those on land every 15 minutes by pinging back a message to let them know it is secure.
Sky News is aware that those pings have stopped, though.
OceanGate claimed in a court document from May 2021 that the Titan featured a “unparalleled safety feature” that continuously evaluated the hull’s integrity.
The business stated that at the time of the application, Titan had completed more than 50 test dives, including one to a depth equal to that of the Titanic.
According to a November court document, OceanGate indicated that the submersible encountered a battery problem on its 2022 expedition and had to be manually tethered to its lifting platform.
How about the rescue operation?
The mission is extremely difficult due to the remoteness and depth, despite the involvement of US and Canadian ships and aircraft.
It’s also unknown whether the Titan is submerged or whether it surfaced but lost communication.
It is a remote area, and conducting a search there is difficult, according to US Coast Guard Rear Admiral John Mauger.
“We are deploying all of our resources to locate the craft and save those on board,” the statement continued.
In order to find the submersible’s launch site, the Polar Prince is being deployed. Two Lockheed C-130 Hercules aircraft and a Canadian Boeing P-8 Poseidon surveillance aircraft also made overflights.
OceanGate Expeditions declared that it was “mobilising all options” to save people on board.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) reported on Wednesday that sonar equipment had picked up pounding noises every 30 minutes on Tuesday.
Additional sonar devices were deployed four hours later, but hammering continued, according to the report.
According to the US Coast Guard, remote underwater vehicles were repositioned in response to the reports of banging, but the searches have so far turned up nothing.
