The tourist submersible that has gone missing while on an expedition to view the Titanic, sent its last communication directly above the famous wreck – when it was around 12,500ft beneath the surface.
The OceanGate vessel that had five people on board, including billionaire British adventurer Hamish Harding, as well as company CEO Stockton Rush and French explorer Paul-Henri Nargeolet, went missing on Sunday around 370 miles from Newfoundland in Canada. Titan, as the craft is called, is believed to have last ‘pinged’ while directly over Titanic, which sank in 1912, with the loss of around 1,500 lives.
The vessel communicates by sending a ping to the mothership Polar Prince every quarter of an hour and the last of these was sent at around 3pm UK time on Sunday. The crew lost communication with mothership MV Polar Prince an hour and 45 minutes into the two-hour descent, but only has enough oxygen to last underwater until 12pm on Thursday.
READ MORE: Missing Titanic sub rescue ‘unlikely’ says expert
The Titan sub has no way of directing itself under water – it relies on text messages from the mothership, instructing it where to go, and it is thought to have become stuck in the wreckage, with some experts fearing that it may not be able to be rescued.
The US Coast Guard is searching for the sub after receiving a distress call, while their Boston branch is overseeing an operation to carry out what would be the deepest undersea rescue mission ever.
Rear Admiral John W. Mauger told a press conference on Monday that the US Coast Guard is working “as hard as possible” to find Titan while “lives are at risk”, while former Coast Guardsman John Mixson told Fox News it was an “extremely serious and dire situation”. He added: “This isn’t a common occurrence at all. Obviously, something very rapid and very tragic took place.”
Meanwhile, David Concannon, an adviser to OceanGate who had actually planned to be on the expedition, said that officials are working to get a remotely operated vehicle that can reach a depth of 20,000ft to the site as soon as possible.
Planes such as C-130s and P-8s are also being used to help in the search, while Admiral Mauger explained that the coastguard did not have the capabilities to reach the vessel, telling Fox News: “We don’t have equipment onsite that can do a survey of the bottom, there is a lot of debris so locating will be difficult.”
And former Rear Admiral Chris Parry admitted his concerns of being able to rescue the stranded craft, adding: “It’s very worrying. It could have become entangled in the wreckage of Titanic.
“The wreck site is a long way from anywhere. The only hope one has is that the mothership will have a standby craft that can investigate immediately what is going on.”
