The missing submersible is believed to be OceanGate’s Titan. Photo: OceanGate
Rescue teams are frantically searching for a submersible that vanished during a dive to explore the wreck of the Titanic.
The sub, which carried five people, went missing on Sunday, just a little under two hours into its dive. The vessel was a tourist operation that cost participants a reported $250,000. According to reports, among those onboard are a British billionaire, a Pakistani businessman named Shahzada Dawoo, his son, Suleman, and French explorer Paul-Henry Nargeolet. Although not confirmed, the pilot of the submersible is believed to be Stockton Rush, chief executive of OceanGate, the company that organized the exploratory dive. Submersible vessels, unlike submarines, require a mothership for launch and retrieval, and have limited travel capabilities on their own.
As of Monday afternoon, the US coast guard said the five crew members had roughly four days of oxygen left, and the search area is daunting. Hopeful rescuers are looking at the deep waters of the mid-Atlantic, but as of this reporting, they’ve come up empty-handed.
Both American and Canadian agencies are involved in the search, and they’re not pulling any punches. A French vessel called the Atalante that has a subsea robot is also involved. Commercial deep sea vessels are being aided by military planes, submarines, and sonar buoys.
The Titanic famously hit an iceberg on its maiden voyage in 1912. More than 1,500 died. Photo: NOAA
“Right now, our focus is on getting as much capability into the area as we can,” Rear Adm John Mauger of the US Coast Guard told a press conference.
The wreck of the Titanic is a little under 450 miles from the coast of St John’s, Newfoundland, Canada. It lies in 12,600 feet of water. As of Tuesday morning, the US Coast Guard announced that they’ve searched some 10,000 square miles.
The BBC reported that the missing submarine is thought to be  OceanGate’s Titan submersible. OceanGate is a company that charters submarines for “site survey, scientific research, film production, and exploration travel to depths as great as 2.5 miles.”
A journalist with CBS named David Pogue, who visited the Titanic last year aboard an OceanGate sub, told reporters that GPS and radio systems don’t work at depth. He explained that the sub is only able to communicate with its support ship if it is directly below it. The people in the sub are locked in with bolts applied to the ports on the outside.
In a media brief, OceanGate said that it is “exploring and mobilizing all options to bring the crew back safely. Our entire focus is on the crew members in the submersible and their families.”
