A Submarine used for tourist visits to the Titanic wreckage is yet to be found haven gone missing in the North Atlantic on Sunday, 19 June 2023.
The five-person crew submersible named Titan — owned by OceanGate Expeditions — left to dive on the Titanic wreckage Sunday morning.
Communication/ signal was lost with the Sub about an hour and 45 minutes later.
OceanGate’s sub called the Titan was carrying a group of five tourists and had an oxygen supply of about 96 hours.
Authorities are currently conducting a search and rescue mission to locate the missing submarine and its passengers. The wreck sits 12,000 feet deep.
At a news conference on Tuesday afternoon, Capt. Jamie Frederick of the U.S. Coast Guard estimated that there were only about 40 hours of breathable air left on the vessel.
The American and Canadian Coast Guards, commercial vessels and aircraft have been involved in searching for the missing vessel.
The five people in the missing submersible are Mr Rush, the company founder; Hamish Harding, a British businessman and explorer; the British executive Shahzada Dawood and his son, Suleman, from one of Pakistan’s wealthiest families; and Paul-Henri Nargeolet, a French maritime expert who has been on more than 35 dives to the Titanic wreck site.
The sub was lost in an area about 900 miles east of Cape Cod in water with a depth of about 13,000 feet.
There is no indication at this time of what went wrong … no mayday sent by the crew.
The sub weighs about 23-thousand pounds and the interior is about the size of a minivan.
It has emergency oxygen and a 96-hour sustainment capability.
At the time of this report, there is an estimated two to three days left of oxygen. Eventually, the carbon dioxide level could get too high and suffocate the crew.
Not that it would matter at this depth, but the sub cannot be opened from the inside as it is bolted shut from the outside. The best option is to tow the sub to the surface.
But the depth, darkness, cold and pressure mean only a remote-controlled robotic unit can be used to attach the tow.
None of this, of course, is an option if the sub can’t be found.
It is a race against time even as experts say the odds of a successful rescue are slim.
The cost of the expedition was $250,000 per passenger.
Eighteen-Eleven Media