Titanic submarine missing: Tourist submersible OceanGate with five onboard has 70 hours of air left

Alistair Greig, professor of marine engineering at University College London, said submersibles typically have a drop weight, which is “a mass that they can release in an emergency to buoy them to the surface”.

“If there had been a power outage and/or communications failure, that would have happened and the submersible would then be floating on the surface waiting to be found,” Mr Greig said.

Another scenario is a leak in the pressure hull, in which case the prognosis is not good, he said.

“If it’s sunk to the bottom of the sea and can’t get back up on its own, the options are very limited,” he said.

“While the submersible may still be intact, once it’s beyond the continental shelf there are very few vessels capable of going that deep, let alone divers.”

Even if they could penetrate that deep, he doubts they could attach themselves to the hatch of OceanGate’s submersible.

The US Coast Guard has dispatched a ship and radar-equipped C-130 aircraft to search from above the submersible missing with five people on board.

According to the authorities, merchant ships in this region of the Atlantic have been told to keep an eye out.

The Canadian Coast Guard and Canadian Armed Forces have also deployed forces, including a C-130 aircraft and a P-8 aircraft destined to search for submarines.

Stephen Bornais, a spokesman for Fisheries and Oceans Canada, said another Canadian Forces fixed-wing aircraft and a Coast Guard vessel had been dispatched for the mission.

The submersible, dubbed Titan, can dive 4,000 meters or 13,120 feet “with a comfortable margin of safety,” according to its operator OceanGate Expeditions.

The submarine weighs 9,072 kilograms in the air but is ballasted to have neutral buoyancy once it reaches the seabed, the company said in its filing.

The Titan is made of “titanium and wrapped carbon fiber” and has proven “to withstand the tremendous pressures of the deep sea,” the company said.

OceanGate told the court that Titan’s viewport was “the largest of any deep-water submersible” and that its technology offered an “unmatched view” of the deep sea.

In a May 2021 court filing, OceanGate said Titan has an “unprecedented safety feature” that tests hull integrity on every dive.

At the time of filing, Titan had completed more than 50 test dives, including to the same depth as Titanic, in deep waters off the Bahamas and in a hyperbaric chamber, the company said.

During its 2022 expedition, OceanGate reported that the submersible had a battery problem on its first dive and had to be manually attached to its lifting platform, according to a November court filing.

“While at sea, the submersible sustained minor damage to its external components and OceanGate decided to cancel the second mission for repairs and operational improvements,” the filing reads.

However, further operations followed, last year 28 people visited the wreck site.

A search is underway for a submersible that went missing in the Atlantic Ocean while visitors went on tours of the Titanic wreck.

Lieutenant Jordan Hart of the US Coast Guard in Boston told CBS News that a “search and rescue operation” was underway off the coast of Newfoundland, Canada.

The Joint Rescue Coordination Center in Halifax, Nova Scotia, said a Canadian military aircraft and a Canadian Coast Guard vessel were assisting in the search.

CBS journalist David Pogue, who boarded the Titan submersible last year, said its inventor assured him the ship was “rock solid.”

“It’s a unique five-inch carbon fiber submersible,” he said. “I have to admit I had some reservations about getting on that thing. Many components were improvised and off the shelf. You control this sub with a game controller, for example.

“The submarine’s CEO and inventor, Stockton Rush, assured me that all the stuff might be improvised, but the part you care about about the capsule, the container that holds people and oxygen, was developed jointly with NASA and the University of Washington.” is rock solid.”

British billionaire explorer Hamish Harding will remain calm and work with the crew, his girlfriend Jannicke Mikkelsen said.

“Every single expedition is dangerous and Hamish taught me that. That’s why I started the expedition,” she told News Nation.

“Every expedition carries the possibility of death,” she added.

“I know Hamish would stay calm and they would work together. Each individual expedition would have a checklist of options.

“I’m afraid that… they should have shown up a few hours ago, but they didn’t. That’s creepy.”