The five people aboard the submersible that’s been missing since it dropped into the Atlantic for a trip to the wreckage of the Titanic on Sunday are out of time by some estimates. The Coast Guard estimated yesterday that the Titan could run out of air by 7:08 a.m. today. Experts say they could have been taking measures to conserve oxygen, but it’s not clear how much additional time that would give them, if any.
As of yesterday afternoon, searchers had covered an area twice the size of Connecticut on the surface, and Coast Guard Capt. Jamie Frederick said the underwater search that’s reached as far as 2.5 miles deep is “an incredibly complex search operation.” More “noises” were heard by a Canadian P-3 aircraft yesterday, but a Navy analysis of the noises came back inconclusive, with Capt. Frederick saying “We don’t know what the noises are to be frank with you.”
The five people on board the sub are Stockton Rush, the CEO and founder of OceanGate, the company leading the trip, British billionaire Hamish Harding, Pakistani billionaire Shahzada Dawood and his son Sulaiman, and French diver Paul-Henri Nargeolet.
Other details about the sub and the search:
- An investor in OceanGate, Aaron Newman, says the Titan has four different ways it can return to the surface, including one that’s supposed to happen automatically after 24 hours. Titan stays underwater thanks to heavy ballast, and the lines securing that ballast are designed to fall apart after 24 hours to automatically send it back to the surface.
- Finding the Titan is only the first step in any rescue because of the depth of the water. A U.S. Navy salvage system arrived in Newfoundland yesterday. The Flyaway Deep Ocean Salvage System, capable of retrieving objects or vessels from the bottom of the ocean floor up to a depth of 20,000 feet, will first have to be welded to a ship, a process that could take a full day according to officials. Until that’s completed, there’s no way to retrieve Titan even if it’s located.
- Court filings and other records show that OceanGate had a series of mechanical problems and bad weather conditions that forced the cancellation or delay of several trips in recent years.
- Will Kohnen of the Marine Technology Society told CNN yesterday that “There are 10 submarines in the world that can go 12,000 feet and deeper,” then added that “All of them are certified except the OceanGate submersible.”
- Experts say the search and rescue mission won’t lead to extra costs for the Coast Guard or the American taxpayers, since the Coast Guard ships in use were already on patrol.
Source: CNN
Photo: Getty Images