Search and rescue crews are working tirelessly to locate a missing submersible carrying five people aboard that lost contact while exploring the wreckage of the Titanic. The vessel began its descent on Sunday morning and has just four days of emergency capability. The search zone covers a remote area some 900 miles east of Cape Cod, Massachusetts, and 13,000 feet deep. Crews are also dealing with foggy conditions and waves of 3 to 6 feet, making the search challenging. The Canadian Armed Forces is deploying an aircraft to assist in the search, and the group conducting the Titanic expedition, OceanGate Expeditions, is also helping in the search.
The submersible, roughly the size of a minivan, was carrying one pilot and four “mission specialists” when its mother ship lost contact with it. The vessel has between 70 and 96 hours of life support, and crews have been using sonar buoys and ship sonar to listen for “any sounds that we can detect in the water column.” There were no underwater searches involved as of Monday, and the Canadian research vessel Polar Prince, which took the submersible to the Titanic wreckage site, is assisting search and rescue efforts.
Search and rescue operations at sea are like “searching for a needle in a haystack,” former US Navy diver, retired Capt. Bobbie Scholley, told CNN Monday. “In this case, they knew exactly the location that they were starting with this submersible, so they have good data for where to start the search,” Scholley said. Among those on the submersible is British businessman Hamish Harding, according to a social media post by his company, Action Aviation.
The US Coast Guard has not released the names of the five people onboard as it works to notify their relatives, an official said Monday. The expedition began with a 400-nautical-mile journey to the Titanic wreck site, then the submersible started its descent Sunday morning, eventually losing contact with the Polar Prince, a converted ice breaker. The last communication between the vessel and OceanGate staff at the surface came in at 11:47 a.m. Authorities were notified at 6:35 p.m., after the 6:10 p.m. resurface time of the vessel passed with no sign of the submersible.
OceanGate Expeditions operates a trip taking passengers to the Titanic’s wreckage at the bottom of the ocean for prices starting at $250,000, with trips beginning and ending in St. John’s, Newfoundland. The company advertised the experience as a way “to step outside of everyday life and discover something truly extraordinary.”
In case of an emergency, the submersible is equipped with basic emergency medical supplies and pilots have basic first aid training, according to OceanGate Expeditions’ website. Everybody is “focused onboard here for our friends,” an expedition participant on the Polar Prince said Monday. “We have a situation that is now the part of a major Search and Rescue effort, being undertaken by major agencies,” Rory Golden said on Facebook.
Original Story at www.cnn.com – 2023-06-20 11:30:00