WASHINGTON: The US Coast Guard Wednesday diverted its robotic undersea search operations to the area where sounds, likely from the missing OceanGate Expeditions submersible, originated from.
Search teams, as reported by the Coast Guard, detected underwater sounds as they scanned the North Atlantic to search for the tourist vessel that embarked on a journey to explore the century-old Titanic ruins in the Canadian seas.
The submersible, the sounds of which were detected by a Canadian aircraft on the third day of the search, vanished with five passengers, including crew members, aboard during their deep-sea expedition. It is presumed to be left with just 24 hours of oxygen supply. The US Coast Guard tweeted that there was still no tangible sign of the missing Titan submersible.
The 21-foot-long submersible Titan, operated by US-based OceanGate Expeditions, lost contact with its parent surface vessel on Sunday morning about one hour and 45 minutes into what should have been a two-hour dive to the site of the world’s most famous shipwreck. The mini-sub was designed to remain underwater for 96 hours, according to its specifications, giving its five occupants until Thursday morning before the air supply would run out if the craft were still intact. The fate of the submersible and those aboard remained a mystery as teams from the US, Canada and France mounted an intensifying search in an area of open sea larger than the state of Connecticut.
As of Tuesday, aircraft and ships from the US Coast Guard, US Navy and Canadian armed forces had combed more than 7,600 square miles of the North Atlantic, US Coast Guard Captain Jamie Frederick told reporters at a press conference on day three of the search. Those aboard Titan for a tourist expedition that costs $250,000 per person included British billionaire Hamish Harding, 58, and Pakistani-born businessman Shahzada Dawood, 48, with his 19-year-old son Suleman, who are both British citizens.
The search effort included Lockheed P-3 Orion turboprop aeroplanes designed with sub-surface surveillance gear to detect submarines, Frederick said. The Canadian military dropped sonar buoys to listen for any sounds that might come from the Titan, and a commercial pipeline-laying vessel with a remote-controlled deepwater submersible was also searching near the site, he said.
Separately, a French research ship carrying its own deep-sea diving robot submersible was dispatched to the search area at the request of the US Navy and was expected to arrive Wednesday night local time, the Ifremer research institute said. Canada’s P-3 aircraft ended up detecting underwater noises in the search area on Tuesday, after which “ROV” (remotely operated vehicle) searches were “relocated in an attempt to explore the origin of the noises,” according to the Coast Guard tweets. “The ROV searches have yielded negative results but continue,” the Coast Guard said, adding, that the P-3 data was shared with US Navy experts for “further analysis which will be considered in future search plans.” The Coast Guard did not detail the nature or extent of the sounds.
But CNN and Rolling Stone magazine, citing internal US government communications, independently reported late on Tuesday that banging sounds were detected by Canadian aircraft at 30-minute intervals in the search area. Rolling Stone, the first to report the news, said the sounds were picked up by sonar buoys and that additional sonar picked up more banging four hours later. CNN cited a US government memo as saying that additional sounds were heard about four hours after the initial banging was detected, although the news channel said the second occurrence was not described as banging.
Rescuers face major obstacles both in finding the Titan and in saving the people aboard, according to experts. In the event of a mid-dive emergency, the Titan’s pilot would likely have released weights to float back to the surface, according to Alistair Greig, a marine engineering professor at University College London. But absent communication, locating a van-sized submersible in the vast Atlantic would prove challenging, he said. The submersible is sealed with bolts from the outside, preventing occupants from escaping without assistance even if it surfaces.
If the Titan were stuck on the ocean floor, a rescue effort would face even greater challenges due to extreme hydrostatic pressure and total darkness on the sea floor more than 2 miles deep. Titanic expert Tim Matlin said it would be “almost impossible to effect a sub-to-sub rescue” on the seabed.
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