The U.S. Coast Guard still hopes to find the five occupants of a submarine that went missing near the wreck of the Titanic alive, the head of a broader North Atlantic rescue operation said Thursday, despite fears that supplies may be running low.
“We continue to see in particularly complex cases that people’s will to live really needs to be considered,” U.S. Coast Guard Rear Admiral John Mauger, chief of search operations, said early Thursday on NBC.
“So we continue to search and continue our recovery efforts,” he added.
Rescuers estimated that passengers on Titan, a small deep-sea probe owned by the private US company OceanGate Expeditions, ran out of oxygen at 11:08 GMT (7:08 a.m. EDT). Missing since Sunday, the machine has a theoretical autonomy of 96 hours in diving.
Wednesday’s announcement of underwater noise detection by Canadian P-3 planes raised hopes and a multinational armada of rescuers dispatched to the scene, with the origin of the noises undetermined.
Important material
Aerial surveillance using C-130 or P3 aircraft, ships equipped with underwater robots: techniques used in particular by the US and Canadian forces follow the departure of the Polar Prince, a submersible Titan.
The French research vessel Atlante from Ifremer arrived at the site in the morning, we learned from the French Research Institute for the Exploitation of the Sea, equipped with a robot, the ROV Victor 6000 capable of diving into the wreck. Titanic is almost 4000 meters deep.
Rob Larder, an expert at the British Antarctic Survey (PAS, a British research organization based in Cambridge), told reporters that the Victor 6000 was the “main hope” for the underwater rescue operation.
In the video | Questions about the submarine “Titan”.
The surface search area covers 20,000 square kilometers.
According to Capt. Jamie Frederick of the United States Coast Guard, “The location of the search, 1450 km east of Cape Cod and 640 km southeast of St. John, Newfoundland, makes rapid mobilization exceptionally difficult. The large amount of equipment.
An American, a Frenchman, a Briton and two Pakistani-Britons drowned on board the 6.5-metre-long Titan on Sunday morning.
He was expected to reappear seven hours later, but lost contact within two hours of his departure. As of noon Tuesday, the U.S. Coast Guard warned that the ship had “approximately 40 hours of breathable air.”
Security Complaint
Since the search began on Sunday, details have emerged involving OceanGate regarding possible safety lapses at the underwater tourism facility.
According to a report seen in 2018 by AFP, the company’s former executive, David Lockridge, was fired after raising serious doubts about the submarine’s safety.
According to this former Director of Marine Operations, a porthole at the front of the device is designed to withstand the pressure experienced at a depth of 1300m and not 4000m.
OceanGate’s boss, American Stockton Rush, along with a wealthy British businessman, Hamish Harding (58), French Titanic expert Paul-Henri Narjolet (77) – nicknamed “Mr. Titanic”, Pakistani President Shahjada Dawood (48) and his son Suleiman (19 ) – both are British citizens.
For $250,000, they examined the remains of one of the greatest maritime disasters of the 20th century.e century
The Titanic hit an iceberg on its maiden voyage in 1912, killing nearly 1,500 passengers and crew.
Since the discovery of the wreck in 1985, it has been visited by scientists, treasure hunters and tourists, thus maintaining the myth.
“Every hour that passes is very painful,” Bernard Cavin, who worked with Paul-Henri Narcolet, founder and director of the Cité de la Mer in Cherbourg, western France, told AFP.
“I know his professionalism, including crisis management. He knows how to manage everything, psychologically and technically, he has experienced a lot,” he added.
Tom Zaller, who visited the remains of the Titanic 23 years ago and heads the company that will put on an exhibit on the ship in Los Angeles at the end of June, recalled a similar voyage in 2020 on a Russian ship equipped with two submarines.
“I took the camera and took the picture myself. I saw the footage later and was absolutely horrified,” he told AFP.
Tom Jaller has known Paul-Henri Narjolet for a long time and was in touch with Stockton Rush shortly before his departure on Sunday.
“They have been there for almost four days. I can’t imagine it,” he breathes. “I hope and pray they get out and are found.”
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