Since Sunday, June 18, 2023, a small tourist submarine has been missing on an expedition to the Titanic sinking area off the North Atlantic. There are five people on board the device called Titan. The race against time to find the submersible is on.
What happened ?
The titan, “Designed to carry five people to depths of 4,000 meters”, disappeared into the Atlantic Ocean, the Boston Coast Guard told the BBC on Monday (June 19, 2023).
The Joint Rescue Coordination Center (JRCC) in Halifax, Nova Scotia, said it lost contact with the submarine around 9:13 p.m. Sunday, about 700 kilometers south of the city of St. John’s on the island of Newfoundland, the Associated reports Press.
During a press conference Monday night, US Coast Guard First District Commander John Mauger reiterated that communications with the submersible had been cut Sunday afternoon. “1 hour and 45 minutes after the device began to descend” below the water surface. The rear admiral then clarified that the descent should normally take 4 hours.
“We assume that there is still between 70 and 96 hours of oxygen supply”, added John Mauger. An autonomy that would guarantee them enough air until Thursday afternoon, Friday at best. He also reminded that surviving at this depth without electricity and heating is almost impossible.
Who is on board?
Five people, including the pilot and four passengers, boarded the submarine, John Mauger confirmed. Hamish Harding, a British businessman, aviator, explorer and space tourist, is among those missing, reports Action Aviation, of which he is president. The 58-year-old announced his participation in the expedition on his Instagram account on Saturday.
“I am proud to finally announce that I have joined @oceangateexped on their RMS Titanic mission as Mission Specialist on the submarine that descends to Titanic.”he wrote. “A weather window has just opened and we will try to dive tomorrow”. He then claimed to be setting out with Paul-Henri Nargeolet, one of the greatest French experts on the Titanic wreck.
Also on board is Stockton Rush, CEO and founder of OceanGate Expeditions, according to Sky News.
Who leads the research?
A search and rescue mission was launched. It is operated by the US Coast Guard in Boston, Massachusetts. “We look” the plane, said an official with the Coast Guard’s Rescue Mission Coordination Center in Boston.
Canada is also involved and is supporting the search with a boat and an airplane, according to the Canadian Coast Guard. The mobilized boat “was off eastern Newfoundland and headed towards the search area”Said.
Power or communication problem?
The submarine is a mastered technology, but descending aboard is never without risk. Without having studied the craft himself, Alistair Greig, professor of marine engineering at University College London, put forward two possible theories based on images of the device published in the press.
He believes he could have been brought to the surface by swim if he had had a problem with electricity or communications “waiting to be found”. “Another scenario is that the hull has been compromised”and there was a leak. “Then the prognosis is not good”, he added. And “Very few ships can sail” to the depth he thought he might have sunk.
Virginie Brenot-Beaufrère, cultural manager of the Cité de la Mer in Cherbourg, recalled this in an interview with the newspaper “No risk does not exist”. “If Titan has received permission to dive, it means that it has met all the criteria of the control bodies specialized in this type of submersible. We don’t know what happened. It could be human error or a specific technical issue…”
What do we know about this type of expedition?
The submersible is operated by OceanGate Expeditions, a company that offers wreck viewing of this luxury liner aboard a five-person mini-submarine with a pilot. “We were very carefully crossing the bottom of the ocean, and then all of a sudden this huge structure appeared out of the ocean… “That of the Titanic, the company wrote on its Twitter account in a March 2023 video in support.
However, the possibility of integrating the expedition requires the payment of a price. This typically takes eight days and costs $250,000. In practice, any company that can afford to build a submarine can dive into these international waters in search of wreckage. However, the dives are conducted around the wreck and not on it.
OceanGate Expeditions began accommodating small teams two years ago “citizen scientist” in a five-person mini-submarine. According to the company’s website, Oceangate had planned an eight-day, seven-night expedition to the wreck for June 12-20. A maximum of six visitors should depart and return to St. John’s, Newfoundland, Canada.
As the Titanic left Southampton for New York on April 10, 1912, she was wrecked five days later after striking an iceberg. Of the 2,224 passengers and crew, nearly 1,500 perished.
also read : “He must have been among the first to drown”: the story of one of Titanic’s “Black Mouths”.
The wreck was discovered in 1985 400 miles off the Canadian coast at a depth of 13,000 feet in international waters of the Atlantic Ocean. Since then it has been visited by treasure hunters and tourists.