Credit, PA Media
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Titan has been missing since Sunday
Jun 22, 2023 at 8:08 03
Updated 36 minutes ago
The US Coast Guard has announced it has found a “debris field” near the Titanic wreckage.
The panel announced a press conference for 5 p.m. Brazil time to provide more details.
Rear Admiral John Mauger, commander of the Coast Guard First District, and Capt. Jamie Frederick, Coast Guard First District Response Coordinator, will speak to reporters during the interview.
The Titan has five people on board and is part of the OceanGate company, which offers submarine tours to the wreck of the Titanic, which sank in 1912.
BBC News science correspondent Jonathan Amos said it was difficult to understand whether this announcement was big news in relation to the case, but added that the Coastguard had made few such announcements in recent days.
“The US Coast Guard hasn’t posted many tweets in the past few days, so it could be significant. Speaking to experts this week, many feared Titan may have suffered a catastrophic implosion due to a hull failure. Such a scenario could explain the wreck.” . But then again, it could end up being nothing,” he says.
He said the seabed around the Titanic wreck was littered with debris of all kinds, mostly from the big ship itself, and that the submarine may still be missing.
As of Tuesday (20th) at 1:00 p.m. on the US East Coast (2:00 p.m. Brasilia), the United States Coast Guard estimated that the submarine had approximately 40 hours of oxygen left. In this way, the oxygen on board the submersible Titan, which disappeared on Sunday (06/18), would run out this Thursday morning (06/22).
A businessman who has taken a trip on the Titan submarine to the site of Titanic’s sinking believes the people on board can maximize their oxygen supply to last longer than just this Thursday morning.
Rescuers said they needed to stay “optimistic and hopeful”. Ten additional ships and several submarines will join the search Thursday, more than doubling the number of ships involved in the operation.
But Captain Jamie Frederick, who is leading the search, said: “To be honest we don’t know where they are.”
The search area was expanded after rescuers spotted noises on Tuesday and Wednesday. The area of the search area is twice the size of Sergipe State and is 4 km deep.
It is not clear what the noises are and whether they came from the submarine at all.
Former US Navy nuclear submarine commander David Marquet warns that the noise may not be coming from the Titan, but from the very ships conducting the search.
“I don’t think the noise is from them, it could just be natural sounds. We hear noises as more ships enter the area and I don’t think it’s a coincidence,” he told the BBC.
But for others, the noises can be good signs.
News that noises were detected during a search for a missing submersible gave a glimmer of hope that the five men on board are still alive.
Frank Owen of the Submarine Institute of Australia says he is confident based on the information available that the noise was coming from inside the ship.
“If there was a 30 minute break it would be very unlikely that it was anything nonhuman,” he told the BBC.
Frank says the sounds could be the brainchild of PaulHenry Nargeolet, 77, a former French Navy diver and famous explorer who was on the Titan’s crew.
“He needs to know the protocol of trying to alert searchers … on the hour and half hour, you have to do everything for three minutes,” Frank added.
Two people on Titan PaulHenry Nargeolet and Hamish Harding are members of the Explorers Club, a centuriesold international organization dedicated to scientific exploration.
“There is good reason for hope, and we’re making it even more hopeful,” the organization’s president, Richard Garriott, wrote online.
Oceanographer David Gallo believes it would take a miracle to save the crew alive, but remains optimistic.
He told UK broadcaster ITV that the sounds coming from underwater were “believable and repeatable”, meaning crews had to assume it was coming from the submersible and act quickly to locate it.
“At this point, we have to assume it’s the submarine, move quickly to that location, locate it, and place robots there to verify that the submarine is there,” he said.
“You have to be completely ready, like it’s the submarine, because it takes hours to locate and bring it to the surface.”
Captain Marquet reckons the chances of survival for those on board, while slim, have increased slightly as the equipment needed to pull the Titan out of the seabed is en route to the area.
The Flyaway Deep Ocean Salvage System (FADOSS) is deployed by the US Navy. Typically, FADOSS is used to recover large and heavily sunken objects such as aircraft and small ships.
Credit, NAVSEA
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FADOSS is used to salvage sunken large and heavy objects such as airplanes and small ships
The FADOSS is strong enough to lift 27 tons and can descend up to 6,000 meters into the sea.
The deepest rescue attempt recorded with a FADOSS is 6,000 meters. The wreck of the Titanic sinks at a depth of 3,800 meters.
A remotely operated vehicle (ROV) from the British company Magellan is loaded onto a C17 aircraft at Jersey Airport.
The Magellan submarine called Juliet recently scanned the wreckage of the Titanic and created a 3D view of the entire ship.
It would take about 48 hours to reach the location.
The Juliet will be able to descend the full depth of the dive site and the crew has detailed knowledge of the deep sea area having been there only recently.
The submarine had been available since earlier in the week but was held back for bureaucratic reasons.
The Polar Prince the research vessel from which the Titan was launched remains the search command center and is located near the Titanic wreck site.
Remotecontrolled vehicles equipped with cameras scan the depths of the seabed throughout the day.