The Coast Guard began a race against time to find the device, which was fitted with 96 hours of oxygen. A Frenchman is part of the expedition, but his presence on board has not yet been confirmed. In contrast, that of a British businessman was passed on by his family.
A tourist submarine has gone missing off the east coast of North America near the Titanic wreckage. The information was confirmed by the Boston Coast Guard, according to BBC News.
During a press conference Monday night in Boston, Rear Admiral John Mauger, commander of the US Coast Guard’s First District, detailed the resources being deployed and stressed, “It’s challenging to conduct research in this isolated region.” He said the search area was about 1,500 kilometers offshore, east of Cape Cod, and at a depth of approximately 4,000 meters. He added that American authorities, who sent two Lockheed C-130 Hercules to the scene and sank underwater beacons, were cooperating with Canada, specifically with the Coast Guard and Army, who also stationed a C-130 and a Boeing P -8 Poseidon. The latter is equipped with underwater detection functions. “We are using all available means to ensure that we find the plane and rescue the people on board,” said John Mauger. Another C-130 from the New York National Guard is also to be deployed in the evening.
In contact with merchant ships in the area
The search and the means used to locate the device are likely to intensify over the next two days. John Mauger emphasized that the difficulty of the operation stems from the fact that, in the case of a submarine, searches were carried out simultaneously on the surface and in depth. In the first hypothesis, the device could simply have encountered communication problems. The US Coast Guard is therefore in close contact with any merchant vessels sailing in the area who could be the first to notice a movement of the submersible.
The American company OceanGate, which operates this tourist expedition, said it is “assessing and mobilizing all options” to recover the crew and passengers on board the submersible. The OceanGate device carried five people, according to the Coast Guard, but more information about the identity of the people will not be revealed until all families are informed. Rear Admiral Mauger did not want to provide any further information “out of respect for the families” and contented himself with the statement that, according to the operator, there was a pilot and four other people. The crew usually consists of a pilot, an expert guide and three paying passengers. “We are working on the safe return of crew members,” the company told the BBC, saying it had received offers of help from government agencies and deep-sea exploration companies.
3800 meters deep
Small dive boats occasionally take well-paying tourists (about $250,000) and experts to tour the wreck of the Titanic. OceanGate Expeditions offers rides in a carbon fiber submersible, the Titan, “a chance to get away from it all and discover something truly extraordinary”. The dive to the wreck at a depth of 3800 m takes about eight hours. The submersible lost contact with the vessel transporting it an hour and 45 minutes into its descent, which began Sunday morning.
A Frenchman is part of the OceanGate expedition, Paul-Henri Nargeolet, 76, one of the world’s greatest Titanic specialists. At this time we have no confirmation that he was on board the submarine when it went missing. He had confided to relatives before his departure that he “didn’t trust this new composite submarine with a 60cm porthole, but went there anyway because of the beauty of the expedition.” Paul-Henri Nargeolet is the man in the yellow jacket in the following tweet, posted June 15, gathering the members of Missions 3 and 4 before their departure.
British businessman Hamish Harding, CEO of Action Aviation, had testified on Instagram the day before that he would be diving with OceanGate towards the Titanic today, specifying that “legendary explorers like PH Nargeolet were among the crew of the submersible”. . . According to Sky News, he was among those present on the missing submersible. Information shared by his family on Facebook.
The non-certified dive boat
The ship built by OceanGate had not been certified by any official authority such as Lloyd’s Register, the American Bureau of Shipping or Bureau Veritas. The operator justifies this lack of certification by saying that its submersible, with a carbon fiber hull instead of steel to withstand the pressure at great depths, was so innovative that it did not fit into the usual framework of the shipbuilding industry. In a June 1 tweet, OceanGate claimed to be able to communicate with the submarine thanks to a Starlink connection, the satellite internet developed by Elon Musk’s company.
Several specialists contacted by Le Figaro claim that it is still possible to find survivors. According to OceanGate, the onboard system of the Titan submersible has a power and oxygen autonomy of 96 hours with a crew of 5 people. At this point, the Coast Guard expects the ship to have “between 70 and the full 96 hours” of oxygen. There are fewer than a dozen devices in the world capable of diving to depths of 4000 meters, including Ifremer’s Nautile, which severely limits the chances of rescue at such depths.
Two likely scenarios
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 reckons that if there had been a power or communications problem, he could have been taken to the surface where he “floated waiting to be found.” “Another scenario would be that the hull was damaged” and there was a leak. “So the prognosis is not good,” he added.
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. 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.