Less than two days of oxygen: The United States, with the support of Canada and France, is in a race against time to rescue the five passengers — an American, a French, a British and two Pakistanis — from a submersible that set out to visit the wreck , found alive off the Titanic at a depth of 4,000 meters in the North Atlantic.
• Also read: Missing submersible: three possible scenarios
• Also read: In 6 Points: Race against time to rescue the crew of the missing submersible
• Also read: “You died before you understood what happened,” one of the residents said in 2019
In this small submarine, the Titan, there is still “approximately 40 hours of breathing air,” warned Jamie Frederick, captain of the US Coast Guard, during a press conference in Boston on Tuesday. He acknowledged that the research – which is gaining momentum – has so far “had no results”.
The British businessman Hamish Harding (58), who announced his participation in this extreme, extraordinary, historical scientific excursion on Instagram on Saturday, is also among those rescued. The famous sinking of the Titanic in 1912 is one of the greatest shipping disasters of the 20th century.
According to his family, former French naval officer Paul-Henri Nargeolet (77), a specialist in Titanic debris, is also on the trip.
AFP
aircraft in action
Also aboard the $250,000 dive was Pakistani tycoon Shahzada Dawood, 48, and vice president of conglomerate Engro, who was on board with his 19-year-old son Suleman, according to the wealthy family, who confirmed the “contact.” [avait] “Got lost” since Sunday.
Finally, the company OceanGate Expeditions, organizer of the trip and whose American boss Stockton Rush is also on board, assured “to explore and mobilize all options to bring the crew back safely”.
PHOTO BY FACEBOOK/CHRISTINE DAWOOD
The Titan, designed to carry five people into the abyss, began its descent on Sunday at about 6.5 meters in length. According to the authorities, contact with the ship broke off less than two hours after departure.
The US Coast Guard then dispatched two C-130 aircraft to the search area “about 900 miles east of Cape Cod.” [côte nord-est des États-Unis] at a depth of about 4000 meters.
A third C-130 will be stationed on Tuesday, the Pentagon said.
The Canadian Coast Guard also mobilized a plane and a ship, while France announced that the French Research Institute for the Exploitation of the Sea (Ifremer) would send a boat and its robot.
VAT News
“It can go wrong”
US President Joe Biden wanted the Coast Guard, an agency of the armed forces, to continue their search and that the Navy could be mobilized if necessary, said White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby.
American screenwriter Mike Reiss, producer of the famous series The Simpsons, has sailed OceanGate three times, including once in 2022 aboard the same submersible as the missing one, he told the BBC.
A completely disorienting experience because “you almost always lose communication and are at the mercy of the elements and the like.”
AFP
In his opinion, everyone is aware of the dangers: “You have to sign a waiver before boarding and the front page says death three times.” It’s not a bus holiday, it can go wrong.”
Once at the bottom, “the compass stopped working immediately and just kept spinning.” We had to fight blindly on the seabed, knowing full well that the Titanic was out there somewhere,” he said.
Two theories
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 is that the hull has been damaged. So the prognosis is not good,” he said. And “very few ships can” go as deep as it could have sunk, he said.
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 in the international waters of the Atlantic Ocean.
Since then, to perpetuate the myth, it has been visited by treasure hunters and tourists.