The search for a missing submersible with five people aboard took a bleak turn Thursday when the U.S. Coast Guard said a debris field was found on the ocean floor near the Titanic, and the critical mark of the 96 hours passed when breathable air could have passed. outside
The Coast Guard’s Twitter post did not say whether officials believe the wreckage is connected to the Titan, which was on an expedition to view the remains of the Titanic. He said the wreckage was discovered in the search area by a remotely operated underwater robot and was being assessed.
What you need to know
The search for the missing submersible on an expedition to view the remains of the Titanic has passed the critical 96-hour mark when breathing air may have run out.
This is a sad moment in the intense effort to save the five people on board
The Titan submersible was estimated to have a four-day supply of breathing air when it launched into the North Atlantic on Sunday morning.
But experts stressed that it was an approximation and could be expanded if passengers took steps to conserve breathable air.
“The debris field was discovered in the search area by an ROV [remotely operated vehicle] near the Titanic,” the Coast Guard wrote on Twitter. “Unified Command experts are evaluating the information.”
A debris field was discovered in the search area by an ROV near the Titanic. Experts from the unified command are evaluating the information. 1/2
— USCGNortheast (@USCGNortheast) June 22, 2023
Coast Guard officials are set to provide an update later thursday
The Titan submersible was estimated to have a four-day supply of breathing air when it launched into the North Atlantic on Sunday morning, but experts have stressed that was an imprecise approximation to begin with and could be extended if passengers had taken measures to conserve breathing. air And it is not known if they survived since the disappearance of the subordinate.
Rescuers have moved boats, planes and other equipment to the scene of the disappearance. On Thursday, the US Coast Guard said an underwater robot sent by a Canadian ship had reached the seabed, while a French research institute said a diving robot with cameras, lights and arms had also gone join the operation.
Authorities hope underwater soundings can help narrow their search, the area of coverage extended to thousands of miles, twice the size of Connecticut and in waters 2 1/2 miles deep.
The Titan was reported late Sunday afternoon about 435 miles south of St. John’s, Newfoundland, on its way to where the iconic ocean liner sank more than a century ago. OceanGate Expeditions, which is leading the voyage, has been chronicling the decline of the Titanic and the underwater ecosystem around it through annual voyages since 2021.
By Thursday morning, hopes were fading that anyone aboard the ship would be found alive.
Many hurdles remain: from identifying the ship’s location, to getting there with rescue teams, to bringing it to the surface, assuming it’s still intact. And all of this must happen before the passengers’ oxygen supply runs out.
Dr Rob Larter, a marine geophysicist at the British Antarctic Survey, highlighted the difficulty of finding something the size of the submarine, which is around 22ft long and 9ft high.
“You’re talking about totally dark environments,” where an object can be missed several tens of meters away, he said. “It’s just a needle in a haystack situation unless you have a pretty precise location.”
The area of the North Atlantic where Titan disappeared Sunday is also prone to fog and storms, making it an extremely difficult environment to conduct a search and rescue mission, said Donald Murphy, a oceanographer who served as Chief Coastal Scientist. International Guard Ice Patrol. Passengers also face temperatures just above freezing.
Meanwhile, newly discovered allegations suggest there had been significant caveats about the vessel’s safety during the submarine’s development.
Broadcasters around the world began Thursday at prime time with news of the submersible. The Saudi-owned Al Arabiya satellite channel showed an on-air clock counting down to its estimate of when the air might end.
Capt. Jamie Frederick of the First Coast Guard District said a day earlier that authorities still hoped to save the five passengers on board.
“This is a search and rescue mission, 100 percent,” he said Wednesday.
Frederick said while the sounds that have been detected offered an opportunity to narrow the search, their exact location and source had not yet been determined.
“We don’t know what they are, to be honest,” he said.
Retired Navy Capt. Carl Hartsfield, now director of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Systems Laboratory, said the sounds have been described as “thumping noises” but warned that search teams “must put all their image in context and must eliminate possible artificial sources other than Titan.”
The report was encouraging to some experts because submarine crews who cannot communicate with the surface are taught to hit the hull of their sub to be detected by sonar.
The US Navy said in a statement on Wednesday that it was sending a specialized salvage system capable of lifting “large, bulky and heavy underwater objects such as aircraft or small ships”.
The Titan weighs 20,000 pounds. The U.S. Navy’s Flyaway Deep Ocean Salvage System is designed to lift up to 60,000 pounds, the Navy said on its website.
Pilot Stockton Rush, CEO of OceanGate, has been lost on board the ship. Its passengers are: the British adventurer Hamish Harding; Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman; and French explorer and Titanic expert Paul-Henry Nargeolet.
At least 46 people successfully traveled on OceanGate’s submersible to the Titanic wreck site in 2021 and 2022, according to letters the company filed with a U.S. District Court in Norfolk, Virginia, which oversees the matters related to the wreck of the Titanic.
One of the company’s early clients characterized a dive he made at the site two years ago as a “kamikaze operation.”
“Imagine a metal tube a few meters long with a metal sheet for a floor. You can’t stand. You can’t kneel. Everyone is sitting near or on top of it,” said Arthur Loibl , a retired businessman. and adventurer from Germany. “You can’t be claustrophobic.”
During the 2.5-hour descent and ascent, the lights were turned off to save energy, he said, with the only illumination coming from a fluorescent light pole.
The dive was repeatedly delayed to fix a problem with the battery and balance weights. In total, the trip took 10.5 hours.
OceanGate has been criticized for using a simple commercially available video game controller to steer the Titan. But the company has said many of the ship’s parts are available because they have proven to be reliable.
“It’s meant for a 16-year-old to throw,” and it’s “super durable,” Rush told the CBC in an interview last year as he demonstrated by throwing the controller around the Titan’s tiny cockpit. He said a couple of spares are kept on board “just in case”.
The submersible had seven safety systems for returning to the surface, including sandbags and falling lead pipes and an inflatable balloon.
Retired Navy Vice Admiral Robert Murrett, who is now deputy director of Syracuse University’s Institute for Security Policy and Law, said the disappearance highlights the dangers associated with operating in deep water and exploring recreation of the sea and space.
“I think some people think that because modern technology is so good, you can do things like this and not have accidents, but that’s not the case,” he said.
