Race against time: Search operation on for vessel carrying five to Titanic wreckage
A rescue operation was underway deep in the waters of the Atlantic Ocean on Monday in search of a technologically advanced submersible vessel carrying five people to document the wreckage of the Titanic, the iconic ocean liner that sank more than a century ago.
The US Coast Guard is leading the search for the small craft, named Titan, in the North Atlantic Ocean. The remote area is where the Titanic struck an iceberg and sank in 1912, killing all but about 700 of the roughly 2,200 passengers and crew.
The Titan’s dive on Sunday is one of many that have been made to the wreck by OceanGate Expeditions since 2021. The sunken ship is about 2.4 miles (3.8 km) below the surface. The undersea exploration company has been chronicling the ship’s decay as well as the underwater ecosystem that has sprung up around it over the last century.
Also read: Indian Navy joins search-rescue ops for Chinese vessel that sank in Indian Ocean
When and where did the Titan go missing?
The craft submerged on Sunday morning, and its support vessel lost contact with it about an hour and 45 minutes later, according to the Coast Guard. The vessel was reported overdue about 435 miles (700 km) south of St Johns, Newfoundland, according to Canada’s Joint Rescue Coordination Centre in Halifax, Nova Scotia.
Lt. Cmdr. Len Hickey said a Canadian Coast Guard vessel and military aircraft were assisting the search effort, which was being led by the US Coast Guard in Boston. Rear Adm John Mauger, a commander for the US Coast Guard, said additional resources would arrive in the coming days. “It is a remote area and it is a challenge to conduct a search in that remote area,” he said. “But we are deploying all available assets to make sure we can locate the craft and rescue the people on board.”
The Titan was being launched from an icebreaker that was hired by OceanGate and formerly operated by the Canadian Coast Guard. The ship ferried dozens of people and the submersible craft to the North Atlantic wreck site, where the Titan makes multiple dives.
David Concannon, an adviser to OceanGate, told The Associated Press on Monday that the submersible had a 96-hour oxygen supply. He said officials are working to get a remotely operated vehicle that can reach a depth of 6 km (3.7 miles) to the site as soon as possible.
Also read: 39 people missing as Chinese fishing vessel capsizes in Indian Ocean
UK billionaire among those onboard
The Coast Guard said there was one pilot and four mission specialists aboard. Mission specialists are people who pay to come along on OceanGates expeditions. They take turns operating sonar equipment and performing other tasks in the five-person submersible.
UK billionaire Hamish Harding was one of the mission specialists, according to Action Aviation, a company for which Harding serves as chairman. The company’s managing director, Mark Butler, told the AP that the crew set out on Friday. There is still plenty of time to facilitate a rescue mission, there is equipment on board for survival in this event, Butler said. “We’re all hoping and praying he comes back safe and sound.”
Harding is an adventurer who holds three Guinness World Records, including longest duration at full ocean depth by a crewed vessel. In March 2021, he and ocean explorer Victor Vescovo dived to the lowest depth of the Mariana Trench. In June 2022, he went into space on Blue Origins New Shepard rocket.
Harding had posted on his Instagram account on Sunday that he was “proud to finally announce” he had joined the OceanGate Expedition “for their RMS TITANIC Mission as a mission specialist on the sub going down to the Titanic”.
“A weather window has just opened up and we are going to attempt a dive tomorrow,” he added. Action Aviation also posted on Twitter that “the sub had a successful launch and Hamish is currently diving”, and included several photographs of Harding and mission staff on the ocean surface. Harding himself wrote that “the team on the sub has a couple of legendary explorers, some of which have done over 30 dives to the RMS Titanic since the 1980s.”
Also read: Chinese ship hit Filipino vessel with laser light, temporarily blinding crew: Philippines
What kind of deep-sea vessel was it?
Titan is capable of diving 4 km (2.4 miles) with a comfortable safety margin, according to documents filed by the company in April with a US District Court in Virginia that oversees Titanic matters.
In a May 2021 court filing, OceanGate said the Titan had an unparalleled safety feature that assesses the integrity of the hull throughout every dive. At the time of the filing, Titan had undergone more than 50 test dives, including to the equivalent depth of the Titanic, in deep waters off the Bahamas and in a pressure chamber, the company said.
During its 2022 expedition, OceanGate reported that the submersible had a battery issue on its first dive and had to be manually attached to its lifting platform, according to a November court filing.
What was the Titan’s mission?
The goal of OceanGate’s expeditions has been to chronicle the Titanic’s deterioration as well as the underwater ecosystem that shipwrecks often spawn. What’s left of the Titanic is slowly succumbing to metal-eating bacteria that consumes hundreds of pounds of iron a day. Holes pervade the wreckage, while the crow’s nest is already gone.
Some have predicted the ship could vanish in a matter of decades as holes yawn in the hull and sections disintegrate. The company outfitted the Titan with high-definition cameras and multi-beam sonar equipment. Charting the wreck’s decomposition can help scientists predict the fate of other deep-sea wrecks, including those that sank during the world wars.
Another focus is the sea life: Hundreds of species have only been seen at the wreck. “The ocean is taking this thing, and we need to document it before it all disappears or becomes unrecognisable,” Stockton Rush, president of OceanGate Expeditions, told the AP in 2021.
Also read: ‘No lifejackets, no food, some drank seawater’: Greece migrant shipwreck survivor
OceanGate’s third annual voyage
The expedition was OceanGate’s third annual voyage to chronicle the deterioration of Titanic. The initial group of tourists in 2021 paid $100,000 to $150,000 apiece to go on the trip. Unlike submarines that leave and return to port under their own power, submersibles require a ship to launch and recover them.
OceanGate hired the Canadian vessel Polar Prince, a medium duty icebreaker that was formerly operated by the Canadian Coast Guard, to ferry dozens of people and the submersible craft to the North Atlantic wreck site. The submersible would make multiple dives in one expedition.
The expedition was scheduled to depart from St. Johns, Newfoundland, in early May and finish up at the end of June, according to documents filed by the company in April with a US District Court in Virginia that oversees Titanic matters.
The submersible, named Titan, is capable of diving 4,000 meters or 13,120 feet with a comfortable safety margin, OceanGate said in its court filing. It weighs 20,000 pounds (9,072 kilograms) in the air, but is ballasted to be neutrally buoyant once it reaches the seafloor, the company said.
(With agency inputs)
