This article was amended on 23 June 2023. “We’re all hoping and praying he comes back safe and sound.” The company’s managing director, Mark Butler, told the AP: “There is still plenty of time to facilitate a rescue mission, there is equipment on board for survival in this event,” Butler said. The search teams do at least have a starting point the vessel’s position would have been tracked until the moment contact was lost. However, the amount of wreckage of the Titanic on the ocean floor means it could take time to discern what is debris and what is the Titan. These ROVs are dropped over the side of a vessel, to which it is connected by a “umbilical cord” that enables a pilot to operate its thrusters and also relay data in real-time from its sonar and camera systems. US and Canadian aircraft are searching the area, as well as large ships, but the hunt was “complex” because crews do not know if the vessel has surfaced, meaning they must scour both the surface and the ocean depths, said Rear Admiral John Mauger, first district commander of the US Coast Guard, overseeing the search-and-rescue operation.Ĭoncannon said officials were working to get a remotely operated vehicle (ROV) that can reach a depth of 6,000 metres (about 20,000ft) to the site as soon as possible. So trying to differentiate with sonar in particular and trying to target the area you want to search in with another submersible is going to be very difficult indeed.” What can be done to find it? “The actual nature of the seabed is very undulating. “While the submersible might still be intact, if it is beyond the continental shelf, there are very few vessels that can get that deep, and certainly not divers.”Ĭhris Parry, a retired rear admiral with the British Royal Navy, told Sky News a seabed rescue was “a very difficult operation”. “If it has gone down to the seabed and can’t get back up under its own power, options are very limited,” Greig said. The Titan has an array of signals, lighting, reflectors and other equipment it can use once on the surface to attract attention.Īnother scenario is that there has been a leak in the pressure hull, in which case the prognosis is not good, said Alistair Greig, a professor of marine engineering at University College London. In the case of becoming tangled, or a power or communications failure, the Titan would be equipped with drop weights, which can be released in an emergency, creating enough buoyancy to take it to the surface. The Titan has a maximum speed of three knots, but would be slower the deeper it goes. It’s dangerous,” said Frank Owen OAM, a retired Royal Australian Navy official and submarine escape and rescue project director.Ĭontact was lost 1 hour 45 minutes into the Titan’s trip, suggesting the crew may have been close to, or at, the bottom, says Owen. “There are parts of it all over the place. The wreckage of the Titanic, which lies about 3,800 metres (12,500ft) down on the ocean floor is surrounded by debris from the disaster more than a century ago. It is too early to say what has happened but experts have offered several of the most likely scenarios, from becoming tangled in wreckage of the Titanic, to a power failure or an issue with the sub’s communications system. However, that limit would be affected by the breathing rate of those inside the craft, especially if there are tourists onboard with limited diving experience. It has a 96-hour bottled oxygen supply, as of roughly 6am Sunday local time, according to David Concannon, an adviser to trip operator OceanGate, which would in theory last until Thursday morning.
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